Senator Ted Cruz of Alberta

Let's say Ted Cruz was raised and educated in Canada, and selected his Canadian citizenship over his American citizenship. Politically ambitious, he joins the Conservative Party of Canada and makes a name for himself (you choose the POD). Governor General David Johnston appoints him to the Senate of Canada on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. After Harper's defeat in 2015 by Justin Trudeau, Cruz seeks to become leader of the Conservative Party and in 2019, Prime Minister of Canada.
 
Couple issues here. For one thing, there's no way Cruz, as a senator, wins the leadership. For one thing, he'd almost certainly be fairly obscure, even within the party, and being unelected and coming from the senate he'd be seen as less "legitimate" than an Member of Parliament. And, since the POD seems to change little (i.e. Harper still gets defeated by Trudeau in 2015), it's likely that the senate (and by extent its members) would still be experiencing an overwhelming amount of scrutiny and unpopularity, further dampening his chances.

Secondly, even ignoring all that (say, by making Cruz an MP), there's no way Cruz gets elected nationwide (provided he keeps his OTL views). He's just too anti-government/socially conservative to win a general election. Frankly, he might even be too right-wing to win the Conservative leadership.
 
What True Grit said. Even if Cruz's views are adapted to very Blue CPC, his personality will make it very difficult to win a leadership, much less GE. All leaders must by definition be loyal institutionalists, and combining these makes for a very different Cruz than OTL.
 
What True Grit said. Even if Cruz's views are adapted to very Blue CPC, his personality will make it very difficult to win a leadership, much less GE. All leaders must by definition be loyal institutionalists, and combining these makes for a very different Cruz than OTL.

Potentially, I think he could pull off a victory though, look at the current leadership field.

If he'd established himself in the Commons he could have a real shot in attacking the Tory establishment which is perceived as out of touch and a failure.

He could tap into Kenney's network if JK chose not to run.
 
Hard to see Cruz, with anything resembling his current views, with much of a career in Canadian politics; he's much too extreme and much too anti-establishment. I think he'd just be another Rob Anders: outspoken social conservative good for fundraising, but otherwise kept at a distance.
 
Hard to see Cruz, with anything resembling his current views, with much of a career in Canadian politics; he's much too extreme and much too anti-establishment. I think he'd just be another Rob Anders: outspoken social conservative good for fundraising, but otherwise kept at a distance.

Yes. Not wanting to sound like a sanctimonious left-wing Canadian here, but Ted Cruz's brand of Texas-style conservativism is simply not going to fly in Canada, even Alberta(home to Red Tory icons Peter Lougheed and Joe Clark, along with currently one of only two NDP governments in Canada). Basically, "If Ted Cruz could become party leader in Canada, he wouldn't be Ted Cruz."

That said, the Rob Anders comparison is apt, as there have certainly been American-style right-wingers closer to the peripheries of Canadian politics(backbenchers, the odd far-right premier here and there). And someone like Stockwell Day would probably have spoken and acted more like a US Republican, if the general climate of Canadian politics had let him get away with it.
 
Who's to say that Cruz holds different views in TTL had he chose to remain in Canada?

Since the OP mentions that Cruz is educated in Canada, let's see what could fit:
*From Wiki: "In 1974, his father left the family and moved to Texas.[15] Later that year, his parents reconciled and relocated to Houston.[5]" That would be the POD. That would make Rafael Jr. 4 years old, putting him living under Peter Lougheed's PC Government in Alberta and PET's Liberal Government federally. From that time until 1979 (when, in OTL, Trudeau lost to Joe Clark), the field's wide open for any changes outside of Calgary.

*At that time, the Progressive Conservatives were still largely practitioners of the balance between the Blue, Radical, and Red wings of the party, though the Red Tory branch was largely dominant due to its large presence in Central Canada. Having said that, even with Western Canadian populist conservatism, as overoceans mentioned Lougheed was a Red Tory. So here Rafael Jr.'s options are open. At that time, Socred was largely a minority party, so he'd have to go through the Tories if he wanted to advance politically. It's very possible that Rafael Jr. could, under different circumstances, have views that would work under any one of those three branches. It's all contingent with how Ottawa handles Québec and Western Canada, and if it's any different in TTL.

*Once Rafael Jr. goes through high school, the question thus becomes whether he goes through college or uni (a different choice than in the US), and if he choose uni whether he follows his OTL path to Princeton (and later Harvard Law School) or not. If he chooses to go south for uni, his experiences in the US would definitely form a definite part of his ideology.

By that point, however, he would not necessarily be the Ted Cruz we know from OTL, and from there the exercise falls apart, depending on whether he becomes a Tory MP or if he joins the Reform Party (contingent on having a Mulroney Government in the first place which would allow Mulroney's coalition within the Tories to implode into both the Bloc and the Reform Party), since there's no Socred option (since Socred would be the closest one would get to the modern GOP until the rise of the Reform Party).
 
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