Flanagan essentially doesn't understand the objection to Harper.  (And on balance I liked him as PM.)   The objection isn't simply based on optics, but a tendency to promote a socially conservative agenda by fighting the courts, and dabbling with statute law.  Scheer has already shown himself to be out of his depth with his threat to defund universities if they do not promote what he calls "free speech", but is actually promulgation of a socially conservative agenda.  I think there are ways out of campuses becoming ideological battle grounds, but conservatives do not know how to find them, and once again, they risk alienating those with less religious sensibilities.