Category: Provincial Politics

Premier McGuinty certainly leaves a legacy

by Peter Lowry

It must have been an inside joke at the Toronto Star. An opinion piece this morning lauded Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty for his contribution to education in Ontario. It even compared McGuinty favourably with former Ontario Premier Bill Davis. Frankly, Bill Davis might have grounds to sue everyone involved for defamation.

This is not to say that Bill did not make his own mistakes as Premier. The fact that the writer of the Star opinion piece is a professor connected to The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto speaks volumes. We all hope that when OISE ever figures out what it is supposed to do, it does not come as a surprise to Bill. Of course, he really deserves the credit for creating TVOntario—an outstanding educational channel—and for the development of Ontario’s community college system which has constantly proved of major economic benefit to the province. We might be a little less forgiving for the straightjacket Bill put us in by expanding the funding to Catholic schools.

But full-day kindergarten is not a legacy. It is like forcing earlier potty training. It might be a trauma that can come back to haunt you as an adult.

Where McGuinty is like Bill Davis is in being right wing. While Bill has always prided himself on his being a staunch Conservative, his heart is in the right place and he is a compassionate person. McGuinty is not. For him to blame the Liberal’s former friends, the teachers, for Ontario’s deficit is a guarantee of the party losing the next provincial election.  And yet he backed off on his fight with the doctors. He lost with them.

Where we in Ontario benefitted from McGuinty was that the repairs needed to correct the often dangerous cutbacks of the Harris Conservative regime had to be put in place cautiously. To just restore the cutbacks without that caution could have lead to serious financial problems.

But, in the long run, the caution and conservatism were overdone. Poor Tiny Tim Hudak, the Conservative leader, must have felt redundant at times with McGuinty outdoing him on the political right. Even in Mike Harris’ heyday, nobody in the Conservative caucus would have dreamed up a bill as draconian as Bill 115. The fact that the bill has been used against some of the teachers seems to be Dalton McGuinty’s real legacy.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Age, sex and the loss of democracy.

by Peter Lowry

There was an argument started the other day when Babel-on-the-Bay took exception to the ridiculous and undemocratic voting system devised to choose delegates for the upcoming Ontario Liberal leadership convention. The system is seriously flawed. It presents a false portrait of the Ontario Liberal Party to the news media and through them to the voters of Ontario.

It is a travesty to show the party as one-third young people (25 years or less) and 50 per cent female. To attempt to force that perception for every electoral district in the province is a lie and a deception on the part of the party hierarchy.

There are far too many electoral districts in Ontario where the local provincial party consists of 10 to 12 people who meet every month or so to talk politics. Conservative, Liberal or NDP, they are all about the same. The fringe parties are just smaller numbers and can meet at the local Tim’s over coffee. And yes, the numbers are much higher for the party with the elected Member of the Legislature—everybody likes a winner.

But behind these small groups, there are another 20 to 100 party members and financial supporters. There are also 200 or more people they have on their computer lists who provide sign locations, support for fund raising activities and can become temporary party members for those occasions such as when there is an election of delegates. By choosing who to sign up, the core group can control the entire process.

It is even easier to control the process for internal party matters when there are large numbers of a single ethnic group living in an electoral district. In Toronto, some ridings could go from a few hundred members to many thousands, practically overnight. It is knowing the who and the why of these ethnic conclaves that can determine that riding’s results. This is why MPP Harinder Takhar, produced so many delegates from those ridings with large numbers of people from the Indian Sub-Continent. It is also why we should have warned Charles Sousa that his Portuguese community sign-ups are notorious for not showing up to vote.

And have you ever heard of a contest for anything where you have no idea, until you see a ballot, who you are running against? Have you ever heard of an election where people running to support a candidate are lumped in with another group at the last moment? Have you ever heard of an election for anything where the news media are given the figures before the people running to be elected are told anything?

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Murray an early scratch in the Liberal Stakes.

by Peter Lowry

You sure know that MPP Glen Murray is from another province. He upset everything by dropping out of the Ontario Liberal leadership. When this blog reported his standing in the morning line last week, we lamented that he did not have an easy way to drop out.

But he dropped out anyway. And why he would think that his support would help Kathleen Wynne’s campaign is a good question. The reality is that he has shortened the balloting on January 26 and turned what might have been an interesting road race between Gerard Kennedy and Sandra Pupatello into a hit and run. There are no longer enough ballots for Kennedy to accumulate a majority.

MPP Charles Sousa can pretty well decide the race when he now has to drop off after the second ballot. MPP Harinder Takhar will have been dropped after the first ballot and his support will hardly put Sandra Pupatello over the top. It is Sousa’s support for Pupatello that can help her win.

Even if Gerard Kennedy could get ahead of Wynne by the third ballot, the field will have lost the ability to shift enough votes to him to turn it into a Kennedy vs. Pupatello race. It was Murray’s position on the second ballot that was going to let Kennedy pass Wynne. Her support would have split leading to an interesting Kennedy-Pupatello fourth ballot.

But Murray failed to understand that. There is no protocol that says a gay guy should support a lesbian. Wynne has no better chance of winning the province than he did. For the Ontario Liberals to make a statement such as that would be bold. It would also be futile. Murray and Wynne were just window dressing in this campaign.

And why, after spending time making Murray look bad, has his campaign chair now gone to Sandra Pupatello? What has Sandra done to deserve another millstone? Is Dwight Duncan not enough of a handicap for her?

We can no longer refer to the candidates as the magnificent seven. They are now the silly six. All the wheels are greased for Pupatello and there are few obstacles. There is no fourth ballot resurrection for anybody else. Gerard Kennedy failed to grab the brass ring when it came by for the last time. Kathleen Wynne is no progressive and too old. Eric Hoskins went from a self-deprecating humour to desperation. Charles Sousa has learned that nice guys finish last. And Harinder Takhar was playing a different game.

But, most annoying of all, in this fiasco, Glen Murray’s supporters will now be lumped in with independent candidates for delegate positions. Where does that leave those liberals who really are independent and are worried about the party?

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Lament for democracy in Ontario.

by Peter Lowry

This is not to initiate an academic debate on the nature of democracy. We all know democracy is ill defined but we certainly know what it is not. It is not, for example, a form of government where all the decisions are made by Big Brother. It is not a form of government where the princes of the church choose the anointed one from among them to be leader. It is not one that makes a mockery of leadership by the people through orchestrating a pseudo democratic election of delegates to a convention designed entirely for the purpose of titillating the gawking, squawking news media.

The only vestige of democracy in the process of choosing delegates to the Ontario Liberal leadership convention is that there is a secret ballot. It is the choices offered on the ballot that are antidemocratic. Voting for a delegate who has listed their choice of leader for the first ballot is a violation of the concept of a delegated convention. Delegated conventions are a hold-over from days when it was technically impossible for all members to vote at the convention. At that time, you chose your representatives based on their representing your values and concerns and not necessarily your selection of possible candidates. Despite the ready availability of technology today to allow all party members to vote for their choice of leader, the party has opted for this out-of-date, antidemocratic solution.

But, in this case, the party has further controlled the outcome by using antidemocratic representational voting. Instead of those with the most votes, the representatives are forced to comply with a matrix based on age and sex. And, even if you reluctantly agreed with the age and sex requirement, you are further constrained by fitting into a matrix of candidate preference. Good luck in being the right age, the right sex and liking the right candidate. There is an option of choosing “independent’ for the candidate but no place to mark yourself as “confused.”

And good luck to Big Sister when she is chosen on January 26. The lame duck Big Brother and his cabinet are busy fouling the nest for her. The Minister of Health has promised every senior in Ontario a family doctor. The Minister of Finance has promised LCBO kiosks in some super markets. The Minister of Education has promised retribution for teachers who go on a one-day strike. You would think the bunch of them would know to shut up when a leadership race is nearing completion.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Provincial Liberal hopefuls are At Post!

by Peter Lowry

The federal Liberals must be wishing that their interminable leadership race was as short as in Ontario. With less than three months and time off for Christmas and New Years, the Ontario leadership race feels like your typical stakes race. What is unusual is that all the horses are from the same stable and the real race is to be run over the next two weeks.

And the fix is on. If you seriously believe that this is a democratic exercise, we have some lovely marshland we can sell you up near Bancroft. The Liberal Party is trying desperately to convince you through the news media that this is a legitimate contest and that any of the carefully vetted seven candidates can be Premier of Ontario—no matter how briefly.

While there might be a potential 1700 delegates elected from the 107 electoral districts in the province, these will not necessarily be the best or brightest of Ontario Liberals. The election process to be a delegate to the convention is a crap shoot. The voting process is based on a form of proportional representation according to the choice of candidate by people who know little or nothing about them And, since that type of voting is unlikely to produce an immediate winner with anywhere near 50 per cent of the vote, we get a noisy Saturday afternoon January 26 of ballots for the news media to watch delegates pick the candidate already chosen by the party’s de facto leaders.

The de facto leaders of the party are the more than 800 potential ex officio delegates to the convention. These are the Members of the Legislature, former members, recent Liberal candidates, table officers, riding presidents and other worthies and lowly elected Liberal delegates are expected to listen to them. And these worthies have one common goal: keep the party in power.

There will be much sign waving and chanting at the convention and much to cheer about. It will be an appropriate show. No doubt many of the luncheons and meetings of candidates and the inner members of their campaign teams will be discussing these and other matters in the run up to the January 25 start of the convention.

MPP Kathleen Wynne is supposedly in the lead with reportedly more than 1500 potential delegates pledged to support her on the first ballot. She will be very lucky to have even a third of that number elected. We believe that Sandra Pupatello with a potential of about 1200 delegates will get about 500 of them elected and lead on the first ballot. Seeing the figures that the party has seen fit to release, there is no reason to change any of the figures we published last week under the morning line.

Liberals who bother to show up to vote at their local delegate selection meetings this weekend will be following their own opinions. It is a secret ballot.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

Let’s have fresh water for Liberal hopefuls.

by Peter Lowry

If you grew up on a farm, there were problems with the Saturday night bath routine that were hard to explain to parents. The youngsters had their baths first and then the older children in reverse order of age. What upset the older children was not the temped temperature but that they were convinced their young siblings were peeing in the bath water. The demand for fresh water became a rallying cry.

It should also be a rallying cry among the candidates for the Liberal Party leadership in Ontario. Somebody should be reining in their former cabinet colleagues before they completely foul the environment for Liberals in Ontario.

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s announcement on this past New Year’s Eve, is a case in point. What does he think will be proved by allowing the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) to operate limited-stock liquor and wine kiosks at less than a dozen large grocery stores across Ontario? And why would he bother?

If Duncan thinks he can head off Ontario Conservative leader Tiny Tim Hudak with such a picayune solution, he is playing in the wrong sand box. Hudak had asked for beer and wine in convenience stores and this move is just helping him make his point. Just because Timmy is a Tea Party type Tory does not mean that all his suggestions are stupid. Selling alcoholic beverages in grocery stores is the best way to merchandise the products. Alcoholic beverages go with food. And selling beer and wine in convenience stores would also be convenient for the consumer.

And what has Duncan got against good merchandising and consumer convenience? All he has ever proved to us is that politically he seems dumber than a dinosaur.

But his moves are nothing compared to Education Minister Laurel Broten. She uses the draconian Bill 115 to impose a settlement on some of the hold-out teachers and says in the same breath that she will have the bill taken off the statutes at the end of the month.

How do you think a judge will rule on the use of an act that others say is illegal that you intend to eliminate because it probably is? Broten might be from Etobicoke but that should not mean that she should take political lessons from Etobicoke’s favourite son Toronto Mayor (at the moment) Rob Ford. At the end of the month, Ms. Broten is not likely to be in the cabinet.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The Morning Line: Harinder Takhar at 20 – 1.

by Peter Lowry

Somebody has to come last. The one thing that stands out about the Mississauga-Erindale MPP’s campaign for the leadership is that it seems to be a parody of everything that is wrong with the McGuinty Liberal government in Ontario. It is as simple as Dalton Mcguinty and his treasurer saying that the provincial deficit must be brought under control. So, good Liberal Harinder makes the deficit his job one!

There is a propaganda sheet e-mailed frequently from the Liberal Party to Liberals across the province called the Daily Wire. You get the impression that Harinder reads it instead of the Globe and Mail.

To be fair, Harinder’s recent suggestion of using provincial bonds to fund infrastructure needs in the province is a better approach to an old problem and it is worth some study.

When the Liberal Party started to have trouble with ethnic groups taking over riding associations back in the late 1980s, the unimaginative solution was to concentrate more power around the party leadership. It has produced a steady downhill slide of the quality of politicians in this country and the highly centralized party structures that are, in turn, destroying the value of parliament and legislatures. It is also close to destroying the last vestiges of democracy in Canada’s political parties.

While Harinder is obviously highly regarded among those with roots in the Indian Sub-continent, he has to realize that is hardly a sufficient base for a try at the Premier’s job. He is going to gather between 100 and 150 votes on the first ballot and then be dropped from the voting.

But that, in itself, is helpful because the first ballot does not often determine the winner in this type of controlled convention. The second ballot is more meaningful as it really shows where the support lies. Harinder’s loyal followers will be welcome in any of the other camps should he be able to take them with him to support one of the other candidates. We suspect that Harinder already knows he is going to advise his supporters to back Sandra Pupatello.

And there you have it: Windsor’s Sandra Pupatello the early favourite at 5 – 2 odds; Gerard Kennedy the favourite of the party progressives at 4 – 1; Kathleen Wynne MPP, surprisingly in the third place money at 6 – 1; Eric Hoskins MPP, a future threat at 9 – 2; Charles Sousa MPP, badly prepared in the race at 9 – 1; an ill-advised Glen Murray MPP, back in the pack at 15 – 1,  and: Harinder Takhar MPP, bringing up the rear at 20 – 1.

With the convoluted voting procedures and the shaky mathematics involved, we have no idea who will be the elected delegates to the convention in Toronto on January 25 and 26. All we know is that the party executive who agreed to this arrangement should be ashamed of themselves. This is not the way to select a leader for a modern political party.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The Morning Line: Glen Murray at 15 – 1.

by Peter Lowry

Before he went to support Gerard Kennedy for Ontario Liberal leader, former MPP George Smitherman could have explained something important to his successor in Toronto Centre, MPP Glen Murray. It is the cause of Toronto having a mayor such as Rob Ford. It is the plain and bitter truth that tells you that the further you move away from Toronto’s intersection of Church and Wellesley, the less tolerance you will find. Glen Murray is a city mouse and he cannot survive north of Highway 7.

Mind you, if he had a decent campaign team, he would not be such a long shot. There seems to be no effort to sell Glen’s activism that has earned him accolades in both Winnipeg and Toronto. He brings a unique skill set to the urban scene and has far more to offer the Liberal party than his campaign geniuses are telling us about.

One thing that the general public is not as aware of in this type of political campaign is that political people look behind the candidate to see who are the team running the campaign and what is their skill set. It is similar to checking on the trainer, jockey and work outs in the Daily Racing Form at the track. Our observations are that this team is tentative, slow to move on opportunities and will not seem to use any newer techniques until after they have been successfully used by opponents.

Glen did the party a service though when he said that this should be the last time the party ever allows a delegated convention that is as controlled as this one. This type of convention makes a mockery of democracy and suppresses party activists who want more say in party policy development. Murray missed the main point though when he failed to mention that the party leader should not be making decisions for local electoral districts. It is the ability of electoral districts to choose their own candidates that is essential to restoring democracy in the party.

While running for the premier’s job might have seemed like a good idea at the time last November, in the light of day of a New Year, Glen might be rethinking his enthusiasm. Regrettably there is really not a graceful way to bow out at this stage. We have already seen how the Toronto Sun reacts to Glen’s candidacy and that is just a small taste of how Conservative leader Tiny Tim Hudak and his friends would react to Glen as Premier.

But that is not going to happen. Glen might gather as many as 200 votes in the first ballot at the January convention but he has no potential for growth in the second ballot and will be forced to drop off the third ballot.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The Morning Line: Charles Sousa at 9 – 1.

by Peter Lowry

MPP Charles Sousa from Mississauga South strikes you as the kind of guy who watched Premier Dalton McGuinty in Cabinet for the past year and said, “Hell, I can do that!” The problem with it is that he has not had a very good role model. The bar has to be raised.

But give him credit. Charles is a banker and does well at it. He is personable, friendly and interested in people. He is probably more capable than half of his opponents. And that is where he ends up; in the middle of the pack.

But who wants to come fifth in a field of seven? Sure, he is hard on the heels of Eric Hoskins but beating Eric would only raise him to fourth place. He probably sold a lot of memberships in the Portuguese community throughout the GTA but there are few electoral districts where there are large enough numbers of Portuguese-Canadians to elect many delegates to the January Liberal convention.

Looking at the figures in the 2011 provincial election, Sousa hardly seemed to need to block the Mississauga gas turbine generating plant to win his seat. He does not deserve to be hung with that desperation move in the last election.

The Sousa leadership campaign appears poorly organized and seems to lack professionalism. He has been chasing around the province looking for votes but without good advance work, local media coverage, electoral district support or experienced political assistants travelling with him, it is a lot of hard driving for little results.

It is interesting in analyzing Charles’ campaign that his supporters seem to cast him in a more right-wing stance than he himself takes. In a field of predominantly right wing candidates, the party hardly needs another. Yet the party needs people with his business background and all he needs to do is let people see the warmth of his personality that goes with that background.

It was no mistake that Dalton McGuinty gave Charles responsibility for the Pan American Games in 2015 in addition to his other cabinet duties. You need someone with his level of experience to do a good job at something like that. After all, we already have too many lawyers in politics.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]

The Morning Line: Eric Hoskins at 9 – 2.

by Peter Lowry

An Eric Hoskins with more experience and a clearer direction could have been a threat in this race. Eric is in something like John Turner’s position in the 1968 federal leadership convention. His youthful appearance, despite being over 50, and his light, self deprecating campaign style have earned Eric a sizeable chunk of the Young Liberal vote. That, and his attractive young family, has set him apart from Toronto competitors, Glen Murray and Kathleen Wynne.

Hoskins wife, Dr. Samantha Nutt, has been used effectively in the campaign and has done a robocall that was a real grabber—if you believe in the effectiveness of those annoyances. This is not to deny though that Eric Hoskins’ campaign is the best of a disjointed and disappointing group. It is a campaign with far more style than substance.

Eric’s most serious problem is that he offers no policy options that are not the same old do-nothing, sound-good cant. He comes across as just another dilettante on the right-wing of a party that already has more right-wingers than it needs or wants. He is also constrained by the fact that he has been in the cabinet through the time of the government’s most glaring errors in judgement. With only the last three years in provincial politics, Eric has had little time to learn the political ropes and less time to make a name for himself. His attempt at moving up to the premier’s job is premature.

With Gerard Kennedy coming in at about 400 votes on the first ballot, Eric Hoskins will likely be about 50 votes behind him. While both will improve their votes on the second ballot, Kennedy will have more second vote support and will increase the distance between them. By the third ballot, Hoskins can expect to continue to pick up a few more votes but a fourth ballot will be useless for him.

The nub of the convention for Hoskins might just be that period between the third and fourth ballot. He can settle the issue for the party by trying to take his support over to Sandra Pupatello or he could gamble on his future with Gerard Kennedy as Premier. That would be better for the party but Hoskins will have to make that decision for himself. When John Turner was in that position between Pierre Trudeau and Bob Winters at the end of the 1968 federal Liberal convention, John pulled a disappearing act and refused to make a decision.

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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to  [email protected]