Provincial Politics – Page 130

Babel’s schism of liberalism.

October 25, 2012 by Peter Lowry

It could only have happened in Babel. It was at last year’s federal Liberal association annual meeting that the putsch was attempted. It was an effort by the provincial association to take over the federal association. It was not about to happen. The feds fought back.

And you would have thought that the severe political drubbing of the former MPP and her small coterie of supporters would have seen the end of it. They left the meeting beaten and disavowed. They left behind a stronger and united federal association.

But last week, when Ontario’s federal commission for the redistribution of electoral districts hearings came to Babel, the provincial’s came back, seemingly representing all Liberals in Babel. Somebody had apparently told the federal riding president that the Conservatives had the commission in hand and nothing that was said would change anything. This seemed the case when well-known Conservatives stood and said that they liked the commission’s approach to Babel. What the commission had done was split Babel roughly in half into north and south segments and then added large rural areas to each half of the city to complete the two new electoral districts. It seemed like an undisguised way to use rural voters to keep both districts Conservative.

But here were the provincial Liberals to set the commission on the road to fairness. These people proposed that there be a city district that encompassed most of the old Babel and that some of the outlying, newer parts of the city could be part of a rural district. That way the city could, hopefully, be represented by a Member of Parliament who could speak for the city voters.

As the province uses the same boundaries for provincial electoral districts as federal districts, this was not an altruistic plea the provincial people were making. The proposed two districts with their dominant rural base would not have been good hunting ground for provincial Liberals either.

But why the two groups of Liberals cannot learn to work together is a question for a modern Solomon. It is not as though the provincials are a particularly strong, democratic or creative group. Their antics are what lead us to think of Ontario Liberals as ancient political Whigs from the 19^th Century.

The federal Liberals in Babel are democratic, hard-working and inclusive, with a vibrant youth wing. They are active in the community and are due for a real shot in the arm with the upcoming federal leadership contest. This is the organization to watch. They, in turn, need to watch out for those provincials.

-30-

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

Leadership strategy: part 2 – finances.

October 24, 2012 by Peter Lowry

This applies both federally and provincially. Before you decide to make an all-or-nothing grab for the leadership reins of your political party, you have to make sure of the money. As crass and pedestrian as the subject might be, we have seen too many good people hamstring themselves politically over the fairy tales they told themselves about money.

Sure, you know that your old friend Sam is good for a fulsome donation and you know Sam is an honourable person. The problem is that unless you have the cheque from Sam and the bank has cleared it, you really do not know about that money. Things happen. People do funny things. Always get the money up front.

And you cannot go cheap. You are going to spend every penny allowed and some pennies in addition that might be questionable. Let your financial person control it and you maintain deniability. The best financial people are the ones who will go to jail for you.

You should definitely try not to get involved with one of these ‘big spender’ campaign managers. A campaign must have a strict budget and a campaign manager who can work within it. No candidate for office should have to dig into their own pockets at the end of a campaign to cover for the campaign manager’s bright ideas.

Leadership campaigns are particularly tough to budget because of the two phase costing involved. The division is between meeting and communicating with party voters in their electoral districts and the television hoopla at the end of the campaign. They are distinctly different activities and both hard to control from the financial standpoint. In both cases, you have to concentrate on your voting lists. If it is a delegated convention such as the Ontario Liberal one coming in January, you have a better chance for control. An open convention such as the federal Liberal leadership in April next year is more like a war where you are never sure where to point your cannon.

In the federal leadership, you need three deputy campaign managers. They are the social media manager, the news media manager and the computer lists manager. The better and the more cohesive the brain trust that supports your four managers, the more effective will be your campaign.

In the simpler delegated convention as in Ontario, the key manager under the campaign manager is the communications person. This requires level-headed texting of hundreds of people in an instant to take full advantage of events as they happen on the convention floor. In all cases it is your managers’ knowledge of who are the delegate’s second and third choices that can make the difference.

And always save a few loonies at the end for the beer and/or the crying towels.

This discussion will continue.

-30-

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

Ontario’s prudent provincial premier?

October 23, 2012 by Peter Lowry

We have not seen the last of Premier Dalton McGuinty yet. His stigma stays with us like a bad smell. The supercilious Toronto Star made it worse today with a laudatory editorial about the coming provincial leadership race. It called the race “well-timed.” It even referred to McGuinty’s edict about cabinet members resigning, if they wish to run, as “prudent.” That is the last adjective we would use for McGuinty after the way he has botched things for Ontario’s Liberals.

And what makes the Toronto Star think that a provincial leadership campaign can be run effectively over the holiday season? They have obviously never experienced what can happen in winter when you are trying to get a candidate the most exposure to the possible convention delegates. It tends to confirm the impression that the Toronto Star’s world ends at Highway 7.

And where does the editorial writer get off saying the fee for entering the race is just $50,000? That is just the registration. What does the writer think of the 25 per cent toll charge on fund raising? That can add another $125,000 to the fees. That is onerous, unfair, undemocratic and greedy.

What this Ontario Liberal leadership race is designed to do is give us another Dalton McGuinty. It is someone who can quickly and easily ask friends to pony up as much as $675,000 while resigning his or her cabinet post. Outsiders are not welcome.

Any of the cabinet hopefuls who cannot forego a third of their income for three months during the contest should not be in it.

The editorial writer thinks the stakes are high because some of the key cabinet members will be away from their jobs while running for the leadership. Actually, the reverse might be true. We have always thought of Treasurer Dwight Duncan as the cork in the bottle of Ontario’s finances. And whatever Deb Mathews has been doing wrong with the doctors might have a chance to be corrected while she runs for the premier’s job. The truth of the matter is that being in Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet is enough to turn Ontario voters against any new premier.

We do agree with the editorial writer when making the statement at the end of an overly long and boring piece that “it’s important that the best possible person be chosen.” Yes it is. It is just too bad that nobody seems to know how to do that!

-30-

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

Ontario Liberals deny democracy.

October 22, 2012 by Peter Lowry

In a world where there are those who want to build for the future and those who want to control the future, the Ontario Liberal Party managers must be control freaks. They are making the rules to pick a successor to Premier Dalton McGuinty. There will be no dilettantes, crazies, left-wingers, policy mavens or other trouble makers allowed. In seeking to replace Dalton McGuinty, the party seems to want someone just like him.

In making the announcement, Ottawa MPP and Party President Yasir Naqvi was the perfect foil. A proud first-generation Canadian, Naqvi would not necessarily recognize that what was being promulgated was wrong. What he needed to do before announcing his executive’s decisions about the leadership of the Ontario party was ask why the federal rules for its leadership contest are so different.

In a political environment that seeks inclusion, the Ontario party executive chose a closed, delegated convention. In a political environment that seeks broad options, the party executive chose to discriminate. These people have the temerity to put a toll gate outside the leader’s office to keep the riff-raff in their place. The price tag for entry is an initial fee of $50,000 and then another $125,000 must be given to the party if you want to raise and spend the $500,000 limit.

At a time when Ontario is desperate for new thinking and new leadership, the Ontario executive has locked the door to almost all but people tarred with being McGuinty’s fellow travellers. If you were not in a McGuinty cabinet, your chances are slim. The only person willingly admitting that he might go for the brass ring today is Finance Minister Dwight Duncan. The selection of Duncan would pretty well guarantee that the Liberals would be trashed in the election everyone at Queen’s Park expects early in the spring.

This self destructive bent of Liberal party organizations is a tradition that we have lived with for many years. It is as though Liberals cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. If we want to win in Ottawa, we forget about Queen’s Park. If Ottawa is hopeless, we invade the Ontario Legislature.

Liberals need to look ahead.

-30-

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

Dalton McGuinty’s Whig legacy.

October 21, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Having listened to far too many tributes to the Premiership of Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty for the past week, we hasten to remind these fulsome polemists that the man is not even dead yet. All he has done has been listen to advice that it is time to quit. And he has.

But if you think Dalton’s legacy to Ontario is in the field of education, you have never heard of Egerton Ryerson. From the same time period as the political Whigs, Egerton Ryerson built one of the finest education systems in the world for Ontario. Full day kindergarten is also a good idea if we had only brought it into being when the province was a little more flush with the wherewithal. It seems it is Dalton’s timing that is lousy.

As a Liberal, we would be happy to write Dalton a letter of recommendation. It would be something like the classic that says: Dalton was leader of the Ontario Whigs for a long time. And when he left, we were pleased.

But let us not get hung up with the donut hole instead of the donut. Dalton McGuinty has left the Ontario Liberals at a time when there is a serious need for new leadership, new directions and new thinking. The days of McGuinty’s Whigs are long past. A new approach to Liberalism is needed.

We need to face the fact that Dalton McGuinty was keeping the Ontario Liberal Party in the same political track as Bill Davis—the last decent Progressive Conservative Premier of Ontario. The difference is there was little progressive about Dalton McGuinty.

Liberals need to take a long hard look around this province. We need a new leader who will not be tarred with Dalton’s Whig approach. We need a leader who is comfortable on the left of the political centre. We need a leader with ideas. We need a leader who understands that the job is to serve the people of Ontario.

That new leader is probably not at Queen’s Park today. He or she is probably on a city or regional council somewhere in Ontario. This person is bilingual and has been able to prove that they can bring new ideas and leadership to a council, work well with the public servants in the community and understand that leadership is not where you are going but where your followers need to go.

That person is out there. We need to find him or her.

-30-

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

Dalton does the right thing.

October 16, 2012 by Peter Lowry

If someone had told us what was to happen on the six pm news last night, we would have arranged for the brass band. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s speech was a bit of a tease. At one point it sounded as though he was about to call an election but that made no sense as he would not have needed to prorogue the legislature earlier in the day. An election does that automatically.

Dalton ended his leadership of the Ontario Liberals as far to the right of the political spectrum as when he first appeared 22 years ago. While he seemed more comfortable in his role, so does everyone when they have decided to move on. Dalton obviously got some very good advice on how to end the debilitating impasse at Queen’s Park. And he took it.

McGuinty got most of his ideas from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This includes his labelling bills with positive names that bear no relationship to what they are designed to do. A recent example was the Youth Action Plan that included 32 crime prevention initiatives, many of which had little to do with youth.

But Stephen Harper is still the king of parliamentary proroguers! This was the first time, McGuinty had used that devise to save the hides of some of his cabinet colleagues.

Reflecting on the resignation today, there is no question that there is a big sigh of relief. Dalton’s plaint about Ontario’s deficit is now history. The next leader is unlikely to want to bite that bullet too soon. Even Treasurer Dwight Duncan as leader (God forbid) would not be so foolish as to risk everything on the issue.

Looking at the Liberal leadership prospects at Queen’s Park is a sad exercise. If the strongest contenders are cabinet colleagues Health Minister Deb Mathews and Treasurer Dwight Duncan, we are going to have to search outside the provincial caucus. Having the race concurrent with the federal leadership is actually a unique opportunity. And we should not forget that the Quebec Liberals are also in need of leader who is not as far to the right as the last one.

The one thing that we can count on for the next year is that we are going to have lots of Liberal activities to comment on.

-30-

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

The three act play at Queen’s Park.

October 12, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Someone noted that there has been little said lately about the dysfunctional antics at the Ontario Legislature. You should shed a tear for the news media people who have to be there. They have to cover Premier Dalton McGunity, Tiny Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath as though they were real people doing a vital job for Ontario. Even these stalwarts of news media pros have had enough and are talking about the coming election.

It could happen. It will probably be more by accident than design. Horwath and Hudak would never get together and plan anything.

But what an election would prove is very little. You still have the same three leaders and there is no spot on the ballot for the category called ‘None of the above.’

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives missed their chance to dump their leaders. The problem is that, without opposition readily apparent, parties do not fire their leaders. The leader of the party holds too much power over their members. The only independent MP or MLA in Canadian politics is one who has already decided to retire from politics.

But it was interesting the other day when some members of Tiny Tim’s Conservative caucus decided to boost their ‘Right to Life’ ideas against their leader’s explicit instructions. It indicates that some of his Ontario Landowners supporters are becoming tired of his lack of leadership.

It is not that Tiny Tim has not been trying to show some leadership. Why the other day he stabbed his good friend Toronto Mayor Rob Ford in the back and made it party policy to take major transit decisions away from the city. This is not going to win him many city votes. And probably not too many rural votes either.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Andrea Horwath is chortling over the teachers heading for the Supreme Court with Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals over their right to strike. She has to be very careful about what she wishes for. She hardly wants to polarize the voters.

If we citizens get lucky, someone will lock all the doors at Queen’s Park on the outside while all the MLA’s are inside. We could send in enough food to keep them going until they learn to play nice with each other. It’s a cheaper solution than an election.

-30-

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

Duncan decides to dive in.

September 30, 2012 by Peter Lowry

“Jump in Dwight, the water is fine,” must have been the advice Ontario Treasurer Dwight Duncan got from his boss Dalton McGuinty. Now it is Duncan’s turn to be vilified by unions and public sector employees. His latest bill is denying a half million more Ontario workers the right to negotiate a fair contract or to strike. He and McGuinty are bringing back the gift of slavery to the people of Ontario.

Duncan has informed the news media that he thinks this legislation preserves the right to strike and will therefore pass the test of fairness in the courts. The problem the unions see is that the legislation allows the Minister to negate any contract that does not meet his approval, effectively denying them their rights.

How the legislation will sit with unionized employees in colleges, provincial agencies, hospitals and long-term care facilities is another question. The teachers unions have already promised to take the earlier contract freeze legislation to the Supreme Court and these other unions will look to making common cause with them.

So now we have the tandem team of McGuinty and Duncan leading the Ontario Liberal Party in their lemming-like run for the sea. They are leaving their opposition, Tiny Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath standing on the sidelines cheering them on.

Tiny Tim Hudak even voted in favour of the earlier legislation slamming the teachers and is eager to put his ‘John Henry’ on the newer legislation from Duncan. Andrea Horwath wants the support of those workers and is standing at the sidelines clucking her tongue at the meanness of those nasty Liberals.

Those nasty Liberals are so busy ensuring their self destruction that they do not know that they are well on the way to enabling Ontario to have its second New Democratic government in 20 years. (If Ontario voters are stupid enough to elect Conservative Tiny Tim, we would all have to jump into the sea with the lemmings.)

And do you know that 85 per cent of the party members at the Liberal Party conference in Ottawa this weekend voted in favour of McGuinty’s lemming-like behaviour? As we mentioned before, you need an alpha lemming to challenge the leadership to force the party to make a choice. The problem is that the alpha lemmings are drowned first.

-30-

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

There is still time Ontario Liberals.

September 24, 2012 by Peter Lowry

The annual general meeting of the Ontario Liberals happens next weekend. It will take place in Ottawa and there is still time for Liberals to register. The only thing missing from all the reminders Liberals are receiving is the information about the vote that has to be held on Dalton McGuinty’s stewardship. This is the opportunity to dump the Ontario Liberal’s biggest liability as leader since Mitch Hepburn.

There is absolutely no redemption for Dalton McGuinty. While last year, he nosedived into a minority position, today, he could not be elected as chief dog catcher. And the only thing that saved him last year was the weakness of the opposition.

We all know that McGuinty is right wing. He is just not as far to the right as former Premier Mike Harris. We all know that McGuinty is a wus. He is just not as bad a wus as Opposition Leader Tiny Tim Hudak. We all know that McGuinty picks fights with the wrong people. He is just not as bad as Andrea Horwath who does not seem to know what to fight about.

We all can wonder why McGuinty is picking a fight with Ontario’s doctors when it is Ontario’s hospitals and Local Integrated Health Networks that are out of control. And this is not to mention, his friends the drug companies, who are given such open access to the province’s coffers.

We all wonder why McGuinty turned on his best friends the teachers. They not only turned out in droves to support his re-election last year but helped pay for the third-party advertising that vilified Tiny Tim Hudak.

McGuinty has made too many enemies during too long a stint as premier. His government let the police run amok over citizens’ rights during the G20 Summit in Toronto. He has denied basic rights to condominium owners and made renters look like a protected species. He has used a Ponzi scheme to turn our attention to green energy and needlessly drove up the cost of electricity. He has limited the health professionals available to look after the needs of Ontario citizens. And please do not get us started on his weak government and the fat Treasurer.

While we have many times referred to the McGuinty government as Whigs, the problem is that they pose themselves as liberals to the voting public. They are giving real liberals a bad name. Something has to be done.

-30-

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

Hudak, McGuinty, what a team!

September 11, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Tiny Tim Hudak, leader of the Ontario Conservatives and his new best friend Premier Dalton McGuinty passed their Putting Students First Act today in the Ontario Legislature. This legislation denies teachers their rights to collective bargaining and arbitrarily changes their terms of employment. Whether the legislation is even legal under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms will have to be determined by the courts.

But no matter what the courts decide, the act might be the final hurrah for both leaders. Timmy Hudak is the most vulnerable. His party is already fed up with him. He took a strong lead in the polls going into the 2011 election and turned the lead into a miserable loss. The loss of Kitchener-Waterloo (a formerly Conservative seat) the other day was his death knell. He has failed as party leader. He has upset both the rabid right wing and the softer old style Ontario Tories.

The rabid right of Ontario’s Conservatives is dominated by a mix of the religious right and the Ontario Landowners Association. The Landowner members are actually Libertarians and are kissing kin to the American Tea Party fringe of the Republicans and Alberta’s Wildrose Alliance.

Tiny Tim should have realized that when he and his wife set out to make him leader of this pack, the dangers he was facing. Like a scavenging wolf pack, the leader leads only until he falters. Then a new leader emerges, kills and eats the old leader and the pack carries on.

McGuinty, on the other hand, runs with a completely different pack. Liberals tend to be more like lemmings. He was originally chosen as a compromise candidate for party leader in 1996. He is the only person to ever win the party’s leadership after coming fourth on the first convention ballot. He was the choice of the party’s right wing.

Dalton McGuinty answers to his party on the weekend of September 29. So far the Liberal Party web site has made no mention of the mandatory leadership review required by the party’s constitution. There are certainly enough Liberal Party members in Ontario who are aghast at how McGuinty has treated Liberal friends such as the teachers. Let us hope those Liberals do not show their displeasure by boycotting the convention.

The only problem that we see in voting out McGuinty as leader is the need to find an alpha member of the pack to challenge him. Where can you find an alpha lemming except at the bottom of a cliff?

-30-

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