The provincial Liberal leadership in Ontario just turned into a no-brainer. Once again, Gerard Kennedy is the guy to beat. He led on all the ballots except the last when Dalton McGuinty won the leadership in 1996. It was the traditional battle of the left versus the right. The right wing rallied to defeat Kennedy, putting their favourite, Dalton McGuinty, in charge of Ontario’s Liberals. What the Ontario Liberals did was replace rabid Conservative Mike Harris (and his successor ultra-Conservative Ernie Eves) with a Conservative Dalton McGuinty. McGuinty was in sheep’s clothing as a Liberal. It worked, for a while.
But Liberals who try to ride the line between left and right can no longer do the balancing act. The world is changing and we can no longer suffer the lie of being the “good managers” of Canadian governments. Liberals who try to hide the party’s past as reformers are lying to the electorate. It was the right-wing Liberal Party managers who threw Stéphane Dion to the wolves in 2008. They are the same managers who tried to shoehorn Michael Ignatieff into “the big red tent” amalgam of right and left wing Liberals and failed so badly in 2011. They had lost touch with the Canadian electorate and so had Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty.
What saved Ontario’s Liberals in the 2011 provincial election was the paucity of their opposition. Conservative leader Tiny Tim Hudak is a pale imitation of his mentor Mike Harris and the New Democrat’s Andrea Horwath just simply missed the boat in her time of political opportunity.
But Gerard Kennedy can change the scene. He wants to bring the Ontario Liberal Party into the 21st Century. He wants to turn Whigs into Reformers. He wants the Clear Grits of Ontario to embrace the teachers’ unions so they can face the future together. He wants the Liberal government to address job creation and forget the deficit until we have the wherewithal to do something about it.
In reviewing the scenario so far in the provincial leadership sweepstakes, Gerard Kennedy stands alone. To suggest that Kathleen Wynne shares his left leanings is like suggesting that there is a properly equipped and staffed bar at the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Sandra Pupatello takes more time to figure out but, at best, she seems to lean whichever way the wind blows at the time. And anyone who has served in the McGuinty cabinet in the past year is as guilty as he in betraying trust.
To win this provincial leadership, the convention delegates will have to know what candidates are going to do that is different. So far, Gerard Kennedy is the only candidate who understands that.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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