There was a Toronto Star exclusive story the other day about a document that might be Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s secret strategy for the upcoming provincial campaign. The Lord knows that Timmy needs all the help he can get. Yet if he follows the plan as described, he will be lucky to do better in the election than the provincial Green Party.
Going into the last provincial election, the Tories also had high hopes for Timmy. The polls showed him out front and destined to beat Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. While Timmy actually did better than some of us expected he would, Ontario still ended up with a minority Liberal government.
The only difference in the plan this time from the last is the Conservative’s featuring of Rob Ford’s brother Doug as a star candidate in Toronto. The Tory strategists would be wise to remain flexible on that part of the plan.
The reporter tells us that the Conservative plan is for a hard right-wing anti-union strategy. That should surprise nobody. Timmy wants to kill the Rand Formula that has given us many years of relative labour-management peace in Ontario. It is part of Timmy’s plan to destroy the union movement in the province. We have no idea what unions ever did to Timmy but he is quite adamant on the issue.
The document says he will use the theme: “Allow choice in union membership.” What is odd about this is the Rand Formula does exactly that. It allows people to have choice on union membership—but not a free ride. All the Rand Formula has done for more than 60 years is to say that a person who works with union members on a shop floor pays the same amount in union dues as everyone else. That is how the formula keeps the peace.
The reporter tells us the plan includes a proposed day-to-day itinerary for the Conservative leader. It says that everything is scripted down to the minute. It also seems to read like anyone with a modicum of central campaign experience could have written it.
The plan even sets aside time for Timmy to have a few beers with the news media assigned to travel with him. Whether he even likes beer or the media want to have a beer with him seems to be of no concern to the writer.
It says Timmy should spell out what he is going to do for the first 100 days after the election. The reporter says there is no detail. That is because Timmy might spend his first 100 days after the election looking for a job. It will probably not be in a union shop.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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