The new leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives must have been saving money on speech writing when he talked to the Ontario Legislature on Monday. If there was ever a time for Patrick Brown to be gracious that was it. It was a courtesy that he was asked to address the members of the legislative assembly. They had Quebec Premier Phillippe Couillard giving a statesman-like address to the legislature and, in a non-partisan gesture, the Liberal government invited Patrick Brown, as a new party leader, to say something.
Premier Kathleen Wynne’s people must have known he would blow it. His party members in the legislature had to be embarrassed. Brown came out with a partisan attack on the Liberal government. It was the same attack as was added on to his speech to the convention on Saturday. It made some sense to the Conservative crowd on Saturday but made no sense under the circumstances on Monday. You could almost feel Couillard looking at him during the speech and thinking the French equivalent of “What a jerk!”
But the problem for voters in Ontario is that what you see with Patrick Brown is what you get. In a lengthy editorial on Tuesday, the Toronto Star told Brown to “Get to it.” Sorry, dear editor, but there is nothing more to get to.
Patrick’s record in Ottawa of doing nothing is not about change. After nine years of watching this young man in political (in)action, questioning those who know him well and others after meeting him, we can tell you he is unlikely to change, grow or mature in his new job.
People think they saw his strength in winning the Tory leadership. What they saw was his weakness. Those ethnic votes from the Indian sub-continent were a one-of event. Those are not votes that will matter in a general election—mainly because many of them are not yet citizens. There is nothing remarkable about his outreach to ethnic groups. That has been going on just as cynically in politics since before he was born. Nor does his false concern for the supposed disadvantaged in the north or rural Ontario come across as anything more than the usual political pandering.
The Toronto Star editorial writers think that Patrick Brown should open up about himself. The editors should be more careful about what they ask for.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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