Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star is usually a quite astute observer of Queen’s Park and the political machinations there. What we did not know about him was that he considers himself something of an economist. If he is not an economist, why would he suggest that the Wynne government in Ontario was right or wrong in following the directions of banker Ed Clark?
Clark, of course, is a banker. If Wynne just needed a banker’s opinion, she had Finance Minister Charles Sousa, an unreformed banker, sitting right there at the cabinet table. Since an expert is someone from further away, the cabinet listened to Ed Clark instead of Charles Sousa.
But the economy is hardly the basis for all political decisions. When Bill Clinton’s campaign used the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid,” it was a way of focussing the direction of that one campaign.
Trump just won the American White House with a mindless slogan of “Make America Great Again. It was a terrible slogan but it worked when Hillary Clinton could not make up her mind about a slogan. How can you vote for a politician who does not even have a slogan?
The conundrum that Martin Regg Cohn addressed recently was that things are actually going well in Ontario but the Wynne government might be guilty of bad politics. He says selling off pieces of Hydro One was good economics and bad politics. He thinks Ontario is in a political depression.
But there is absolutely no excuse for that political depression. When calling for Wynne’s resignation the other day, we gave only part of the answer. Wynne is a terrible leader. She is no liberal. She is not a leader. She weaselled her way through the Liberal convention that chose her by manipulation and backroom deals. She was by no means the popular choice of the party. And she has proved she is a disaster.
And what has Kathleen Wynne’s leadership done for us? Forget the polls. What bye-elections has she won since her foolish manipulations in Sudbury? How do Ontario voters feel about her government? Why does she dribble out reforms on booze sales instead of making a decisive move? What the hell has she ever done that showed clear and decisive leadership? Even the needed improvements in government pensions by Ontario were just a ploy to move the federal government to do it.
Wynne has obviously been listening to her advisor, former Premier David Peterson, for too much bad advice. David is a nice guy but he sometimes acts as though he has the political smarts of an Ontario raccoon. Like a raccoon, he is great on family but he too often ends up in the wrong garbage can.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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