Former Tory Leader Patrick Brown thought he had it made last November. He had the policy for the 2018 provincial election nailed down. He had what he thought was a wonderful book that could grace the coffee tables of the province with a great picture of him on the cover. Patrick’s provincial Progressive Conservatives were going to destroy the Liberal dynasty in Ontario.
But some dirty dog destroyed Patrick’s dream. It might not have been Ford that came up with the scheme to wreck the ‘unsinkable’ Patrick Brown but somebody pulled the plug on him. Maybe it was Caroline Mulroney. Her kid brother Ben works for CTV. Did he feed the gossip about Brown to the CTV news department? It depends on whether you like conspiracy theories.
Whatever. The problem is that Brown is out and somebody has to replace him. You would think that whomever the new leader of the party might be, they would be smart to put a new cover on the old policy book. It would save a lot of time, money and grief.
But millionaire Doug Ford would never worry about that. It was the Ford father who made the millions. The problem is that even while smoking crack cocaine, Toronto’s late Mayor Rob Ford was always twice the politician than his brother.
Four candidates are out on the campaign trail these days playing havoc with Patrick Brown’s carefully crafted, supposedly middle-of-the-road policies. If you are a social conservative, you might even have your own candidate—ditzy enough to pay $125,000 to lose. This fourth candidate is no D’Artagnan. Mind you Porthos, Athos and Aramis (otherwise known as Doug, Caroline and Christine) have been mining that social Conservative vein for the past week with their various ‘accommodations for sex education.’
It is the same with a carbon tax. Even an arch conservative such as Preston Manning says that a carbon tax is probably the only effective way we will ever find to start reducing the amount of carbon spewing into our environment. Again, Doug said he would fight against any carbon tax. Despite the rule book for this leadership saying candidates have to toe the line on policy, it is Doug Ford’s lead that other candidates are following.
The Ontario Conservatives have a situation where Doug Ford is turning out to be the de facto leader.
-30-
Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]