The duelling gong shows of the PC leadership race and the Ontario Liberal Party.
The Tory gong show is to close March 10, as planned. After a conference call with candidate representatives on Wednesday night, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives’ leadership organizing committee decided to stand pat and announce Patrick Brown’s successor on Saturday in Markham. Members have until Friday to vote, assuming they have successfully navigated the verification process.
It’s a defensible decision, as sticking with the plan often is. But as with many other decisions the party has faced since Brown’s career exploded, it’s impossible to say for certain it’s the right one.
The Caroline Mul r o - ney and Doug Ford camps complain that a significant chunk of t he electorate hasn’t received their verification PINs in the mail, and they seem to be correct about that. Their proposed remedy was to extend voting and delay the convention by a week, and it made a good deal of sense on its face — though it arguably violated the party constitution, which says the registration cutoff can’t be earlier than midway through the campaign, and the process of amending it could have set the gongs aringing again.
Party officials effuse at the huge turnout thus far, but if a significant chunk of the membership ends up disenfranchised, it’s going to leave a mark. If Ford loses, he won’t necessarily go quietly — especially if he decides not to run in Etobicoke North after all. His Thursday email to supporters described the situation a “just another in a long line of scandals coming out of Party HQ.”
Basically, on the night of Jan. 24, the Tories removed a giant rock under which they had been operating. And ever since, Ontarians have watched with emotions ranging from astonishment to disgust to disbelief as the various creepy-crawlies have scrambled for shelter. It’s been ugly. And if thousands of members are left in the cold, it would be uglier still. It’s some miracle, surely, that polls suggest voters have either not noticed or not cared, or even become more likely to vote PC.
Mind you, voting hiccups were inevitable. When party officials explained the voting procedures to reporters in a Feb. 7 conference call, I was quite sure things would go much worse than they have. This was a process that relied heavily on elderly Ontarians’ facility with computers, scanners, smartphones and spam filters. Far worse, it relied on Canada Post. That’s not to say it was badly designed: on balance it made sense, considering the time constraints involved. But unlike so much that has occurred since Brown’s departure, these problems were understandable.
Converse ly, on Wednesday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa stood up at the Economic Club of Canada and completely changed course — at least rhetorically — on the question of balanced budgets. Ten months after trumpeting the province’s ( supposed) return to the black, he inexplicably an- nounced he would be plunging the province back into the red, by as much as one per cent of GDP or around $8 billion.
Well, I say “inexplicably.” He did try to explain. He said two per cent projected growth isn’t good enough; more “investment” is needed. But the 2017 budget assumed 2.1 per cent in 2018, 2.0 per cent in 2019 and 1.7 per cent in 2020. He cited an “aging population,” threats to NAFTA and rising interest rates among the “many questions and challenges ahead.” But the 2017 budget specifically contemplated “risks that mounting protectionism will increase trade barriers that could disrupt economic growth,” credited the province’s financial position in some part to lower- than- expected interest rates and mentioned our rapidly greying population on at least 10 separate occasions.
In one breath on Wednesday, Sousa called going back into deficit a “cautious” approach; in another, “make no mistake,” he promised, “our budget will have a clear plan to track back to balance.” Just like ... er ... last year’s.
Back in May, citing its reliance on one- time revenues and various accounting sleights of hand, many argued the budget wasn’t balanced in any meaningful way. But I wondered whether voters would even care. The federal Liberals promised deficits, have exceeded expectations in delivering them, and don’t seem to be suffering terribly for it.
The Ontario Tories them- selves have proposed to run a deficit in 2018-19. Clearly, balanced budge t s don’ t carry the totemic force they used to.
This makes it all the more depressingly obvious what Sousa and his Liberals are hoping to do: buy off voters with a parcel of activist policies and programs that they didn’t think necessary until 10 minutes ago, while assailing the Conservatives as heartless monsters for opposing them.
It’s as pathetic as it is shameless as it is predictable. And depending on who wins on Saturday, it might well work — again. Those gongs you’re hearing aren’t just coming from Tory headquarters. They’re coming from inside the house.