GRIM JOB FOR OTTAWA MPP
Fraser interim Liberal leader
Ontario Liberals need to look closely at how they fell so far out of contention in this spring ’s election before they stand any chance of climbing back, says the party’s new interim leader, Ottawa South MPP John Fraser.
“Clearly, in the campaign, something went wrong,” he said. “We spent in the neighbourhood of $10 million for seven seats, so Liberals will need some answers in that regard. And then we need to do some soul-searching about what went wrong in the campaign, or how we did before the campaign.”
Fraser, who kept his seat by a bigger margin than many expected in the election last week, was the unanimous choice of the Liberals’ diminished caucus to start picking up the pieces. A vote of riding-association presidents and the party executives confirmed him as interim leader Thursday evening.
Even a week after the election that turfed the government led by Kathleen Wynne, Fraser sounds exhausted over the phone. His voice is rough and he apologizes for his lingering case of campaign brain.
An interim leader’s job is grim: Lay off the people the party can’t afford and make the cuts that have to be made so that when a new leader comes in the worst of the blood has been let. Make sure the people who say they knew all along the enterprise was doomed feel as though they’ve been heard, but don’t let them take over.
“We have to do that postmortem. We can’t move on and rebuild unless we have a very open discussion among Liberals about what went wrong,” Fraser said.
Parties customarily turn to elder statesmen for this. A competent ex-minister, ideally, without strong attachments to any party faction. Fraser doesn’t quite fit this bill, with less than five years in the legislature and no cabinet experience.
But he was Dalton McGuinty’s local lieutenant in Ottawa South for many years before being elected himself after McGuinty quit politics. Under Wynne he took on sub-cabinet duties under two health ministers, shepherding the government’s work on palliative care. Important and delicate, not a lot of fun. He’s avuncular and always seems pleased to be wherever he happens to find himself.
“I’m a consensus-builder. I work well with people on all sides of the legislature,” Fraser said. “Monday morning, I’m participating the orientation of new MPPs. None of them are Liberals. That’s because I firmly believe that all legislators have a duty to the people we serve and all legislators should get off on the right foot.”
The Liberal party also, frankly, doesn’t have a bunch of options.
Michael Gravelle of Thunder Bay-Superior North, with 23 years in the legislature and two cabinet posts behind him, checks the boxes, but he’s also fought cancer and more recently severe depression, and the interim leadership demands a whole lot of travel and time in Toronto.
Other remaining Liberal MPPs have even less elected experience or thoughts of running for the leadership themselves. By taking on the interim job, Fraser removes himself from that discussion.
The Liberal party is plumbing almost unprecedented depths in popularity and seat count. Fundraising collapsed last year as the smell of defeat settled, but the party spent through much of the spring campaign as if it had a chance.
“We work to ensure that our financial — that we have stability in the party, both from an organizational and a financial perspective, going forward,” Fraser said. He thinks the party’s finances are OK but hasn’t seen the full picture.
Fraser will try to convince the winning Progressive Conservatives the Liberals deserve standing as an official party in the legislature, with funding and question-period time and rights to places on committees, and might well not get it.
“I think the million people who voted for us deserve to have that representation,” Fraser said. (The Liberals got more than 19 per cent of the provincewide vote but fewer than six per cent of the seats.)
We can’t move on and rebuild unless we have a very open discussion among Liberals about what went wrong.
Then it’ll be time to think about how the party will choose a long-term successor for Wynne — quickly or slowly, by what kind of voting, with a big open race or with rules that make big demands of would-be candidates. Those decisions will be up to the party executive, while Fraser wields the mop.
“I have very deep roots in the party. I’ve been a member since I was a teenager. I’ve worked for the former premier. I’ve run campaigns. I’ve been a riding executive. I have a deep history in the party, so I know it well. It’s a proud party that I think represents the values of Ontarians,” Fraser said. “I think that Ontarians still want us to fight for that.”