The Welland Tribune

No hidden agenda, Brown’s a Red Tory

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Ontario Progressiv­e Conservati­ve Leader Patrick Brown’s “People’s Guarantee” election platform is a strategic political document that helps him in two key ways.

First, by releasing it seven months before the vote, Brown has kept his promise that Ontarians would have plenty of advance notice about what a government under his leadership would do.

Second, Brown has defined himself before his opponents could — as a red Tory in the tradition of former Ontario premier Bill Davis, not a “common sense revolution­ary” like former premier Mike Harris.

This has effectivel­y blunted attempts by Wynne and her union allies to portray him as a Canadian Donald Trump with a “hidden agenda.”

On issues ranging from tax cuts for the middle class, to financial help for young families, to lowering hydro bills, to almost non- existent debt reduction, Brown’s platform could have been written by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

It could almost have been written by Wynne. Not only will Brown keep Wynne’s 25 per cent reduction in electricit­y rates — which he denounced when it was passed as fiscal flimflamme­ry based on massive borrowing — he’s promising to reduce them 12 per cent more.

Nowhere in Brown’s 147 promises is there anything for social conservati­ves.

For example, no mention of reforming Wynne’s sex- ed curriculum, which Brown floated when he was running for PC leader.

To his credit, Brown has tackled the third rail of politics for Conservati­ves — manmade climate change — saying he will cancel Wynne’s $ 6- billion cap- and- trade political slush fund and replace it with a revenue neutral carbon tax, verified by the auditor general, based on Trudeau’s compulsory carbon prices.

Brown’s promise to quit after four years if he hasn’t fulfilled five key promises is unnecessar­ily gimmicky. What if he wins a minority and the Liberals and NDP combine forces to stop him, for example?

We don’t think Brown is being forthright enough with voters about the economic pain Ontarians will have to endure to undo the economic damage caused by 14 years of Liberal rule that has left the province as the world’s most indebted sub- sovereign borrower.

That said, Brown is clearly preferable to the politicall­y corrupt Liberals, who drove us into that ditch by repeatedly doubling down on fiscally reckless, billion- dollar boondoggle­s like their green- energy disaster.

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