Style, yes, but substance too

There have been bad days, really bad days and a few slightly less bad days lately for Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives.

Monday was one of the rare less-bad days. The party now has three prominent candidates for leader with the official entry of Caroline Mulroney into the race, joining Doug Ford and Christine Elliott.

There are signs the party is making a real effort to pull back from the brink of political disaster. Until now, it’s been putting on a mesmerizing demonstration of how to blow every advantage it has in the run-up to June’s provincial election.

Now, at least, it has a way forward — though based on recent performance it’s always possible the PCs will find fresh new ways to shoot off still more of their toes.

All three candidates in the race so far are substantial people in their own ways. In the case of Doug Ford, though, it’s all in the wrong ways: his bullying, bumbling performance during his brother Rob’s shambolic term as Toronto’s mayor rules him out from legitimate consideration.

But the PCs are fortunate to have two impressive women seeking their leadership in the wake of the sudden exit of Patrick Brown amid a flurry of accusations about sexual impropriety (followed in quick order by his party president).

Nothing would signal to voters more clearly that the party is determined to make a clean break with its recent history and take on board the lessons of the #MeToo era than choosing a woman to lead it into the election campaign.

In fact, with Kathleen Wynne leading the Liberals and Andrea Horwath at the helm of the New Democrats, not going with a female leader would be the biggest risk the PCs could take right now. Aside from anything else, it would alienate the moderate female voters it needs to win over in order to break its long losing streak.

In the first days of this short campaign, the candidates are positioning the contest as one of image.

Mulroney made that clear by telling the Star’s Robert Benzie that she’s the candidate who’s “new” and “fresh.” She’s trying to take her most obvious disadvantage — a complete lack of experience in electoral politics — and turn it into her biggest selling point.

But the fact is we know very little about Mulroney, aside from her association with her famous family. We know she has impressive academic degrees from south of the border, has worked in law and finance and founded a charity. But so far we can only guess at what she really stands for and we have no idea how she’ll be able to handle herself when the elbows go up on the campaign trail.

At the same time, her pitch is a sharp shot at Elliott, who at 62 is a generation older than Mulroney and is the only one of the three candidates who has actually represented a riding at Queen’s Park.

It would be unfair to dismiss Elliott’s experience as irrelevant or a handicap. In fact, if it was coming from a man, Mulroney’s implicit barb that Elliott is old and not-fresh might well be seen as condescending, even sexist. Shouldn’t an older woman get credit rather than criticism for fighting the good fight in the legislature on behalf of her party over the years?

Beyond style, the candidates will have to clarify where they stand on matters of substance as the abbreviated contest unfolds.

Both Ford and Elliott say they won’t support a carbon tax, one of the most controversial points in the “People’s Guarantee” election platform developed under Brown. That plays well with the PC party base, but the tax is key to paying for the attractive social measures in the platform. Take that out, and it doesn’t add up.

Mulroney is being cagey. She won’t say she supports a carbon tax, but she won’t quite come out and say she’s against it. That’s OK on Day 1 of her campaign, but she’ll have to figure out what she stands for very quickly. Otherwise her leadership rivals, or the other parties, will tear her apart.

In the end, voters need to have a clear idea of where the new-andpossibly-improved PC party will take them if it wins on June 7. Arguing over image won’t cut it. The candidates must move quickly from the banalities of the first few days and spell out in much greater detail where they stand.

Not going with a female leader would be the biggest risk the PCs could take