National Post (National Edition)
Wynne will have to do more than ‘reach out’
Kathleen Wynne is going to “reach out.” In fact, she’s already started.
According to reports on her selection as Ontario’s next premier — a selection made by a gathering of Liberals in a hockey rink above a grocery store, not by Ontario voters — the reaching out began within minutes of her victory on Saturday night.
“Ontario’s incoming Premier Kathleen Wynne is hitting the ground running, reaching out to her opposition rivals,” The Globe and Mail reported. That means she talked to Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak, and was planning a similar chat with the NDP’s Andrea Horwath.
“She also vowed to reach out to the education sector,” the Globe said. “She is pledging to bring the legislature back by Feb. 19 and said one of her first priorities will be reaching out to teachers.” This must be catching, because evidently Mr. Hudak’s got the bug as well. “I just had
Horwath’s demand for a full gas-plant inquiry is perfectly reasonable
a conversation with Tim Hudak and it was great of him to reach out,” Ms. Wynne told the CBC.
That’s a lot of reaching, but it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. Ms. Wynne has been handed the top job in a party in a heap of trouble. Dalton McGuinty looked happy for the first time in months on Friday night at his retirement party, and why not? All his problems — a massive deficit, labour unrest in the education sector, a power plant scandal that no one has even pretended to properly investigate yet — have been heaped onto the shoulders of Ms. Wynne.
If she has ready-made solutions to any of these problems, she’s keeping them to herself. Based on what we saw of the Liberal leadership campaign (which was almost comical in the lack of new ideas on display), her idea cup- board is bare. The premier designate seems to be vaguely hoping that the absence of Mr. McGuinty, and a new slate of non-McGuinty ministers, will produce some innovative ideas. But for now, she’s just “reaching out.”
Mr. Hudak, we’re told, respects Ms. Wynne. They live not far from one another. Certainly, he could hardly dislike her as much as his party disliked Mr. McGuinty. However, it’s not in Mr. Hudak’s interest to provide Ms. Wynne with the chance to coast through what remains of the minority mandate that Mr. McGuinty’s Liberals won in 2011. As we argued in our Saturday editorial, it’s not in the province’s interests either. Ontarians have never been presented with a Liberal slate that included Ms. Wynne as a candidate for premier, and they deserve to have the opportunity to render democratic judgment as soon as possible.
If Ms. Wynne hopes to hold off Mr. Hudak, she’ll need the support of Ms. Horwath. The NDP leader can be bought, as Mr. McGuinty proved in the past, when he agreed to jack up taxes on higher-income groups in return for her party propping up his budget. But that would mean moving the Liberals to the left, thereby creating more centrist real estate for the Tories to capture.
It also apparently would mean giving in to Ms. Horwath’s fully justifiable demand for a public inquiry into the cynical cancellation of two controversial gas plants, at enormous public expense, prior to the last election. For the Liberals, such an inquiry could be explosive. It would also create a massive intra-party rift, since many McGuinty loyalists no doubt would prefer to take their gas-plant secrets with them into retirement.
All of this suggests Ms. Wynne shouldn’t be expecting much of a honeymoon. Her opponents might enjoy squeezing her a bit, to see what they can get in the way of concessions, but probably not for long. The big prize is power. The Liberals have had nine years of it, and patience
has its limits.