Choosing the path to the left,
Arriving at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention, I spotted a political friend of mine. He was on his smartphone as usual, keeping abreast of all the intrigue and double-dealing that are the stuff of a traditional delegated convention such as this.
“The thing that’s great about these events,” he said, cheerfully, “is that people will look you straight in the eye and just lie to your face. Then after the winner’s been declared, you get to find out which of these people were lying to you.”
By that standard, this was a successful convention, as closely fought and riven by rumours — lies, in other words — as any in recent memory. Eric Hoskins, it was widely rumoured, was going to pull out and throw his support to Sandra Pupatello — as part of his speech to the convention! Well, no: He endorsed Kathleen Wynne after the first ballot.
Pay no attention to those reports that Harinder Takhar had agreed to support Gerard Kennedy: The real story was the deal he had worked out with Wynne. Whoops: He went to Pupatello. Charles Sousa, informed sources agreed, would cross to Pupatello, with whom he was said to be a better “fit,” rather than Wynne. No: It was Sousa and Kennedy, acting together, who put Wynne over the top.
I doubt we will ever know all the lies that were told, the promises made and broken in the convention’s most fevered hours — though Pupatello’s defeat may well have averted the prospect of Takhar becoming Ontario’s minister of finance. What can be said is that by electing Wynne, the party delivered a well-deserved finger in the eye to the party establishment, not to say the Toronto Star, whom had decided that Wynne was unelectable, largely on the basis that she is a lesbian.
Wynne’s decision to confront the issue (if it can be called that) in her well-received speech to the convention must be counted as one of the more dramatic moments in Canadian political history; the open willingness of so many in the party to disqualify her on that basis one of the ugliest.
But as Wynne herself said in her victory speech, now comes the hard part. Whoever had won the leadership would have had to play the same difficult hand: a minority government, trailing in the polls, and battling a massive deficit — with the immediate consequence of alienating its most dependable supporters, the province’s teachers unions. Whoever had won would have had to carry the baggage of Dalton McGuinty, whose final, cynical act in a career marked by such dodges was to prorogue the legislature indefinitely rather than account for the election-eve cancellation of two gas-fired electricity plants at a cost of who knows how many millions to the taxpayers.
By choosing Wynne, the party has committed itself to a particular path out of this dilemma. Much as she emphasized her centrist credentials in the race, there isn’t much doubt that Wynne appeals more to the left than the right side of the spectrum. That’s probably just as well: McGuinty’s belated attempt to tack right, after so many years of giddy expansionism, was probably doomed.
With the provincial Tories laying claim to the fiscal conservative mantle in such unambiguous terms, the Liberals risked a replay of Lyn McLeod’s disastrous attempt to cast herself as a milder version of Mike Harris.
Wynne will presumably instead attempt to steal votes from the NDP. If anyone can, she might: She proved herself an effective campaigner in the course of the leadership race, revealing a likability to add to her acknowledged intellect and competence. But she will not find it as easy as all that. There is first the matter of avoiding defeat in the legislature, which Wynne has pledged to recall Feb. 19, notably over the coming budget. The Tories will be in no mood to co-operate, and the NDP, sensing the Liberals’ need for an agreement, will no doubt drive a hard bargain.
We have heard very little to date from the NDP about its policy priorities. That may be about to change. Rather than yield soft-left votes to Wynne, the party may respond with demands that force the Liberal leader to choose: tack left, and give up any pretence of centrism — and the fight against the deficit along with it — or stick to the middle, and leave the NDP in command of the centre-left.
A similar dilemma will confront Wynne in her attempt to reconcile with the teachers. Mere words will not be enough, given the embittered state of relations. But make too many concessions, and drive more of the province’s voters, with whom the teachers are in decidedly bad odour, into the arms of the Tories.
The party is in deep enough trouble as it is, though it isn’t clear how well it realizes it. Of the leadership candidates, only Kennedy was unequivocal in warning how deeply disaffected many voters had become with the party, and how urgently it needed to change its approach. McGuinty’s departure from the scene will presumably help to some degree, but not if the new leader is perceived as being more of the same: as Kennedy said in his convention speech, “we can’t slap a different face on an old poster and call that renewal.”
Yet how much change or renewal can a senior minister in that same government credibly claim to represent?
It’s a daunting set of challenges for any new leader. I suspect Wynne’s sexual orientation will prove the least of her worries.