Joanne Chianello on a sad end to Peter Shurman’s career
Sorry end to a political career and no reason for a fall election
No matter what you think about Peter Shurman’s politics, there’s no denying the Tory MPP has presence.
Standing beside Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak in last May’s provincial budget lockup in his role as finance critic, Shurman spoke powerfully about what was wrong with Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government. So powerfully, in fact, that not a few reporters wondered whether the Tories shouldn’t rethink their party leadership in favour of the former broadcaster.
That’s why it’s a shame — for the Tories, at least — that Shurman’s political career has come to such a sorry end.
The MPP has been under fire after it was reported he’s claimed more than $20,000 for a second residence in Toronto. The allowance is meant to help members who live more than 50 kilometres from Queen’s Park. And Shurman’s primary residence really is out of town, in Niagara-onthe-Lake. The only problem is Shurman represents Thornhill, just north of Toronto. He bought a home in NOTL a few years ago and spent most of last summer there.
So Shurman lives nowhere near his riding, and he’s getting taxpayers to subsidize his controversial living arrangements.
To make matters worse, Shurman told the Globe and Mail that he “can’t afford two houses” on an MPP’s salary of $112,500 a year.
If you’re Hudak, you can’t have your finance critic displaying a sense of entitlement indistinguishable from what the PCs routinely — and sometimes justifiably — accuse Liberals of wallowing in. Even if the amount of money involved is paltry, the attitude conveyed to voters hurts.
When Shurman refused to pay the $20,000 back, Hudak rightly fired him as finance critic.
So much for Shurman, possible future finance minister. Indeed, it will be interesting to see whether the constituents of Thornhill will re-elect an MPP who moved his main residence to a town 160 km away.
Some believe that the fine folks of Thornhill might get that chance sooner than expected. There’s been plenty of fall election buzz over the past week, much of it from the PCs, who’ve been saying they expect the Liberals to trigger an election in the next few months.
From a purely political standpoint, it might make some sense.
The Tories are having some public relations problems right now, the Shurman debacle being only the latest hiccup. Randy Hillier, the rogue MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, has openly challenged Hudak’s leadership. And in an email leaked last week to the Toronto Star, Hillier warned his fellow Tories that they were “walking on thin ice” with their own bill that would release construction company EllisDon from an obscure, closed-shop union agreement dating back to the 1950s. Hillier worried that the new legislation could be viewed as a favour to the company in return for increased campaign donations.
The early-election theorists point to other signs, like the fact that Wynne just announced new, fulltime members of her campaign team. And that the Liberals announced
It’s hard to imagine anyone, even the perennially popular Wynne, winning an election called over the failure to pass new tanning-bed rules.
a $1.4-billion, 6.4-kilometre east-end extension of Toronto’s subway line.
And while conventional wisdom is that the current minority government will fall next spring by failing to pass its 2014 budget, some argue that the Liberals would rather go to the polls on their own terms than wait for the opposition parties to take them down.
Some of Wynne’s comments Monday even seem to bear out this fall-election hypothesis. The premier told reporters she’ll call an election if the PCs and NDP stop legislation from being passed.
“The practical reality is, if the House cannot function, and if we can’t see a way forward, then the Opposition will have to explain to people why they think an election is the better option,” Wynne said.
And yet, a fall election seems unlikely.
For one thing, unless someone can produce actual evidence of favour-mongering, the EllisDon story doesn’t have legs. Hudak and Wynne both agree that the obscure legislation regarding Ellis Don should be changed. So that little fire seems to have been extinguished.
But the most compelling reason not to have an election is that there’s no need for one. Despite the political rhetoric, the minority government is working fairly well right now.
Consider the issues on the table for this fall: a ban on tanning beds for teens, promoting Ontariogrown food, increasing home inspection standards, and requiring cellphone companies to have contracts in easy-to-understand language.
Who can argue with these nonpartisan, non-controversial ideas? There’s no reason why the parties shouldn’t be able to come to some agreement on most or even all of this proposed legislation.
But Wynne is way off when she describes these concerns as “the priorities of the people of this province,” as she did in an email to Liberal supporters. This fall’s agenda includes some laudable goals, but few are people’s top priorities.
Should the three parties refuse to play nice, well, sadly, that won’t come as a huge surprise to most of us. But to dissolve provincial parliament if the Liberals can’t get these bills through the house? That’s pushing the limits of reasonableness.
It’s hard to imagine anyone, even the perennially popular Wynne, winning an election called over the failure to pass new tanning-bed rules.