These grandmas sure do have a mean streak
Byelection chicanery targets new Ontario Tory leader Patrick Brown
A spat over when to hold a byelection so new Ontario Tory leader Patrick Brown can get into the legislature is just an early skirmish between him and Premier Kathleen Wynne, but he’s used it to lure Wynne’s Liberals into hurting themselves.
With Wynne in the premier’s office and Deb Matthews her deputy, “the grandmothers are in charge,” Matthews memorably said about the government she’s in. “I like to think that grandmas are tough, but fair. Firm but kind. And always willing to listen.”
Well, these grandmas have mean streaks.
Seconds after veteran Tory MPP Garfield Dunlop announced he’ll resign his Simcoe North seat so Brown can run there (literally seconds, while Dunlop was still talking) the Liberals sent out a statement under Matthews’s name, flinging all kinds of bull.
Brown is such a right-wing loon that Dunlop — a fair-minded, decent, Bill Davis Tory of the kind who helped make Ontario great, don’t you know — couldn’t stand to work with him any more, Matthews allowed herself to be quoted saying.
“Garfield Dunlop was comfortable serving with Mike Harris and Tim Hudak, but it’s clear that Patrick Brown’s extreme rightwing ideology was a step too far,” Matthews’s statement said. “Garfield was a leader in his caucus, a real progressive and a thoughtful voice for inclusion. He vocally supported anti-bullying initiatives for students, Day of Pink, and acceptance in schools. This is a big loss for Patrick Brown.”
For a guy who couldn’t bear to share a caucus with Brown, Dunlop was awfully affectionate toward him. Dunlop was completely wrong in his assessment of the former MP when he resented the guy’s parachuting into provincial politics, he said. Dunlop backed Lisa MacLeod for the Tory leadership, but getting to see Brown work up close has turned him right around, he said.
He’s even sticking around to advise Brown on education — his personal pet issue — despite saying it’s a need for more family time after 15 years in the legislature that’s prompted his resignation. That’s not what you do if you’ve had it up to here with this jackass.
Wynne followed up with a much shorter, blander statement of her own, wishing Dunlop all the best in his future endeavours and so on.
That is ordinary, routine politics, of the type that’s worked very well for, say, Stephen Harper. Patrick Brown isn’t well known to the average Ontarian, so his image is malleable. The Liberals want to define him before he gets a chance to define himself, the way the federal Tories did so successfully with Stéphane (“You think it’s easy to make priorities?”) Dion and Michael (He didn’t come back for you) Ignatieff. Keep him off-balance, keep him answering your attacks rather than going on the offence himself.
The Liberals are also going to keep him out of the legislature in spite of Dunlop’s departure, very possibly until the new year. Wynne refuses to call a quick byelection in Simcoe North, as would be customary, because there will soon be a federal election campaign and the voters might get confused.
Tim Hudak very likely would have come out to grouchily condemn the Liberals as horrible people. Brown replied with an open letter carefully appealing to their (and voters’) better natures.
“It’s important to show the people of Ontario that as politicians, we are ready, willing and able to work with others, and that we are above political games,” the letter says. Ontarians deserve a fully functional Official Opposition, with its leader in the legislature.
Matthews fired back with a letter saying the delay is Brown’s fault because Dunlop didn’t quit fast enough, and if Brown really cared about his job he’d have found a seat to run in more quickly. Sneer, sneer, sneer.
Wynne’s Liberals have set themselves up as decent, thoughtful folks in the “activist centre,” ready to do hard things when they have to, but always with good hearts, wanting to help people. Grandmas. Being jerks to a new opposition leader and blaming it on the inability of Simcoe North voters to think about two things at once rather corrodes the brand.
For Brown, some of it was luck, sure. But sensing when your opponents are in a mood to make a mistake and standing by while they do it is a clever politician’s talent. Brown, whatever you think of his politics, didn’t win his party’s leadership because he’s dumb.
Being jerks to a new opposition leader and blaming it on the inability of Simcoe North voters to think about two things at once rather corrodes the brand.