The choice facing Ontario PCs
After the week from hell in which sexual scandals toppled both their party leader and president, Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are perched on the edge of a cliff.
In one direction, interim PC leader Vic Fedeli has vowed to root out the “rot” in the party and guide it to firm ground as it prepares for the June 7 provincial election.
But there, waving his arms on the precipice, stands bombastic Doug Ford, whose sudden and unlikely bid to become the next PC leader is an invitation to leap into the abyss.
In other times and for other parties, the choice would be obvious.
Ontario’s PCs would support Fedeli’s necessary housecleaning, then rally around the sensible, hopefully inspirational woman or man chosen to lead the party to the polls.
But we’re talking about the divided, bickering Progressive Conservatives who, in this century, have shown an astonishing knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
They’re the guys who lead in the polls that don’t matter — the public opinion surveys before the election — then crash in flames in the only poll that counts, the one on voting day.
Today, the PCs need to pause and appreciate their fate still rests in their own hands.
The latest Forum public opinion poll — the first since the latest Tory troubles started — suggests the PCs are still in the lead with voters, a full 15 points ahead of the unloved, governing Liberals.
Next, the Tories need to realize Doug Ford is a oneway ticket to disaster.
His only discernible qualification is the name-recognition he acquired as a Toronto city councillor, and especially as brother, supporter and enabler of the most notorious and embarrassing mayor in the city’s history, the late Rob Ford.
But that name recognition means nothing outside the limited confines of the Toronto neighbourhoods that became known as “Ford Nation.” Indeed, it’s a liability.
Doug Ford’s right-wing populism is the antithesis of where the party has prudently placed itself going into the next election — in the moderate centre of the political spectrum.
His candidacy will turn into a media circus that distracts voters from whatever progress the party makes in repairing and rebuilding itself. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way.
Progressive Conservatives who reject simplistic, right-wing solutions to Ontario’s complicated problems should see Ford’s candidacy as a test and a challenge.
They can show who they are by choosing a better leader. They can elect someone with the wisdom, restraint and dignity that should be in the DNA of any Ontario premier but which Ford lacks.
Just as important, they can support interim leader Fedeli, who will not run in the upcoming leadership race. He’s investigating allegations of vote-fixing in controversial riding nomination contests as well as the legitimacy of tens of thousands of new party memberships signed up when the now-deposed Patrick Brown was leader. If this is the “rot” Fedeli has identified in the party, let him cut it out.
What’s left can only look more pleasing to the public eye.