Reflections on John Tory

"Kathleen Wynne will continue to do us proud...She deserved to win. Tory should have known better than to pick a fight with her."
Oct. 10, 2007, following announcement of Tory's defeat on Election night

"he didn't resign? He wants to lead from outside the legislature? Who will give him their seat? How will he get past a leadership review later this year? I still say he's done. I guess he's asking for the same treatment Andre Boisclair got in Quebec, he will be hounded out, would have been better to go out gracefully like Martin did I think. I think Tory can be useful outside of politics though,"
Oct. 10, 2007, immediately following Tory's concession speech

"If I had to guess, I would say he doesn't make it past the month."
Feb. 23rd, 2008, immediately following Tory's 66.9% approval at the Ontario PC Convention

"If Tory thinks he's a shoe in he might want to think twice. Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock residents might actually be looking for a real representative over the next few years instead someone who will immediately go looking for a new seat for 2011 and focus all his attention there. They might looking for someone that actually knows the riding not someone who's only there to save his career. And given that it's a fairly right wing riding they might actually prefer ending Tory's career in the hopes that someone on the far right takes the leadership of the party from him."
Feb. 4th, 2009, the day the by-election in HKLB was announced
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Today John Tory officially stepped down as Ontario PC Party leader and left his career in Ontario politics behind. I don't believe in kicking someone when they are down, but I do believe that as someone leaves the political scene it is worth looking at the good (and John did have many good qualities) and bad of their tenures and the lessons that can be learned from it. John Tory is a good guy at heart who has contributed to some great causes in his private life, but as I think many would now agree, it was his political judgment that prevented him from succeeding in Ontario politics. Ultimately, his own choices did him in on Election night and then left him leading a party for the past year and a half that he now probably wishes he left on Oct. 10 or 11, 2007. In each of the quotes listed above John Tory could have made a different choice than he did - he may now always wonder what might have been instead. But even though I was never rooting for him to win (and I'm very happy for Rick Johnson), I can't help but feel some sympathy for him and his fate.

John Tory did have some commendable qualities that I think any partisan could recognize. I'm sure many Ontario Liberals would agree that he's probably the most progressive leader the Ontario PC Party could ever hope to have. If we HAD to endure another PC term in government I would have preferred Tory to anyone else they have in their line-up (but since anyone else in their line-up is FAR less likely to win than Tory would have been, that suits me just fine as a Liberal and leaves me more confident of another McGuinty victory in 2011 :) ).

After the horrors of the Harris years and the shameful ways they dealt with the most vulnerable in society it was amazing to see the PCs have a leader who actually talked about poverty and had credibility on the issue (having worked for the United Way) and that's something we certainly don't see from Tory's federal cousins. Tory was also moderate on social issues and environmental policy, and he was quite critical of the Common Sense Revolution and Harris/Eves' combative ways of doing government, all dramatic departures from his predecessor (and frankly anyone else in his party).

After the 2011 election perhaps the PC Party will finally learn that that's where they need to be if they ever hope to win again, but I doubt they'll come to their senses - again works fine for us Liberals - Liberal majorities are serving Ontario well - but I suppose a part of me thinks it's good for democracy to have a credible opposition and at least John Tory brought that - while I never wanted to see him Premier, you could at least picture him in the job and not absolutely shudder at the thought (except perhaps when you started to worry about the pressure his caucus might put on him on to go back in time...).

But John Tory wouldn't be finished now in Ontario politics if he didn't make many mistakes. I think five stand out.

For one I think he picked the wrong party. I don't think he could ever have been a leadership candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party but I don't think he would have seemed too out of place with some of the party's right-of-centre crowd, we do after all have a much bigger tent than the PCs. Tory certainly seemed to have more in common with some of the right-wing in the OLP than with pretty much any member of his own party. It's no surprise really that his party hasn't truly been behind him since Election night - they don't see him as "one of them" - why else would none of the caucus give up their seat for an entire year? You'll be hearing refrains from many of them now how their "magic solution" is to move further right now and be as far from Tory's mould as possible. We'll see how that works out for them. But any façade of a "moderate" PC Party is now out the window for sure.

Second was his negativity. John Tory vowed to raise the standard for ethics and integrity and that he would espouse a positive vision for Ontario. Instead, he spent most of the Ontario campaign being relentlessly negative. Worst of all, he chose the attack dog role for himself. It's a wise rule that the leader try to stay above the fray and leave the sharpest attacks to subordinates. You don't see Dalton McGuinty take on the role of prime attacker and I'm still puzzled why Tory thought it suited him. I think it turned a lot of people off of him and contributed quite a bit to his poor performance on election night.

Third was his platform. Of course everyone knows there was the religious schools issue, as I said near the end of the 2007 campaign: "He had not even considered some of the most fundamental flaws with his plan such as what to do about the inevitable court challenges by scientologists and so on, how could he claim that he was going to treat the religious schools just like the Catholics and still let those schools charge tuition, how would he monitor these schools, what would happen when they started violating the curriculum, and on and on. It just give the impression that he doesn't give great thought to his most important policies which is the worst possible quality to have if you want to be the Premier who is tasked with handling education and health care in our province." His backtracking on the issue near the end of the campaign made him look even worse. I resent when people compare the religious schools issue to the Green Shift, because no one has made a convincing case as to why the Green Shift isn't good policy (of course it didn't prove to be good politics), whereas Tory's religious school's proposal was both bad policy and bad politics which I think is a very important distinction. But religious schools wasn't the only problem with this platform either, his platform claimed it would have cut taxes (which would have been a disaster in hindsight) and yet increase spending. It sounded like a re-hash of what we heard from Mike Harris and created suspicions as to who was really running the show and making policy for the party. PCs will learn again in 2 years that we REALLY don't want another Mike Harris type leading the province especially at a time of increasing unemployment and poverty.

But all politicians make mistakes with policies and ideas they put forth and John Tory at least seemed to realize that he had (though he seemed to mistakenly believe the solution was to move further right), and he could have overcome the problems in his platform to lead his party in 2011, but I think ultimately his biggest mistake was choosing to challenge Kathleen Wynne. It was a dumb move and it certainly diminished the respect some Liberals had for Tory that he would choose to take on one of the best ministers in McGuinty's government and arguably one of the top women in Ontario politics. In the end he was trounced for it, only scoring 0.1% better than David Turnball who ran before him in Don Valley West in 2003. Had Tory chosen a more PC friendly riding and run against a non-incumbent or just stayed where he already was I think he would still be PC leader today. It was not the election loss that doomed him, it was the fact that he had no seat. It proved impossible for him to have much profile sitting outside the legislature and well now we know what ended up happening in the end. The biggest lesson for party leaders from this I think is make sure you are confident of winning your own seat, because I think Tory's case should prove pretty clearly that if you don't win a seat on election night and can't find a replacement extremely quickly then it's time to go.

Finally, John Tory should have realized his party wasn't behind him and called it quits on the earlier chances he had like Election night or after the performance review.

So on balance John Tory had the ability to be a great public servant, but too many of his decisions backfired and his party was just too right-wing to ever be able to truly rally behind him. John Tory is better off without the PC Party though. I think he could still make a very positive contribution to society and I hope he does.

I wish John Tory nothing but the best in his life post-Ontario politics.

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Obama's Budget Plan Shows He and Harper Really are Ideological Twins

Because a "pronounced move to redistribute wealth" is a Conservative idea right? Darryl Wolk - one of the few Conservatives that actually supported Obama before he was elected President - has tried to argue that Harper and Obama are so alike and that Canadians will see this and give Harper a majority as a result. Well I think if Canadians actually looked at the actions of these two governments they just might come to a different conclusion. Let's take a look at what Obama's $3.55 trillion Budget Plan proposes:
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"Mr. Obama's proposal signals a radical change of course by redirecting enormous streams of deficit spending toward programs like health care, education and energy, and paying for some of it through taxes on the rich, pollution surcharges, and cuts in such inviolable programs as farm subsidies.... The Obama administration will attempt to close the large fiscal gap even while starting a major health-care initiative meant to substantially extend coverage; to do so, it foresees increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans and using revenues from a new program: selling carbon credits (read: taxing carbon) to manufacturers as part of a cap-and-trade plan meant to slow climate change....The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Mr. Obama's existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers. "
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Sounds just like what Harper ran on in the last election doesn't it? Carbon taxes (coupled with cutting taxes for the low and middle income earners as the Green Shift did), raising taxes on the rich and corporations, redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, true blue Conservative policies.

Oh wait those are the sorts of policies Harper said would destroy the economy!

To be honest I think some of Obama's proposed policies go even a bit too far for my tastes, I don't support increasing corporate tax rates for instance, but I'm interested to see how the Blogging Tories portray this budget as in sync with the budget they put forth here in Canada.

I think they'll have a pretty tough time.

On the environment Canadians saw a budget here in Canada that completely ignored the issue, whereas in the U.S. it's seen as one of the central issues to address.

On human rights Canadians see a government still defending the "process" at Guantanamo Bay, whereas in the U.S. the government is shutting it down and banning torture.

On poverty Canadians see a government here that can't even bring itself to mention the word, whereas in the U.S. the government is taking major efforts to help the most vulnerable.

On post-secondary education Canadians see a government that treats it as an after thought (it received ZERO mention in their last election platform), whereas Obama is placing making his country a world leader on this issue a top priority of his first term.

On partisan co-operation, Stephen Harper can’t help but constantly pick fights wtih the opposition, while across the border Obama reaches out to his rivals for consensus.

On transparency and accountability Canadians see a government that becomes more and more secretive versus one in the U.S. that is opening more windows on how government is operating by the day.

And I could go on. So Conservatives can try to latch themselves to Obama all they can, but their actions (or lack of actions) speak far louder than their words and I don't think Canadians will be fooled.

If Conservatives like Darryl wish we were actually taking the kinds of bold of approaches in Canada as Obama is, I'd strongly encourage them to join them to join the Liberal Party to help make that happen :).

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(h/t CanPolitico for the NY Times link)
For more info on Obama's Budget Plan for the 2010 Fiscal Year see here and here.

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Day 11 Recap: The Choice on Child Care and Education

Notwithstanding the recent Tory troubles...I'd still hope it wouldn't completely overshadow the excellent Liberal policies that the Liberals put forth. Education and child care are two major issues where there is a stark difference betweens Cons and Liberals.

EDUCATION
I was very impressed with the Liberal Post-Secondary Education plan. I believe it is the strongest we've ever seen proposed. Students will be far better off. Currently, most students don’t earn enough money to take advantage of education tax credits, I know I have experienced that. The Liberals would make the tax system simpler and fairer for all students, ensuring they receive up front support throughout the school year adding up to approximately $1000 per student combined with the GST rebate, instead of only receiving that money as tax credits after they've graduated and have a full time job. Students who work while in school would receive another $250 (as outlined in the Green Shift plan). The Liberals would also improve student aid so that no matter how much money you or your parents make, you can get financial support. The education plan would also provide 200,000 bursaries of up to $3500 a year and 100,000 access grants for disadvantaged groups of up to $4000 a year (by the 4th year of the plan). The plan would further make all students (regardless of parental income) eligible for guaranteed student loans of $5000, reduce interest rates on loans, and extend the grace period to two years for repaying them.

It's no wonder this policy has been fully endorsed by the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations fully endorsed it:"CASA believes the measures proposed by the Liberal party will help students and families cope with the accelerated costs of education," said Zach Churchill, national director of the alliance. "The proposed plan, if implemented, can significantly enhance access to post-secondary education system, by providing funding to students who need it the most, while helping to lower the epidemic growth of student debt in this country."

The plan does not only focus on making PSE more affordable though, but also in helping to drive the ideas of tomorrow through support to Research and Development. Research funding has given us cures for diseases and technological innovations such as the Blackberry, but to be a world leader in the knowledge economy we need to go much farther. Liberals understand that. The Liberals would bolster funding for the indirect costs of research by 60%, increase support to Canada’s research granting councils by 34% (which would help graduate students and faculty alike), fund greater support for interdisciplinary research, and extend the tax credit for private sector R&D.

It’s about time we had a party willing to take the reforms necessary on education. The Conservatives by contrast offer no plan on education except to give students less than $10 a month for textbooks, I think we know who cares more about our post-secondary education system. Conservatives seem to think we don't need universities as they mock all those who attend and teach at them. Well the Liberals understand that the knowledge economy will crucially depend on a well educated population and well funded research. We know how to manage the economy and our education system, Conservatives don't.

EARLY LEARNING AND CHILD CARE
The Liberals are also taking us in the right direction on child care. The Liberals remain committed to a national high quality early learning and child care system. By the 4th year of the plan the Liberals would spend $1.25 billion annually. This would be in addition to maintaining the $100-a-month cheques that have children six and under (as many have come to rely on these) and the new refundable $350 child tax benefit for every child under 18 (mentioned in the Green Shift plan) . The Liberal plan would also make federal maternity and parental leave programs more flexible for parents by providing them with the choice of taking a shorter leave with higher benefits, or a longer leave (up to 18 months) with lower benefits. Finally, the Liberals would provide up to an additional $1, 225 to low-income families with children under 18 as part of a new Guaranteed Family Supplement.

The contrast with the Conservatives could not be more clear. They offer $1200 a month to some parents, but this hardly creates "choice in child care" since without spaces there is no choice and the Conservatives haven't created any child care spaces. The Liberal plan gives MORE money to parents, particularly those with low income and will create well over a hundred thousand child care spaces. That's the system families in this country need. Without a national child care system, families continue to have to choose between work and family and that's not fair to families or our economy, yet the Conservatives just don't seem to realize. That's why they can't be trusted with the economy during troubled times: they don't understand it.

The Liberal plans will be carried out with prudent budgeting, with the entire platform including the $3 billion surplus cushion Mr. Flaherty DID AWAY WITH in his last budget. Liberals would never put us in deficit, but I'm quite concerned Mr. Flaherty already has though, just as the Harris/Eves government did (of which he was Finance Minister) when they claimed they balanced the books when there was really a $5.6 billion deficit. Mr. Flaherty's budgetary projections have been far off in the past, the Conservatives simply have no credibility to be preaching about fiscal responsibility. It's completely obvious which party has the better record on protecting public finances.

So on education, child care, and yes certainly fiscal responsibility, there's just plainly no competition. The choice is clear: The Liberal Party once again has the best plan.

UPDATE: Day 12: Strong plan for infrastructure for the Liberals Vs. “Controversy dogs Tories.” More later….

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