Wanted: Another Mike Harris (Or Maybe a Real One)

Fresh from a stinging rebuke at the polls, Ontario Conservative leader John Tory insists he will stay on, even though he himself failed to win a seat in the provincial parliament. This is much easier said than done. It's awkward to lead a party without a seat in the legislature, and Conservative stalwarts are laying the blame for their rout squarely on Tory. Knife sharpeners have seen a marked increase in business since last Wednesday night.

Hard-liners are probably thinking that it's time to steer the party sharply back to the right after two leaders who are perceived as social moderates have failed miserably to improve their fortunes. Pining for the days of Mike Harris, they may well opt to choose a leader with similar ideals or even mount a campaign to draft back Harris himself.

So over the next four years look for extreme right-wing policies to be championed by the Conservative party and its new right-wing leader such as:

1. Eliminating government-sponsored universal health care completely.
   
2. Eliminating the public school system and replacing it with a system of charter schools and vouchers.

I predict that it won't resonate with the public. The Harris years were an aberration. Ontarians are just not a bunch of rabid right-wingers. In the final years of the NDP government led by Bob Rae, the public was angry and mean. The economy was in a huge slump. People were paying high taxes and not seeing any improvement in their living standard. They were looking for someone to blame and take it out on. Harris gave them just that: poor people collecting welfare, labour unions and teachers. Add the carrot stick of lowering taxes and presto - you're the Premier.

However, as I expressed in a satirical piece posted on Usenet, Harris eventually lost favour with the public. By the time he jumped ship in 2002 Ontarians had come to realize what a malicious, spiteful and mean-spirited individual he is. I don't think Mike Harris will ever darken our doors again as a public official.

It will also be a long, long time before the Ontario Conservative party again swaggers through the halls of power.

Election Fever (or John Tory's Theme Song "Flip, Flop, Fly")

Nine days to go before an Ontario provincial election. The two main parties duking it out for power are the Liberals and the Conservatives. (Although the word is included in the full party name, there is nothing "progressive" about the Ontario Conservative party. Ever since it was shanghaied by Mike Harris in 1990 it has been a far-right mob akin to the former federal Reform Party. The current leader of the Conservatives, John Tory, passes himself off as a moderate, but I'm skeptical. I never heard him denouncing the divisive policies Harris implemenmted during the 1990s. If fact, I'd never heard of him, period.)

With a last name like Tory, you can bet that John is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Many of his political ilk have seen him as a saviour who would lead the Conservative party to certain victory in the upcoming election. But even his most ardent supporters must now be questioning his political judgement. Before the election call Tory had a decided advantage over Liberal leader and Premier Dalton McGuinty. During the 2003 campaign McGuinty promised not to raise taxes. (Taxes are a touchy point with Ontario voters. They once bought into the Mike Harris con job that they can have low taxes, but still enjoy top-level universal health care and a quality educational system. Harrris lowered taxes all right, but left health care and education in a shambles.)

But soon after being voted into power, McGuinty levied a health care premium, claiming that the previous Conservative government left a huge deficit, and the money was needed to fix the health system. This became the most visible of what McGuinty's opponents would call an endless string of "broken promises." It resonated with the voters, and all John Tory had to do was repeat it over and over like a broken record.

But what does Tory do? Unveils an election pledge to extend public funding to all private religious schools. It's only fair, he said, because Catholic schools get government funding (according to a provision in the 1867 Canadian constitution). How Tory failed to see that this would overshadow all other issues in the campaign is hard to comprehend. It turned into a very controversial proposal, with some two-thirds of the electorate against it. You can say what you like about the Liberal party, but they're not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth. By vocally defending the status quo of public schools, and they were off the hook for broken promises.

Tory's scheme blew up in his face. Voter opposition swelled, and even his own party members started to abandon him, vowing to vote against the measure. To make matters worse, polls suggest Tory might lose in his own riding where he is running against the current education minister Kathleen Wynne. (Another bad judgment call on Tory's part. Why didn't he stay in his former riding which is the safest Conservative seat in the entire province? The people there will always vote Conservative even if the candiadate is the embodiment of the Frankenstein monster.)

Yesterday, in a policy speech, Tory reversed himself on the religious school issue, hoping to turn the campaign around. In doing so, Tory has handed the election to the Liberals on a silver platter. The advantage over broken promises has been wasted, and his mantra "leadership matters" now has a hollow ring. The Conservatives had better stop using spin doctors from the private clinics Tory proposes to implement into the health care system.