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07/30/2003 Archived Entry: "Canadian Politics...Still Fun!"

CANADIAN POLITICS...STILL FUN!: Hey, I'm back from the dead, if only temporarily. No posts recently because firstly, I'm suffering from a profound case of the summer blahs and secondly, the work at the Ministry of Culture really takes the wind out of me by the end of the day. But this post by David Janes on the disillusioning paralysis that is modern Canadian politics caught my eye. I cannot help but think that such a feeling mainly stems from the fact that this is a Toronto-based perspective and thus on all three levels of government, administrations are winding down their mandates and each one of them somehow seems beleaguered and threadbare. Municipally, we're in the last days of Mad Mel. Provincially, my beloved Tories (who are not and never will be popular in Toronto) are trying to outwait the polls. And of course, federally we're in the midst of Jean Chretien's one-and-half year long farewell tour with an non-existant race to succeed him and an opposition that dishonours the word "weak." Even so, with four parties in contention, according to the most recent poll, 51% of Torontonians are supporting the Liberals, which of course means that they're going to take every seat in the GTA for the fourth time in a row. This is by far, the strongest bastion of Liberal support in the entire country. Pretty hopeless picture, isn't it?

Well, I don't quite buy into it. Alright, I openly admit to being a partisan Ontario PC hack, but I remain convinced that the upcoming provincial election will be a rerun of 1995 with good, ol' Dalton playing the role of the Premier-in-waiting who gets the stuffing knocked out of him. Remember Lyn Macleod? A bland, affable, centrist with no ideas. A strawperson whose support was the proverbial miles wide and inches deep. That's Dalton McGuinty. Contrary to what Mr. Rolston, Mr. Janes, and yes, occasionally me, believe, Premier Eves consistently outpolls his own party as the most popular out of all the provincial leaders. Personalize the race, make it an Eves vs. McGuinty match-up ignoring the various scandals of the last year and focussing solely on leadership qualities and the "trust factor," and we'll win. Make this referendum on the "Common Sense Revolution" or the government of Ernie Eves (as opposed to the personality) and we lose. The Liberals however just can't get around the problem that at the very heart of their campaign is a big, boring void. If Eves can bring out the weird, off-putting Al Gore-like qualities of McGuinty, especially in the debates (which I am convinced that he is more than capable of doing), then all the Chris Stockwells and mismanaged budget stagings in the world will not save the Liberals. Ontariens are not prepared to entrust the government of this province to an non-entity. Especially a Liberal one. Which brings me to my second point of why we're going to win the next provincial election.

Imagine it's 2004 and Barbara Hall is Mayor, Dalton McGuinty is Premier, and Paul Martin is Prime Minister. All three levels of government are now held by Liberals. Such a monopoly of power in the hands of one political party will look utterly unacceptable to the general public, if we Conservatives are actually smart enough to point this out. For example, a fear of over-reaching single party political dominance is one reason why the very liberal state of Massachusetts has elected Republican governors four times in a row, even while returning two Democratic Senators and an all-Democratic congressional delegation to Washington and giving the Democrats veto-proof majorities in the State House and State Senate. Obviously, the Liberals are going to romp home for a fourth mandate federally and right now, the Premiers are just about the only decent opposition the Federal govenrment is receiving. Does Dalton McGuinty seem like someone ready to stand-up for Ontario interests and defy a Prime Minister Paul Martin to you? I don't think so. All Premier Eves has to do is ask whether or not Ontariens are ready to hand over the reins of the most populous and wealthiest province in all of Canada to the Liberals, at a time when their federal counterparts are not only unchallenged, but growing increasingly arrogant, controlling, and lazy, precisely because of such a lack of real political opposition. I think we all know the answer to that question.

The greatest fear among us Ontario Conservatives is not really a Dalton McGuinty-led majority government. It is a Dalton McGuinty-led minority government with the NDP backing it up. I ask you, do you want the socialists returning to the halls of power through the back door? Don't you remember that golden age of 1990-1995? Does the term "Rae Days" stir up any nightmares? Just a few more reasons why you should vote Conservative in the next election.

P.S. In direct answer to Mr. Janes, no, it wasn't us Tories who put-up that wind turbine (which I actually think is kind of neat-looking). It was Toronto City Council at the direct urging of Jack Layton. I should know, since when I listened to Layton's first official speech as NDP leader from the convention floor last January, he kept blathering on about it and how he would build fields upon fields of the things across the country eventually.