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
-----------------------------------

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.

Recommend this Post

Thanks for the Memories John

John Tory is by most accounts a decent man, but tonight his career in Ontario politics has ended as I had thought it might. I'll have A LOT more to say about this later, but for now, in all seriousness I would just like to say thank you to John Tory for your service.

And of course congrats to Rick Johnson and Dalton McGuinty's team for their phenomenal victory tonight.

Recommend this Post

Ontario PC's: Taking Pleasure in the Misfortune of Others

This story really says it all:
“PCs see opportunity in hard times”

the rapidly deteriorating economy....is widely viewed as an opportunity

"People smell blood," said a veteran Conservative backroom operative

"From 2008 to 2009, it's like somebody flicked a switch," said party president Ken Zeise. "It's like, `pinch myself.' This is an amazing year."

So let's get this straight, the Ontario PCs are HOPING that this recession stretches out for another 30 MONTHS so that they'll have an easier time convincing Ontarians to accept a party they resoundingly rejected in the last two elections? The economy takes a dive, unemployment sky-rockets and that makes for an "amazing year"? Well doesn't this tell us everything we need to know about how much John Tory's party really cares about all those suffering in the economic crisis? Oh yes they care, I guess they're just hoping the poor and newly layed-off workers suffer awhile longer so their partisan ambitions can be more easily satisfied.

The Mike Harris fan club want to replace the McGuinty government? Fine. I've yet to hear any compelling reason why they deserve to be anywhere close to government, but is it too much to ask that their try another route to argue their case than one that relies on the prolonged suffering of others?

I guess I should expect no less from the guys that seemed to take pride in beating up on the poor when they were last in power.

And should we be so unfortunate as to still be in a recession in October 2011, in case the PCs haven't realized, the LAST guys Ontarians will want in power in a prolonged recession are the same people that horribly managed the public purse (and blatantly lied about it) and decimated our social safety net.

But sure carry on hoping for Ontarians to suffer for longer and engaging in more Mike Harris adoration as you did this past weekend - you're just showing Ontarians how incredibly out of touch you are.

Recommend this Post

Harper and Co. Reveal to Ontario PCs Exactly How They'd Like to Govern: Mike Harris Style

Aside from Jason Kenney's troubling revelation this weekend (which many others have blogged about) that his colleagues (and perhaps himself as well) see his job as primarily wining and dining members of ethnic communities instead of actually helping them and providing sound immigration policy (which completely proves that Conservative "outreach" is a complete façade) , something else in his remarks caught my eye:
"But he reserved most of his praise for Tory's far-right predecessor, former Ontario premier Mike Harris, and his controversial "Common Sense Revolution" agenda".

We all know cabinet ministers don't say anything without it running it by the PMO so anything said by a cabinet minister can be reasonably assumed to reflect Stephen Harper's views.

So Harper and his ministers think that a recession where poverty and unemployment will rise dramatically is a good time to praise the Harris government that did everything it could to dismantle the social safety net?

And they think the Harris government provided sound economic management when they left behind a $6 billion deficit (and lied about it!) even after selling off every provincial asset they could get away? I guess Harper's easily on pass to top that.

Wow! Just one more reason why these guys could NEVER be trusted with a majority. Mike Harris did enough damage to Ontario, and as much Conservatives would like a national "common sense revolution" I have enough faith in Canadians that they will never give them the majority to do that with.

P.S. For those wondering more what went on at the Ontario PC Conventipon in Niagara Falls it seems Darryl Wolk is the only blogger who provided coverage (if you know of others add them in the comments).

Recommend this Post

Mr. Tory's Last Ride?

So March 5 is the day for John Tory. While I'm sure he's conforted in the knowledge that he's running in a place where his party got 50% of the vote in the last election and he certainly goes in the favourite, Tory seems to have a habit of falling below expectations. It 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. We shall see, but I guess John Tory is already gonna half to skip away from HKLB to see his party in Niagara Falls this weekend. Something tells me there's not gonna be as many happy campers there as he'd hope.
-------------------------------------------------
John Tory learns his fate March 5


The Canadian Press
February 4, 2009 at 5:29 PM EST
TORONTO — Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has called a by-election in a riding that Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory hopes will be his ticket back into the legislature.

The premier's office says voters in the central Ontario riding of Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock near Peterborough will go to the polls on March 5.

Mr. Tory announced he would seek the seat after Conservative Laurie Scott stepped down last month to make way for him.

He's been without a seat since his ill-fated bid in the 2007 election for the Toronto riding held by Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.

Local school board chairman Rick Johnson will be running for the Liberals.

Three New Democrats — Lynne Boldt, Lyn Edwards and Stephen Woof — are each vying for their party's nomination.

Recommend this Post

John Tory Decides He Wants to Be Kicked Around Some More

So he says he's staying. He's flip-flopped on big issues before, so maybe he'll change his mind again before the month is out, so we'll see what happens, but given his pretty clear statement on the matter, I'll assume he's staying for now. Now John Tory just has to get himself a seat. Good luck to him convincing one of his caucus members to step down....

Recommend this Post

66.9%: Has Any Leader in Canadian History Stayed On With Anything As Low As That?

So 66.9% of delegates voted AGAINST a leadership review. A clear majority to be sure, but in order to win an election don't you need more than that from your own party to win?

Has anyone ever stayed on with a rating this low? For comparison purposes, Bernard Landry (PQ) received 76.2% and resigned and Joe Clark received the exact same 66.9% and also resigned. Dalton McGuinty stayed on with getting more than 80% support.

That said the rating is not so low as where he couldn't credibly claim to be able to lead the party, it's still a clear majority and it's not as bad as Ralph Kelin's 55% which forced him to step down. A leadership review is the proper way of deciding whether a leader should go or not, but ultimately the real decision in cases like this reside with the leader himself.

But the historical comparisons are pretty clear so John Tory will be against that. He definitely has some thinking to do....

If I had to guess, I would say he doesn't make it past the month. I guess 30% of those who voted in my poll predicted this range (60-69%) (a biased and small sample to be sure), and a majority of votes here said he won't hang on.

We'll see if they are right, but the decision ultimately rests with Tory.

UPDATE: As it turns out, apparently, there was one leader in Canadian history who stayed on with less support: Joe Clark. He got 66.5% in 1981 and hung on, but decided that John Tory's number wasn't enough in 1983 so he called the leadership race then (thanks to CalgaryGrit for pointing that out).

So I guess both John Tory and his detractors can use Joe Clark as an example!



For the record here are the poll results the following questions:
“How Many Ontario PC Party Delegates Will Vote No to a Leadership Review Next Weekend (Feb 22-24) At Their Convention?”

The results were as follows:

80% + - 8% of votes
70-79% - 0% of votes
60-69% - 30% of votes
50-59% - 39% of votes
Less than 50% - 21% of votes

For the question:
"Will John Tory Resign After The Leadership Review Vote?"

The results were as follows:

Yes, Within One Day - 30%
Yes, Within One Month - 25%
No, He Will Hang On - 45%

Recommend this Post

Randy Hillier 2011!! Countdown to John Tory's Leadership Review Vote

So next weekend, John Tory faces the music from his party as Ontario PC Party delegates gather in London to decide whether they should have a leadership race. After waging one of the worst campaigns in recent memory he's definitely got a lot of apologizing to do.

Personally I think the best choice for the PC Party would be for them to give John Tory the boot and to replace him with the absolutely brilliant choice of Randy Hillier!

Surely Randy would lead his party back to the government benches as he definitely does represent the viewpoints of most Ontarians. Hopefully the PC Party delegates heed my sage advice as I only have their best interests at heart.

In the spirit of what may be the beginning of the end of John Tory's leadership, I'd like to introduce the next historic poll for this blog. This time you even get two!

Will John Tory get the 80%+1 to vote against a leadership review that would be needed to keep his position secure? Will he even break 50%?

Will he resign? Will he stay? Vote away....

UPDATE: The final poll results can be found here.

Recommend this Post

John Tory Seems to Have to Lost His Mind

Just quickly saw John Tory on Focus Ontario. He actually said that 50% +1 for his leadership review would be sufficient to carry on as leader. Even when prodded, he kept saying "the constitution of the party is very clear".

Has any Canadian leader in history ever stayed on with any less than 60% (never the mind the many that resigned with just under 80%)? Has any Canadian leader ever set the bar any lower?

Is John Tory losing his mind?

Recommend this Post

Sorbara and Opposition Nonsense

So with McGuinty’s new cabinet being sworn on Tuesday, it’s back to Provincial politics. Of course the big news this week was Sorbara saying he wouldn’t sit in cabinet. He cited deep personal reasons and wanting to spend more time with his family, which is a reason we accepted for several female Liberals who recently left politics, so I take him at his word that has nothing to do with political issues or differences. At the same time, he can still serve his constituents (after all you don’t have to be unemployed to spend sufficient time with your family).

Though I’ve been disappointed with some of the coverage of this and the response from the opposition. Adam Radwanski usually has some great things to say that from time to time I agree with, but I don't buy what Radwanski is suggesting about this resignation. Sorbara has been one of McGuinty’s biggest allies over the past 8 years and has worked his ass off to help him. McGuinty in return repaid him with the top cabinet post. There was certainly no Chretien-Martin like animosity between the two whatsoever so suggestions that Sorbara is doing this to plot leadership ambitions I think is false given that this would not be the way to go around doing that anyway (you would stay in cabinet and continue to show yourself to a team player and strong performer). So again I think Sorbara has personal reasons to resign and probably would have actually wanted to return to Finance but was persuaded otherwise by his family.

But then there was the shameful response from John Tory and the NDP. First Tory:
“I think the average IQ around that cabinet table just crashed with his departure, and I’m concerned about that for the sake of the province,” said Tory ...I just wish he’d announced he was leaving before the election. I think people would have taken a different look at the McGuinty government without the brains of the operation being there.”

This is BS. First of all, was Tory saying this the last time Sorbara left cabinet? No Tory was insinuating that the RCMP had good reason to investigate Sorbara (of course the RCMP were strongly rebuked on this and Sorbara was completely removed from the investigation) and that McGuinty should distance himself as far as possible from him. Meanwhile, McGuinty’s cabinet carried on just fine and Dwight Duncan brought down a great budget. Don’t get me wrong, Sorbara was an excellent finance minister and would have deserved the post again, but the Liberals managed fine without him before and will again. It’s still a loss though for sure but not anywhere near the level Tory insinuates.

Then there was the even more ridiculous comment from the NDP:
New Democrat Rosario Marchese believes the resignation will be ``a huge blow to the Liberal Party,” and said Sorbara should also resign his seat if he really wants to spend more time with his family.
“If he wants to be a full-time granddad, then I think the riding deserves a full-time member,” said Marchese.

Ridiculous! So is Rosario saying that you can’t be a good grandfather unless you are unemployed? The ones that actually left politics it was to spend more time with their children. Has anyone ever left for grandchildren? Anyways, Sorbara is saying that his cabinet duties took too much time away from his family, so he is scaling back his work to spend more time with them. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still hold a job representing the citizens of Vaughn. Marchese should apologize. Like c’mon have a little class, Sorbara just resigns and the very next minute he’s out attacking him and making outrageous statements. He should really know better.
Shame on the opposition for trying to score partisan points out of what is a very personal matter for Mr. Sorbara. They’re not off to a great start this session, that’s for sure.

I'll be back later with a full list of who I would pick for McGuinty's next cabinet.

UPDATE: Radwanski takes it back. Says that he’s been informed that there were real personal issues that happened recently (death of Sorbara’s sister-in-law) that have led Sorbara to ultimately take this decision. Good for Radwanksi for correcting himself. This further bolsters my view that Marchese should apologize though, does he still think Sorbara should resign his seat?

Recommend this Post

Who is “John Tory” Hiding?

Recently, I went to an all candidate’s debate in the Golden Horseshoe. The PC Candidate, who I will not name (because all you need to know is that the individual is YOUR John Tory Candidate), was distributing campaign materials: 4 to be precise. None of these pieces of literature gave me any information on the PC Candidate, who would be representing the people, if elected. The PC information was roughly divided up this way: 50% focusing how evil an influence Dalton McGuinty has been in Ontario, 25% introducing to me to John Tory, and the remainder 25% about a vague PC "plan" for Ontario. I imagine that this PC info and materials was the template-norm for all PC candidates that were distributed in Ontario.

The bottom line seems to be that the people, who vote for a representative, don't need to know who their representative is, only that they are a JOHN TORY candidate. Supposedly that representative will only be representing John Tory and his views, not their own or their constituents. But we all know that everyone has their own motivations, ambitions and ideas. More importantly, this is potentially the person who you'll be dealing with when it comes to issues, not John Tory. Additionally, I’ve noticed the party is not promoting the fact that it is a PC/Progressive Conservative party, but again, rather a “John Tory” party, as “John Tory” is more prominently and frequently displayed on PC materials than is “PC” or “Progressive Conservative” actually is. I can be led to assume that the party is almost ashamed of its own party and candidates. I can only wonder and imagine why…...

The fact that all the PC candidates are hiding behind John Tory is scary. It's scary because just who in fact are his candidates? We have a right to know. Why aren't we being told their story and their motivations and life history? Why aren’t these candidates themselves even telling us their own story? Because obviously more than one of the PC candidates has something to hide from Ontarians that would keep us from voting for them if we really knew who they were and their beliefs. Now granted a PC candidate's bio can be found on the PC website, but to actually find that takes interest and work on a voter's behalf.
The only information about this PC candidate that I got from attending this debate was from one of his own campaign workers: he was formally in the religious life, but is no longer as he now manages a multi-million dollar company. Ok: one priority of his is big business, got it, and what a surprise from a PC candidate.

The PC Candidate at the event I attended also had the opportunity to meet me, but he didn’t take the initiative. I say it like this because really, a candidate wants to meet as many people as possible to make a good impression, and if you don’t take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves, then you deserve not to get that vote. Granted, I was wearing a Dalton.ca t-shirt, but it would have been very nice for him to introduce himself to me when I was standing right in front of him in a non-busy situation. Let’s relate this to a very practical similar scenario: when canvassing, another party’s sign on one’s lawn is not a deterrent to any candidate of another party to still approach that house and inquire if they are really sold on their vote and if that sign truly does represent their views. Furthermore, any candidate is running because, we assume, that they want to win. If they do win, they will represent everyone, not just PCers. That's the reasoning behind the fact that no constituency office is allowed to have any party materials/logo in that office. I did expect an introduction, and I was let down by this "John Tory" candidate. He clearly doesn't want to represent me.

Recommend this Post

PC Ads: Despicable

Have you seen the new PC TV ads? One implicitly blaming McGuinty for thousands of Ontarian deaths due to smog and for not closing coal plants (which the PCs will not do), and the other blaming McGuinty for all murders committed by people out on bail? No real solutions proposed in those ads of course, just reckless negativity and totally unwarranted accusations.

These commercials have brought the PC party down to a brand new low. John Tory: Taking advantage of other’s misfortune for his own benefit.

I’m sure we’ll see much more of this (and worse) from “classy John” as the campaign wears on. He sure has kept his promise to bring things up to a new level hasn’t he?

Recommend this Post