Tag Archives: Kathleen Wynne

Accepting NDP ideas could create Wynne-win situation

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Published May 13, 2013, in The Waterloo Region Record.

This is how it is supposed to work in a parliamentary democracy, isn’t it?

Party leaders and their confederates present competing visions (or, more prosaically, platforms) for the electorate to consider. But once the election is over, smart winners don’t simply impose their visions.

They remember that elections are not decided by partisans (Tim Hudak take note). Core supporters are important, but elections are won or lost on the votes of “loose fish” — uncommitted or lightly affiliated voters — who swim around at election time. More important, smart winners understand that they have not been elected solely to cater to their core; they understand that people who did not (and might never) vote for them are entitled to the same consideration from the government as its partisans.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is a smart leader. She understands this. (The same cannot be said of the ideologues in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, or in the Republican party in the United States, but let us not go there today.)

Because she is a smart leader, Wynne is suppressing the frustration she surely feels as NDP Leader Andrea Horwath keeps coming back for more, ratcheting up the price of her party’s support for the minority Liberal government’s budget. The latest demand: creation of a financial accountability office, patterned after the parliamentary budget office in Ottawa.
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Horwath has already snagged some notable concessions, including reduced car insurance rates, more money for home-care and a youth jobs strategy. Now she wants an independent accountability officer, who would report to the speaker of the legislature, not to the government, to provide oversight of government spending.

Although Conservatives (and undoubtedly some Liberals, too) think Horwath has moved beyond poker to a different game — to wit, blackmail — what’s so wrong with that? If there had been a system of independent oversight earlier, some of the more egregious spending scandals of the Dalton McGuinty era might never have happened or been nipped in the bud: eHealth, Ornge ambulance, gas-plant relocations, to mention just three. As long as the government itself oversees government spending, bad stuff tends to slip through. A parliamentary or legislative budget officer is not a panacea, but the position does introduce an element of transparency and, one hopes, caution and restraint.

It’s worth noting that in Ottawa the parliamentary budget office was created in the wake of the Liberals’ sponsorship scandal by the first Harper minority government, then in its pro-accountability days. The Conservatives got much more than they bargained for as the budget officer, Kevin Page, shone a searchlight on government spending — on the war in Afghanistan, prisons and fighter jets, among other things. His term expired in March. He was denied an extension and the office remains vacant while the Tories conduct a leisurely search for a less vigilant watchdog.

At Queen’s Park, Wynne is trying to distance herself from McGuinty’s legacy. Her government still looks and acts too much like his. She needs new faces and new ideas. The spending watchdog is one idea whose time has come. Its projected cost, $2.5 million a year, is almost nothing next to the hundreds of millions wasted in the gas-plant fiasco alone.

So why does Wynne hesitate? Why doesn’t she thank Horwath effusively and grab this shiny new idea? For one thing, she knows that watchdogs have a habit of biting the hand that appoints them. For another, she knows that the more ideas she accepts from the NDP the more she enhances the credibility of a party that is fishing in the same pool of progressive voters.

But to flip that coin over, the risk is just as real for Horwath. The more ideas she insists the Liberals steal, the greater the attraction Wynne’s Liberals will have for her own NDP voters. Why stay true to Andrea Howarth when New Democrats can enjoy the same policies, and have a government to boot, by voting for Kathleen Wynne?

Such is democracy at work.

Geoffrey Stevens on CTV’s Province Wide

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Published May 5, 2013, on CTV Province Wide

Geoffrey Stevens talks about what the future holds for Premier Kathleen Wynne and an Ontario election. Stevens believes that Wynne will be in good shape through the summer but notes that it will be interesting to see what happens in the Fall. There is a 50/50 chance that we will have an election in the Fall and a 100 percent chance that we will have an election at this time, next year.

You can watch the video by clicking here.

Tales of three political battles

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Published May. 6, 2013, in The Waterloo Region Record

Who says Canadian politics is dull?

In this neck of the woods, we are witnessing three fascinating political battles. At Queen’s Park, Premier Kathleen Wynne is fighting for survival. Last week’s budget bought her Liberals some time, enough to get through the summer, I think, and probably the fall. My guess is she won’t make it – or want to make it – past next spring’s budget.

In Ottawa, the Liberal party, perceived to be moribund following three general election defeats, is struggling to return to life under Justin Trudeau, its fifth leader (including interim Bob Rae) in seven years. It’s beginning to look as though the Liberals will manage to self-resuscitate. A Harris-Decima poll for Canadian Press last week put them a surprising seven percentage points ahead of the Conservatives and 13 points ahead of the sagging New Democrats. These are early, honeymoon days, but those numbers aren’t at all shabby for a Liberal party that is running on charisma alone. Hope has returned to Liberal-land.

Meanwhile, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, master of all he surveyed for the past seven years, is struggling to reassert control. His caucus is restive. Some MPs resent the discipline he imposes on them in Parliament; others refuse to distribute the ugly anti-Liberal propaganda produced by Tory party central. Among the public, there appears to be a growing sense that the Tories are going too far with their television attack ads.

Toughness is a quality that Canadian accept, even admire, in their politicians; meanness is not. The Conservative attack ads on Justin Trudeau cross that line. The Harper people don’t seem to care that some of their “facts” are distorted while some are simply untrue. Stephen Harper is becoming seen as Stephen McNasty, who plays politics hard and dirty.
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He also needs to regain control over his legislative agenda. Whatever else they may be, the Harper Conservatives use to pride themselves on being competent managers. But no longer. Not with the F-35 debacle, the cabinet’s inability to organize the purchase of new search and rescue aircraft, and now there’s a report that the fleet of Arctic patrol ships the government plans to buy are not suitable for use in Arctic waters.

Not least, there is the “missing” $3.1 billion that Parliament approved for anti-terrorism security. The money is not technically lost; it’s just that the government’s financial wizards can’t find it. (Perhaps Treasury Board President Tony Clement hid it in one of his gazebos.)

But back to Kathleen Wynne, Andrea Horwath and the soap opera at Queen’s Park. The facts are simple. Premier Wynne and her finance minister had to bring in a budget. Being a minority government, they didn’t have enough votes to get it through the Legislature. The Conservatives had their feet planted in cement, but NDP leader Horwath was willing to deal. She presented a number of demands. Wynne accepted all the important ones.

“Thank you, Kathleen,” Horwath might have said. “Bless you. You are saint.” And she could have told her party, “Hey, we won! We won! Break out the soda water” (or whatever New Democrats uncork to toast a triumph).

But no. Hearing whispers of dissent, Horwath declared the deal was not yet a done deal. She decided she wanted to consult the people, so she opened a phone line and a website. She plans to meet the premier, probably this week, to seek assurances that the Liberals will change their spots and become more accountable in the future than they have been in the past. Good luck to her!

The NDP is playing with fire. If Howarth reneges, Wynne would not even have to wait to be defeated in the house. She would be within her rights to march down the hall to the lieutenant-governor, tell him the situation is untenable, ask for dissolution and call a snap election. She could win a Liberal majority on back of the faithless New Democrats.

Nothing dull about that, is there?

Ontario’s Liberals, NDP must seek a delicate balance

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Published Feb. 4, 2013, The Waterloo Region Record. 

Surely everyone has heard of the ancient Chinese curse that translated loosely says, “May you live in interesting times.”

In fact, the curse may actually be of English, not Chinese, origin and it may have started out as a proverb rather than a curse. But no matter. Everyone has heard of it — certainly everyone at Queen’s Park these days.

Ontario politics have a reputation for being somewhat predictable. Some might describe them as an especially boring shade of grey. But no longer. No one — not the players or the pundits — has the faintest idea how the next few weeks and months may unfold. Any day could bring a surprise.

Interesting? More like fascinating.

All we can say with confidence is that Ontario is under new management. Kathleen Wynne will be sworn in as premier next Monday. She will appoint a cabinet. They will meet the Legislature eight days later, on Feb. 19. What will happen then is anyone’s guess.
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It seems reasonable to assume that Wynne, as leader of a minority government, will be anxious to avoid an early election. There’s not much polling data yet to draw on, but what there is suggests her personal popularity is high, higher than Andrea Horwath of the NDP (who places second) or Tim Hudak of the Progressive Conservatives (in third) — and higher, certainly, than the popularity of her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty.

Wynne’s popularity may be fleeting — about what one would expect for any new leader emerging from a highly publicized leadership convention. So far, her popularity does not seem to be translating into public support for her Liberals. One poll suggests the party under Wynne is still in third place (with the Tories in first) while another poll puts the three parties duking it out within the margin of error.

To avoid an election, Wynne will have look to Horwath and the NDP. To complicate matters, the two leaders are simultaneously natural allies and natural rivals. They are natural allies to the extent that both are at home in the centre-left of the political spectrum. But they are also rivals who must fish in the same pool of moderate or progressive voters.

Their dance will be a delicately calibrated minuet. Horwath will have to calculate how far she can push Wynne for concessions without pushing her into an election that could bring Hudak to power. For her part, Wynne will have to calculate how much she can afford to give Horwath without losing her own claim to be the voice of the moderate left.

On one level, these interesting times will be more predictable for Tim Hudak. He has the right side of the spectrum to himself. He can be expected to oppose anything Wynne or Wynne/Horwath try to do. His single objective is an election.

He will be operating on two assumptions. First, that the people of Ontario are so fed up with the Liberals that they will welcome the opportunity to complete the housecleaning they began in October 2011. Second, that the Conservative lead in the polls will convert into votes and seats in an election.

Hudak, however, may find both assumptions to be fallacious. I’m reminded of Ottawa in December 1979 when the minority Tory government of Joe Clark made two fatal miscalculations. They assumed the small Social Credit caucus was so terrified of an election that it would not dare to vote with the Liberals and NDP against Finance Minister John Crosbie’s budget. That proved wrong. The Tories also assumed that if the new government fell, the public would be so outraged that it would punish the Liberals by electing a majority Conservative government. Instead, the voters went back to the Liberals (who seemed competent if not lovable) and handed Pierre Trudeau a majority.

Those were interesting times in Ottawa, just as these promise to be interesting times at Queen’s Park. Interesting for all the anxious political players, not to mention the confused corps of political pundits.

Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne: class, conviction and courage

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Published Jan. 28, 2013, The Waterloo Region Record. 

There’s an old saying in politics that new leaders are never stronger than on the day they take over. If they are going to make changes, they should make them quickly, while the goodwill lasts and before their opponents get dug in.

Kathleen Wynne understands. Fresh from her victory at the Ontario Liberal leadership convention, she announced she will recall the Legislature, prorogued since last fall, on Feb. 19. Between now and then, she will appoint a cabinet, prepare a throne speech and meet with the opposition party leaders in the hope of winning their cooperation to avoid an election this spring.

That done, she will have to tackle some of the detritus left behind by Dalton McGuinty – the Ornge Ambulance and hydro-plant spending scandals; a provincial deficit now estimated at $12 billion this year; and a poisoned relationship between the provincial government and organized labour, especially the teachers and the other public sector unions. She has to do all this with a minority in the Legislature where at least some of her opponents hunger for an early opportunity to bring her down.

The next six weeks should give Ontarians a reasonably clear picture of what to expect from the Wynne government. They should also reveal where on the political spectrum she intends to position her party.
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Ever since Mike Harris moved the Progressive Conservatives to the Reform right, the Liberals have straddled the middle. McGuinty was particularly adept at moving the Liberals to the right to pick off Red Tory voters when the Conservatives threatened, or to the left to recapture soft Liberals when the threat came from the other direction. The Liberals knew they could win elections so long as they held the NDP below 20 per cent of the popular vote.

Wynne’s dilemma can be seen in a poll published on the eve of the convention. It put the Liberals in third place, about eight percentage points behind the first-place New Democrats and five points behind the Tories.

She knows three things. First, election-weary Ontario voters do not want another trip to the polls. Second, they want politicians to tone down the rhetoric and get back to work. Third, the route to avoid an election and to get the Legislature back to work goes through the NDP.

Conservative leader Tim Hudak, it is assumed, would trade his grandmother for a ticket to the polls; he knows the next election may be his last chance at the brass ring. NDP leader Andrea Horwath and Wynne come from a similar direction. Neither, for her own reasons, wants an election any time soon. As long as she can extract enough goodies at strategic intervals, Horwath will prop up the Liberals, perhaps through the end of this year, if not longer. For her part, Wynne made it clear in her speeches at the convention and in her press conference afterward that she is prepared to deal.

To my mind, the speeches made by Wynne and her principal rival, Sandra Pupatello, before the voting on Saturday were most interesting parts of the convention. Pupatello, the perceived front-runner, made a fine, but traditional, political speech, impassioned and partisan; no one doubted that she meant it when she said she would bring the opposition parties to their knees.

Wynne seemed more conciliatory, more disposed than Pupatello to work with the opposition. Wynne’s was one of the best convention speeches I have heard in years. It had class, conviction and courage, especially when she took on the “elephant in the room” – the issue of her lesbianism. She was absolutely convincing. Her words may have alienated some skittish delegates, but I think her powerful candor made it virtually impossible for moderate delegates who had been supporting Charles Sousa and Gerard Kennedy not to move to Wynne on the final ballot.

Now, Wynne has a chance to turn her Liberals into a progressive presence on the provincial scene. If she succeeds, the NDP will be the loser.