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Politically Incorrect

A Liberal majority — a mere formality

by Arthur Weinreb

October 6, 2003

The Ontario provincial election turned out pretty well as predicted. The Liberals won a comfortable majority and the PCs, unlike their federal counterparts, avoided decimation by capturing one seat and holding on to 23 others. NDP leader Howard Hampton, who spent the better part of the campaign putting on little shows for the already converted, ended up with holding his regular 15% support of the already converted.

In 1995 and 1999 Mike Harris ran on the platform of the Common Sense Revolution and strongly held conservative beliefs. He won two majority governments and when he governed he won a lot of respect, from some from his most ardent detractors, by doing exactly what he said he would do. Mike Harris will go down in history as a leader who believed in something and put those beliefs into practice.

If the voters were consistent in any one thing it was that a majority of Ontarians wanted change--the one thing that the Tories simply couldn’t provide. Due to the nature of municipal politics, it is almost impossible to defeat an incumbent. And Zimbabweans will vote out Robert Mugabe before Canadians can ever get rid of the federal Liberals. The only change that was possible for Ontario voters was to change the provincial government.

The real problems for the Tories started when Harris stepped down. Ernie Eves, who had left government for a lucrative position on Bay Street was persuaded to run for the Tory leadership when polls showed that he was the only one who was capable of beating Dalton McGuinty in the next election. But as soon as Eves won the leadership, he moved to the center, making defeat in this election almost inevitable.

Ernie Eves is not the first leader to succeed a successful conservative leader, move to the center, and then get soundly trounced. When George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan, one of the most popular U.S. presidents, he said: "read my lips, no tax increases" and then increased taxes. George was a one-termer and was soundly defeated by Bill Clinton who billed himself as a conservative "New Democrat" and promised to end welfare as we know it. Allthough John Major won an election after he succeeded Margaret Thatcher, he was soundly trounced by Tony Blair who ran on a relatively conservative "New Labour" platform.

When Ernie Eves was elected to lead the Ontario PCs he also got to occupy the office of the premier, but then forgot exactly how he got there. One of his first moves was to appoint Red Tory, Elizabeth Witmer as the deputy premier, causing the National Post’s Andrew Coyne to accurately predict that "this is the way the world will end--not with a bang, but a Witmer".

While Eves was in power he became Liberal-like, flip-flopping in an attempt to be all things to all people. He was in favour of privatizing hydro, then he wasn’t. He was in favour of same sex marriage until it didn’t resonate with his base; and then he was against it. He froze hydro rates while asking Ontarians to cut back their power usage. And worst of all, he acted as though Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution never existed.

On election night, Citytv’s Peter Silverman said that Ernie Eves had a choice of being premier or going back to Bay Street for $3 million a year and that he just didn’t seem hungry enough to win. There is a lot of merit in that view. Eves only weakly defended his so-called attack ads that did nothing more than personalize the policies of the Liberals. Everyone from the opposition parties to the media to those who opposed the Conservatives had been personalizing policies since 1995. The Tories didn’t lower welfare rates--Mike Harris did. There were no Tory tax cuts--Mike Harris gave tax cuts.

Ernie Eves showed not only indifference to the policies that led him to the premier’s office--he showed indifference to the real personal attacks that were made against Dalton McGuinty. His refusal to apologize when a junior staffer sent an email to the media referring to the Liberal leader as an "evil reptilian kitten-eater" showed that Eves not only had no core beliefs, no real will to win--he had no class. Eves didn’t help himself, when, in the last days of the campaign, he talked about what was coming into McGuinty’s "pointy little head". Eves was making the same kind of mistakes that cost former Liberal leaders David Peterson and Lyn McLeod their chances to come to power.

According to Ernie Eves and the gang, Dalton McGuinty is a little pointy-headed evil reptilian kitten-eater. Must be awfully difficult to lose an election to one of those.