John Tory
John Tory, known as a
Bill Davis acolyte was elected to the Provincial Legislature and took his
seat as leader of the Opposition in Ontario on Tuesday March 29, 2005.
When he was elected leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives
in September 2004, one wonders if this signals the death of
neo-conservatism in Ontario. The short answer is no and the long answer is
NO.
With John Tory as the new
leader of the Ontario Conservatives, how do you view the party and its
prospects? It will take years
to get Ontario back from the neglect and disrepair left by the
Conservatives under Mike Harris. Meanwhile, they will tell McGuinty he
broke promises as he struggles to deal with the mess they left him. Does
electing a new leader wipe away the party’s history?
Is John Tory's supposedly
more socially conscious image just that or if and when John Tory gets
power maybe he'll merely take us down the same path of Harris or Eves,
who, we are still suffering ill effects from.
Actually, I like John
Tory as the new leader. He is
more to the center than the other two contenders for the leadership of the
Party. His community work in Toronto will serve him well. He will unite
the Conservatives and Premier McGuinty will have to be on his Ps and Qs.
There are some problems
with John Tory, he is pro-private health care, pro-private school tax
credit, and pro-welfare bashing. These present a problem for most
Ontarians.
From where I stand the
Conservative Party will always serve the interests of big business,
regardless of who is the leader. I
am worried that John Tory's shift to the centre is merely theatre. If he gets elected, and if he becomes the next premier of
Ontario he will probably continue the privatization agenda of his
predecessors Harris and Eves.
But politics, like life,
is cyclical, so neo-conservatism will no doubt be on the upswing some day
in the future.
There were
neo-conservatives in the Ontario Conservative party in the early 1980s,
but they were controlled under the leadership of Bill Davis, a centrist
who, as premier, actually expanded the role of government including the
imposition of rent controls, the purchase of an oil company, and the
creation of TV Ontario. Tory was his chief aide then.
Neo-conservative
Harrisites were welcomed back into fold and given the reins of power.
In the run-up to the 2003 election, they produced a platform that
called for more tax cuts, a ban on teachers' strikes, more police, a
crackdown on illegal immigrants, and a scoop law for the homeless. Much of
it was borrowed from Flaherty's leadership campaign platform.
The voters rejected it
and elected McGuinty and the Liberals. But the neo-cons did not accept the
blame. Rather, they blamed Eves for his uneven performance.
Surely, Tory's victory
should be a wooden stake driven through the heart of neo-conservatism.
But we must remember that on the first ballot 55 per cent of the
votes went to Flaherty and Frank Klees, candidates who are far right and
both called for two-tier medicare. With
such a demonstration of support within the party, Tory cannot afford to
ignore the neo-cons. Indeed, he will have to reach out to them when platform time
comes around.
To appease the neo-cons,
Tory will almost certainly have to include a plank about the private
school tax credit, he talked about it during the leadership campaign, and
another tax cut.
A law-and-order plank
would be no problem for Tory because it would reflect his own views, as
articulated in his Toronto mayoral campaign.
Tory may even agree to some welfare bashing in the platform.
So neo-conservatism is not dead in Ontario. It retains a foothold
in the Provincial Conservative party.
And if Tory were to lose
the 2007 provincial election, the neo-cons would no doubt reclaim the
party leadership and boldly declare I-told-you-so.
Clyde Mc Neil
