Promise
By Eric Dowd
Toronto – Visions of Premier Dalton McGuinty and politicians anywhere for the first time being hauled into court and held responsible for broken promises have been dashed – but it could not have been any other way.
A taxpayers’ group took the novel step of asking a court to rule McGuinty breached a contract when he failed to keep a promise not to increase taxes, but it held the promise was not legally binding.
The claim arose because the Liberal leader in the 2003 election signed supporting the Canadian Taxpayers (no apostrophe) Federation’s call not to increase taxes, but raised them quickly after becoming premier.
The Ontario Superior Court offered the meager consolation McGuinty is not the first to break a promise and voters can hope politicians will keep theirs, but not count on it.
The ruling has caused many to lament politicians can break promises with impunity. But courts would have huge difficulties judging whether politicians broke promises and what they should do about it.
When McGuinty promised not to increase taxes, the preceding Progressive Conservative government was insisting its finances were strong and it would balance its budget, although there were unofficial signs it faced a huge deficit.
A judge would have to decide whether the Liberals had the right to rely on an earlier government or should have listened to others’ warnings.
Courts would have to define what constitutes a broken promise. Would it be a breach if a government was given inaccurate information by a previous government or anyone else?
Would it be a breach if it kept part of a promise, for example if it pledged $500 million more for hospitals, but provided only $400 million?
Would a promise have to be in a party’s formal election platform or could it have been made any time, including years before by a leader or lesser candidate?
The Tories won an election under Mike Harris in 1995 in which their candidates in Toronto circulated leaflets promising they and their parties would never introduce feared legislation to assess and tax properties at market value.
Once in government, the Tories passed legislation to assess and tax properties on the same criteria as market value, their value if sold by a willing seller to a willing buyer, but re-named it current value assessment, hoping to muffle criticism.
A court would have to decide whether they avoided breaking a promise by changing the name and whether the breach was by individual MPPs or their leader, who should have known.
Other concerns include what powers a court would have to provide redress if it found a promise broken, could it order it kept and could it consider whether public needs and priorities had changed and keeping it no longer would be a benefit – these are tall orders for a court to rule on.
All premiers have broken promises. Harris often is cited as different because he kept some big ones, but he failed to keep others, including those to restrict casino gambling and not to close hospitals.
New Democrat Bob Rae abandoned many, the flagship being public auto insurance on which his party campaigned for decades.
Durable Tory William Davis broke many, including one to balance his budget when desperate to regain his majority.
Now the courts have ruled they have no role when politicians break promises, voters will be left with trying to remember them in future elections and news media are being more helpful than usual by repeated focus on McGuinty’s party as the Fiberals.
One thing they should not wait for is politicians to feel embarrassed and resign. Only one, Tory backbencher Toni Skarica, has quit the legislature in recent years for breaking a promise.
His party assured him it would not merge local municipalities and he campaigned on this in the 1999 election and won, but it started merging and he said he did not feel honorable winning on a broken promise. Few politicians have that much honor.
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