It’s only natural for political leaders to look back in time and try and find an historical figure that they most resemble.
We don’t know if Ontario Progressive Leader John Tory does that, but if he is so inclined, he need only look at Czar Nicholas of Russia. It has often been said of the Russian czar that the two most powerful people during his reign were Nicholas himself and the person who talked to him last.
During the Ontario PC Party convention last weekend, elected delegates voted 66.9 per cent in favour of not holding a contest to select a new leader. After the Saturday vote was announced, Tory said that he would take some time to ponder his future. Then, barely 3 hours later he came back and announced that he was staying on as leader. Tory was then ridiculed as being weak and indecisive, whereas during the election campaign last October he was decisive but weak. According to Tory, he made the decision because during that short time a lot of people came up to him and urged him to stay. It’s not surprising that Tory supporters, with visions of future political largesse dancing in their heads would run up to him an beg him to stay on as party leader. It is equally not surprising that the anti-Tory forces would not go up to him right after the vote and tell him to quit after gaining the support of two thirds of the delegates. That wasn’t the time and place to attempt to get him to step down.
John Tory has been referred to as a “ditherer” which is a great insult to Paul Martin Jr. who, for those who may have forgotten, used to be the prime minister of Canada before Stephen Harper. At least Martin waited until he became prime minister before he started dithering. Tory has also been compared to Joe Clark who was laughed at when he resigned after obtaining a similar result in a leadership vote. Clark at least was decisive even though most of his major decisions were the wrong ones. Being compared to Czar Nicholas is bad enough but when comparisons are made between Tory and Paul Martin and Joe Clark, you just know the guy’s done.
At the convention Tory also promised that the party would not reintroduce the policy of funding for faith based schools in Ontario. The PCs knew that this policy would not fly prior to the last election campaign but introduced it anyway because John Tory wanted it. The issue of faith based education allowed the then vulnerable Dalton McGuinty to avoid having to deal with his record of lies and mismanagement and win another majority government. To now say that the party will stay away from that policy also shows weakness. It’s a little bit like, “I promise, Your Honour, just give me one more chance and I’ll never do it again”.
Tory has had several careers during his lifetime including working for former premier Bill Davis, at Rogers Cable, Commissioner of the Canadian Football League, mayoralty candidate for Toronto and backroom boy for the ill fated Kim Campbell campaign back in 1993. Two things can be deduced from this. One is that politics is not his strong suit. Tory was a key player in the 1993 election that saw the once mighty federal Progressive Conservative party reduced to two seats; an event which ultimately led to that party’s demise. Had Tory performed that way at Rogers, we would all be adjusting our aerials in an attempt to find one of the three television channels that would be available.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, if Tory is knocked out of political life he won’t be one of those politicians who sips from a paper bag while lined up at the unemployment office. He’ll just find something else to do. That of course is a plus for him, but the reality is that he simply doesn’t want power badly enough; it’s not about the party or Ontario; it’s all about him and what he wants to do. He can rationalize all he wants about what he did and why he did what he did on Saturday, but the reality is that he showed that he is simply not capable of leading the party to victory.
John Tory’s election of party leader signaled the death of conservatism in Ontario. The remaining question will be, can the PC party survive?
