Op-Ed: Tories find new leader's footing on fractured ground in Ontario Special

Will the new, non-centrist Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario find success reaching back to the Mike Harris years? Or is it the Bill Davis Big Blue Machine that is the key to Progressive Conservative success?

Tim Hudak is the new leader of Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. Since the announcement of his candidacy, it was generally assumed that Hudak would walk off with the gig. The only real surprise was that it took three ballots. The voting was based on a “preferential ballot” system, where party members choose and simply cast one ballot. In the course of three tallies, Hillier, Elliott, and Klees fell as 25,429 participating party members made the 41 year old Niagara - West Glanbrook MPP their new leader. In short, it’s been an odd ride for the PCPO – culminating in party leader John Tory stepping down, unable to get any momentum for the party, not to mention a seat in his own riding. Out of the gates of the final tally (Hudak 54.7%, Klees 45.5%) came the expected platitudes about party unity and unseating McGuinty’s wasteful, spend-happy Liberals. I am more interested in what I found to be absent in the events surrounding the convention. The lack of immediacy or urgency, and the lack of cohesiveness There won’t be a provincial election until 2011 - something we’re reminded of on the widget (aka The Countdown Clock) of the Convention website, UnitedAndStrong.ca: a countdown of 829 days, 8 hours, 43 minutes, and 9 seconds. That is plenty of time for the Provincial Liberals to mess things up (more, or less, based on ones perspective), but it’s also a political eternity by any measure. With plenty of time the Ontario economy could be expanding in such a way that would help the Liberals sway or propagandize voters into thinking that they had had something to do with it. But amid this lack I speak of, I also think there is a concern among members of the PCPO to define itself too narrowly. Although more often than not I spoke to (admittedly younger) party members who thought the ‘Progressive’ tag should be dropped from the name; there was a more pragmatic component of party membership that at least looked uncomfortable with this notion. If anything, 829 days could be a dangerous thing for the PCPO and the new leader. Although it is six years since the merger of the Federal parties to make the ‘Conservative Party’, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party at this new moment feels like an extension of the federal version. But Klees and Elliot supporters seem to instinctively know that the party caucus is made up of more than Harperites hoping that playing from the right will differentiate their policies from their political rivals. However, this doesn’t mean that the policies will bring success with power. That’s a form of hubris that is as dangerous as it is foolish. On various occasions, on various message boards over the course of the leadership campaign, culminating in the Cover it Live blog window employed by the Convention website on the convention day, people posted their hopes for a provincial party that would extend the mandates of the federal. Would the Progressive Conservative Party not be more likely to achieve power if it maintains its progressive element, making it more inclusive to voters?. Interestingly, as I participated in the CIL blog discussion, I saw that my more expansive observations about the party’s history were being moderated into the ether. Tim Hudak is clearly a Mike Harris protégé. It was the campaign selling point. This is a good thing if you think Harris was a good thing. This does cast the new leader, whose campaign slogan was “Right For Ontario”, as exactly that: an overtly conservative party that really only seems to strike this chord and only this chord that emerged with the election of Mike Harris. When I attended the leadership conventions of Frank Miller, and Larry Grossman, no one walked away with a concern that although fiscal responsibility was a goal, it would mean sacrifices for the province’s have-nots. So in essence, the party has a few heady weeks ahead of it with a new leader, a new legacy, and slightly more than two years to convince Ontarians that it is the political machine to bring Ontario back into wielding the economic might that defines Ontario. But the PCPO aren’t going to be as successful as they were between 1995 and 2002 by implementing the same playbook, as political situations don’t unfold like Rubik’s Cubes. On the lone televised debate, featured on TVO’s ‘The Agenda with Steve Paikan’, candidate Elliott offered some closing remarks that were ones that those within the party’s confines might best heed, and that was a message of communication, of reaching the average Ontarian.

“We need to have a strong economy in order to be able to help vulnerable people.”

A more esteemed premier, Bill Davis who was able to govern from 1971 to 1985, was quoted by the Star as saying

“This party will not succeed unless (Hudak) sits down with the other candidates, with people like John Tory and others, and finds some form of consensus."

An approximate 25,429 of about 43,000 eligible party members came out to vote in their respective ridings. 40,000 registered members in 2009 is down from the 100,000 registered members in 2002.