Leadership Race for Ontario's Conservative Party
Provincial Progressive Conservatives Warned to Avoid Controversy
Jun 23, 2009
As the Ontario Progressive Conservatives lead up to their June leadership vote, all four candidates have been crisscrossing the province to give their members and ultimately all voters a flavour of what each would bring to Ontario if they were elected Party Leader and eventually Premier of Ontario.
The four candidates are perceived front-runner Tim Hudak, a free market conservative from a riding based in rural Niagara; Frank Klees, a social conservative from the Greater Toronto Area; Randy Hillier, rural activist and former President of the Ontario Landowners’ Association; and Christine Elliott, a moderate urban candidate and wife to federal Finance Minister, James Flaherty. For the past few weeks, each has been attempting to spread their message to party members and the media.
While virtually all leadership candidates have little good to say about the present government of Dalton McGuinty each brings their own perspective to what promises to be an interesting race. However, this race is not without controversy, which candidate Christine Elliott recently warned party members to avoid under any circumstances. During the last election, former PC Leader John Tory campaigned on the issue of funding faith-based private schools. He even took a gamble and lost his own seat in a fight in the same riding where popular Education Minister Kathleen Wynne won handily.
Controversial Proposals by Leadership Candidates Can Hurt Party
While controversy may help win the leadership, it will not win elections, Elliott told party members at a recent gathering. However, Randy Hillier, the first candidate to declare his intentions to run for the PC leadership, immediately stated that his objective was to eliminate both the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the Human Rights Commission, on the basis that its decisions trample on the rights on others. Although Hillier never stated any example of where this occurs, Hudak followed right afterwards to state his own intention to also eliminate the Tribunal, but to reduce the authority of the Commission to a mere public education role. Human rights cases, say Hudak, should be tried within the real courts using laws of evidence. Human rights specialists that have worked in the Tribunal find this statement puzzling, as this like any other Tribunal does base its decisions on evidence.
Neither Elliott nor Klees intend to dispose of these important bodies, although like almost all Ontarians, both feel there is room for reform. Once an election does take place, the idea of making human rights claims significantly more difficult and expensive to file will likely not sit well in urban Ontario where a large percentage of the ethnic population live, nor will it attract older persons and persons with disabilities. Elliot pointed out that taking this position would only give McGuinty the tools to once again trample the PC Party into a rural faction and gain a third back-to-back majority.
Ontarians Don't Seem Ready to Embrace Hard Line Politics
Ontario is likely not ready to return to the radical days of the Common Sense Revolution, as it did under the leadership of Mike Harris, or to undertake radical steps that would only turn minority interests against them in droves. It would seem the majority of Ontarians prefer their politics to be moderate – many may embrace the government of the Progressive Conservatives, but less would appear to do so if they follow through on their plans to scrap the Human Rights Tribunal, according to an Angus Reid Poll. While many PC activists today might not have difficulty scrapping the Tribunal, it is the population of all voters of Ontario this party must appease if it seeks government, not just its own members.
