Jack: “Ontario’s bogeyman”
The Star just posted this column. No surprise there at all:
For Tim Hudak, now it gets tricky.
Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative leader will soon discover that being heir to his mentor Mike Harris plays a little differently outside party circles than within.
After an ultra-scripted, paint-by-numbers campaign, the 41-year-old MPP will need to convince Ontarians he’s more than a cheerful Charlie McCarthy doll whose strings are pulled by Harris-era refugees.
He’ll learn whether there’s much appetite – in an era when even Prime Minister Stephen Harper has discovered his inner Keynesian – for his conservative views.
Perhaps most of all, he’ll need to convince skeptics that a career politician – who by the next election in 2011 will have been 16 years at Queen’s Park – has the credibility to champion the wonders of a private sector he has personally avoided.
The MPP from Niagara West-Glanbrook, the man who would be Mike-like, defeated caucus colleague Frank Klees on the third ballot yesterday to win the leadership. MPPs Christine Elliott and Randy Hillier fell in the first two rounds of voting.
[...]
There are only a couple of points I want to make regarding Mike Harris and his administration.
The first is that he lowered taxes after a pair of fools nearly bankrupted us and he started to get this province back on track. In doing so he drove the unions crazy and that is all the Star concentrated on as they badgered him day in and day out. In time he gave up as the feds descended on him.
“Who needs this shit” he asked himself (he was having marital problems around the same time) and he turned his government over to his Finance Minister Ernie Eves. As it turned out Ernie couldn’t walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.
We all know how that story ended but I’m asking myself today who owns the Star — Iran?
The second point I wish to make is that Canadian premiers do not live in a bubble. They are heavily influenced by our federal government as they go about their business. It was Mike Harris’s extreme misfortune to run afoul of John Chretien and Paul Martin as they scrambled to control the national debt. He wasn’t the only premier to experience that problem but he is the best example.
Just as he started to get a handle on the mess he was left Martin dumped on him by downloading a huge amount of debt onto the provinces. Ontario was hit the hardest but Mike, being the gentleman he is, kept his mouth shut and played the game. In hindsight it is clear now that he was wrong. He could have shot the feds down in flames had he only said to them “You think you have a problem with Quebec? YOU HAVE NO F**KING IDEA!”
“Don’t go there.”
But he didn’t and the Chretien/Martin team badly hurt this province as they continued to blunder on for another few years.
“McShifty” showed up and with the help of a truly infamous Canadian “back room boy” he destroyed not only Eves but also John Tory. I went to said “back room boy’s site” today and here we go again as Tim takes the stage. Never mind that our taxes are going up as Bob Runciman notes in the video in the sidebar. Warren wants to make it all about “Mr Hutton” (whoever the hell he is).
Here’s the sentence in the top post that caught me:
“To be fair to him, I’m not sure Tim fully understands the law. That’s okay, in a way: lots of people don’t know everything there is to know about the law.
The difference, of course, is none of them is running to be Premier.”
“So Warren…are you saying that only a lawyer is fit to run a province or a country? Is THAT what you are saying?”
If it is you could not be more wrong. In my view, the very last person that should have power in this country is a lawyer because we all know what they do.
As for Mike Harris and his support of Tim. Good one.
Tim has a fine advisor that can help him get this province out of the rut it has found itself in and I’m right behind him.
Warren has a really big problem coming down the pipe because two can play this game.
Actually, it’s more than two. There are a whole bunch of them.
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Mac Says:
The “Mr. Hutton” thing is the Worm trying to be clever. Tim Hudak’s wife, Debbie Hutton, worked as a strategist for Mike Harris.
I suspect Hudak’s greatest challenge is going to be welding the party together again. The fact that it took three ballots to complete the process tells us that the party isn’t solidly behind Hudak yet. Instead of wasting their time trying to wash their hands of Mike Harris, what the PCPO needs to do is hold a policy convention and create a vision for the future.
Once they have their plan in place, they can go after McGuinty in the Legislature like never before… and make ready for the next election!
Posted on June 28th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Crux of the Matter » Blog Archive » Tim Hudak is a Mike Harris wannabe? So what? Says:
[...] all those Ontario Liberals and certain media outlets that are salivating over the idea that they are going to try to spin the new Ontario PC leader, Tim [...]
Posted on June 29th, 2009 at 11:09 am
UV Says:
Inspite of McGuinty’s poor track record, he will be a tough nut to crack as many Ontarians still remember the worse of Harris’s policies like downloading some provincial responsibilities to the municipal level and the closing of many (Toronto) hospitals on ‘his watch’ plus scandals like the Walkerton water tragedy, Ipperwash native confrontation, meat inspection scandal which are bound to haunt Tim Whodat.
I wish Tim well as I personally dislike what McGuinty has done or not done to Ontario but the Ontario Conservatives have quite a job ahead of them in that they will be better than the present lieberal government, with all of its worts.
Posted on June 29th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Louise M. Says:
It is when the Liberals think they have the upper hand on their opponents that they tend to commit the biggest gaffes. McGuinty and his merry band have just over 800 days left to the next election. Clearly, they have run out of ideas on how to rebuild Ontario and think they can coast to another electoral win.
The next election is far away enough that attacking Hudak as being Harris’ clone will become stale. I hope the PCPO lets this empty rhetoric slide and, concentrates on rating McGuinty’s record and refining their own policies.
Posted on June 29th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Jack’s Newswatch » Blog Archive » Sandy: Tim Hudak a Mike Harris wannabe? Says:
[...] those Ontario Liberals and, as Jack at Jack’s Newswatch rightly pointed out the other day, certain media outlets, who seem to be salivating over the idea that they can spin the new Ontario PC leader, Tim [...]
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 7:34 am