Provincial Liberal Leadership – More Old School Than New Day

Jeff Green | Jan 30, 2013

Why was there a steamroll to Kathleen Wynne after the second ballot of last weekend's Ontario Liberal leadership convention?

The results of the ballot demonstrated two things. Sandra Pupatello had gained more support than Kathleen Wynne after they were almost even after the first, and all the other candidates were so far back that they had to get out of the way. Pupatello, with 817 votes, was on a roll. She had gained 218 votes in the second ballot, while Kathleen Wynne, at 750, had only gained 153. The separation between the two front runners was growing.

But the real drama was yet to unfold. Charles Sousa, with 203 votes, and Gerard Kennedy, with 285, had the opportunity to become Queen-makers, and they took it.  Sousa, who is from the right wing of the party, moved to Kathleen Wynne, the left-leaning candidate, leaving Pupatello in the lurch. Soon after, Gerard Kennedy, who is on the left wing of the party himself, joined with Sousa at Kathleen Wynne's side.

Even though Sandra Pupatello had the support of the majority of the caucus, she suddenly looked lonely in her box, while a jubilant Wynne was surrounded by three of the four also-ran candidates. In a surprise move, last-ranked Eric Hoskins had joined Wynne after the first ballot.

It was all over but the voting at that point. The headlines had already been written; only the tense had to be changed when the tally came in, from Wynne will win, to Wynne wins.

So, why Kathleen Wynne?

This is where the old school politics come in, and this is what those 2,000 delegates were thinking, at least as far as I see it from a distance.

Both candidates said they were conciliators; both said they were more willing to work with the other parties. But Pupatello is more to the right of the party than Wynne and was a more natural fit to talk to the Conservative Party about shifting the government to the right, offering more cuts in government programs and cutting the deficit quickly, etc.

However, the Conservatives have only one goal in mind: bringing down the government. They want to fight an election as soon as possible while the ORNGE air ambulance scandal, the revelations about the horrendous cost of two aborted gas plants, and the anti-democratic prorogation manoeuvring of McGuinty are still fresh in the minds of a forgetful public.

Those 2,000 delegates knew very well that Conservative leader Tim Hudak was not going to do anything the help the Liberals stay in power.

As loyal Liberals, the delegates did what all party members do when their party is in power, they voted for the candidate with the best chance of keeping them in power. And that is some task, since in most polls, the Liberals now rank third in popularity.

The best case scenario for the Liberals is to remain in power as long as possible because they could be wiped out in an election this spring, and the only way for them to remain in power was to elect the candidate of the left, Kathleen Wynne, so she can make overtures to the NDP.

Andrea Horwath, the NDP leader, will be making her own calculations.

Does she make a deal, and in doing so enable the NDP to exert major influence on public policy? Or does she say no, and force an election, which could bring the NDP to the mainstream of Ontario politics at the expense of the Liberals?

There are risks either way. If the NDP props up the Liberals they will be propping up an unpopular party and may pay a price for that at the polls whenever an election does come. They also might be giving Kathleen Wynne an opportunity to recover some of the support her party has lost to the NDP and enable the Liberals to control the timing and circumstances of the next election.

If Horwath pulls the plug on the Liberals, however, the ensuing election could also turn against the NDP big time, if the voters in swing ridings abandon them and vote for the Liberals to try and keep the Conservatives from forming a majority government.

The coming few weeks will reveal how willing the Wynne Liberals are to adopt the NDP agenda, and how willing the NDP is to prop up the Liberals. It should make for an interesting dance.

Rural Ontario will not be a significant part of these negotiations, unfortunately, because no one is challenging the gutting of the MNR, the fall in tourism, the slow death of the agriculture and forestry industries that have been a feature of rural life for decades now.

And no one, Conservatives included, has a comprehensive policy in place to replace the toothless Rural Ontario Plan that the Liberals put forward several years ago and revamped for the 2011 election.