Sudbury Northern Life
Toronto – How much humiliation can a political party take? Ontario’s struggling Progressive Conservative MPPs have had much more than their share with their federal party refusing them the Senate seat they went down on their knees and begged for.
The Ontario Conservatives get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. Their MPPs, or most of them, because this is not a united party, wanted Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who had 18 Senate vacancies to fill, to appoint one of their number to the so-called chamber of sober, second thought.
This would leave a safe seat in the legislature available for their leader, John Tory, to run in. Tory has been without one for more than a year since losing an election.
The Conservative leader during this time has been deprived of using this forum essential to communicating the policies of the party, which have not been many, and personality of the leader, which many voters regard as of equal value.
The provincial Conservatives’ request was minor. Conservative and Liberal prime ministers often have appointed people to the Senate as casually as if they were tipping a waiter and the appointees often had no records that suggested they could contribute any worthwhile sober, second thoughts.
They included such undistinguished senators as Andrew Thompson who, after being Ontario Liberal leader for two years, attended a mere two per cent of Senate sittings and preferred sunbathing at his house in Mexico; and Conservative back-roomers Bill Kelly, who pried generous donations from companies who somehow thought they would receive huge favors from government, and Norman Atkins and Hugh Segal, who ran election campaigns and received huge advertising and public relations contracts.
Ontario’s current Conservatives had an unusually able candidate for the Senate, their interim leader in the legislature, Bob Runciman, who said publicly he would give up his seat in the legislature if Harper offered him one in the Senate.
Runciman has been an effective MPP and minister for 27 years, is a right wing Conservative, like Harper, and stuck up for conservative principles when this was unpopular. Harper can have nothing against him philosophically.
Harper and three of his most influential ministers, Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement and John Baird, who served with Runciman in Ontario cabinets, would know all this.
But Harper ignored the pleading of his Ontario comrades and appointed people who mostly had contributed few sober, second thoughts to anything, including two former journalists who would never be rated among the most insightful and independent in their profession.
Tory has promised an announcement on his future as leader on Jan. 9 and will be under pressure first to produce an MPP who will step down, which he has been unable to do so far in a year of searching.
Alternatively, Tory could say wants to continue to lead from outside the legislature without a firm date for entering it, which some in his party will oppose, because this will continue to leave it less competitive, or he could say he will step down so the party can choose a new leader.
There also is the outside possibility Tory already has found an MPP willing to leave, but not ready to make this public, and informed Harper privately, so he would not need to make a provision for him in his Senate appointments, but this is unlikely, because it would be difficult to keep secret.
Much more likely, Harper and his former Ontario ministers, as extreme right wingers, are refusing to help Tory because he is trying to return the Ontario party closer toward the centre, where it governed uninterrupted and mostly to praise for 42 years up to 1985.
A federal party has no right to try to influence and dictate the policies and choice of leader of a provincial party, which usually runs its own affairs.
No federal party also has let down its provincial party with such a thud in recent decades and the Ontario party’s resentment will not fade quickly.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
