Premier Dalton McGuinty has cleared himself of
blame for his spectacular slide in popularity. He is putting the
blame on his communications staff. The Liberal premier has dropped
in the polls behind the Progressive Conservatives, who, since being
turfed out in disgust, have been exposed almost daily as directing
millions of dollars to personal friends while starving public
services.
McGuinty has lost favour, particularly because he
promised to bring in many new programs without increasing taxes and
balance the budget, although it had become clear the Tories would
leave a huge spending deficit that would make this impossible, and
later broke these promises.
McGuinty has started trying to recover by shaking
up his communications office, letting go one director who was
called a genius when the Liberals
won months ago, and bringing in another who will
plan and co-ordinate all communications activities in the premier’s
office and throughout government.
Senior Liberals have let it be known anonymously
that the premier’s communications have been poorly co-ordinated,
and as a result many worthwhile initiatives he launched have
received little attention. The media has focused on his broken
promises.
McGuinty’s only minor admission is he may have
made too many promises because he was ambitious for Ontarians’
futures. But he hopes residents will recognize he had to increase
taxes to improve programs and is touring to persuade them
personally.
McGuinty has done his best to pin blame on his
communications staff, but they did not tell him to make his 231
promises, about a record number in an Ontario election – their job
was to publicize them.
The biggest criticism of McGuinty is he continued
making promises knowing the Tories would leave a huge deficit. His
latest explanation is, “we knew we had been left a mess, but we had
no idea how big it would be.”
But halfway through the campaign, observers,
including the right-wing Fraser Institute, calculated the Tories
would leave a deficit of $4.5 billion.
McGuinty knew then he would not be able to pay
for his promises without increasing taxes and could have said so,
but refused because he feared if he appeared uncertain of keeping
his promises, he would lose the election. This was a decision that
would be made by a premier, not his communications staff.
McGuinty’s staff tried to get him five minutes
free time on all the major TV networks around the time of his tax
increase so he could make his case straight to the people without
being interrupted by nosy journalists, but the networks wisely
refused.
They were wary because they gave McGuinty’s Tory
predecessor, Ernie Eves, time to talk on the power blackout last
year and he used it to promote himself as a hero who handled it
well.
McGuinty has lost popularity because of his own
acts – his staff has done just about everything they could to get
him seen in a sympathetic light, short of having him kidnapped by
aliens.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s
Park press gallery.
