Former finance minister Greg Sorbara has become a hero by quitting the second most powerful job in Ontario and saying he would rather be with his family, but this may not be the whole story.
Sorbara added he has six children and does not see enough of them, and 10 grandchildren, some of whom need to learn to throw a baseball, and he could teach them, having once part-owned a minor league baseball team.
Sorbara’s poignant exit has brought him unusual praise, but no-one is likely to criticize a politician who gives it all up for home and hearth.
Progressive Conservative leader John Tory, who was not known for saying good things about Sorbara when he was finance minister, said Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty will be in trouble without him, because he was the brains behind his government.
The New Democrats, who used to attack Sorbara daily for not allocating more money to help the poor, said his departure was a huge blow for McGuinty. A Toronto newspaper that had never praised a Liberal before referred to “the stalwart Sorbara.”
Sorbara has put more effort into cultivating media than any Ontario politician of recent times. He had a habit of leaving his front row seat in the legislature next to the premier and chatting with reporters in their gallery above, and didn’t do it to ask if they were enjoying the debates.
When he held a press conference, he would reply to every reporter who asked a question by their first names – just a little touch, but it would have suggested to TV watchers he was on friendly terms with all these impartial observers in the media and they approved of him.
No one would suggest for a minute Sorbara totally invented his claim he was leaving to be with his family, but he also is among most ambitious politicians who never made it to premier.
He ran in 1992 and made one of the most stirring speeches in recent conventions, but lost to Lyn McLeod, whom the party establishment erroneously judged would win the next election because it was time for a woman.
Sorbara had hoped to run for leader in 1996. He assessed his chances, but backed off when he found there was resistance in his party to choosing a leader of Italian origin whose family was connected to the development industry, as his is.
It still has not chosen an Italian-Canadian leader. Joe Cordiano ran and lost, and there is some room for argument Sorbara could have done better, but those choosing leaders know Ontario still has elected premiers only of Anglo origin.
Sorbara, while finance minister, may have still harbored some hopes of becoming premier, but they disappeared when McGuinty won a second term in October.
McGuinty clearly is not going to retire much before the 2011 election, if then. Sorbara will be 65 and Ontario has tended to look for younger leaders. Whenever McGuinty leaves there will be no shortage of them eager to run.
Sorbara may have felt the home fires calling, but he could not have felt he had much prospect of getting the job he really wanted – and if there been a chance, he would not have stepped down.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
