It didn't have to be this way, Patricia Sorbara says, as we begin our interview about her new book, Let 'Em Howl: A Lesson from a Life in Backroom Politics.
The Sudbury byelection scandal was a big deal five years ago, but the news cycle has rolled over many times since then. Sorbara, the former Liberal campaign director, and local businessman Gerry Lougheed Jr. were acquitted more than two years ago in a directed verdict, meaning the evidence was so weak, lawyers didn't need to mount a defence before the case was dismissed.
They had won, it was late 2017 and she was ready to get back to the Liberal Party, to work for the woman she still admires deeply today, Kathleen Wynne. But in the time she was away dealing with her legal issues, she had been outmaneuvered. She returned to the job, but it was clear she had lost clout and authority, and was gone before the 2018 election.
That, she said, led to the book.
“I think I could have put all of that trauma behind me if I'd been able to go in and do the 2018 campaign,” Sorbara said. “That was going to kind of reset everything and be my new normal.
“When I found myself sitting at home, that's when I went into reflective mode, I guess, and (realized) this probably is the end of my partisan political career. I couldn't help but sort of think about everything I'd learned along the way — and how what I'd learned had been a big part of getting me through that difficult time.”
The book itself is interesting as a guide to how Ontario politics works, and especially how everything went so badly off the rails for the Liberals after the surprise win in the June 2014 election. Sorbara comes off as someone looking for a leader to believe in, and as a calculated, even ruthless, political heavyweight who made enough enemies within the party that her acquittal in court led to a forced retirement.
“I never had a chance to tell my side of it, right?” Sorbara said, of the events that saw her and the government fall from grace. “I didn't even have to testify at the end of the day because it was thrown out of court.”
There's no doubt it was a political prosecution, Sorbara said, and with the NDP and Conservatives railing at them day after day in the Legislature, the only hope for the scandal to end was for the Ontario Provincial Police to say they have dropped the case.
“I think that the OPP just didn't have the courage to say there isn't enough here, so we're dropping it,” she said. “There were a number of avenues at which the political pressures could have been stopped at the gate, but nobody seemed prepared to do it. The only guy really prepared to do it at the end of the day was the judge, right?”
The byelection controversy has been discussed at length in recent years, and most of what Sorbara covers about the scandal has been widely reported. But Let 'Em Howl includes Sorbara's assessments of some local figures who came to dominate the trial.
The person on the receiving end of Sorbara's most critical comments is Dominic Giroux, then president of Laurentian University and now CAO of Health Sciences North. A friend of Glenn Thibeault, Giroux tipped the party off that Thibeault might consider switching parties and legislatures to run for the Liberals.
In her book, Sorbara writes that a text Giroux had sent her while they were talking to Thibeault “had the potential to do the most damage.”
“I was uncomfortable with Dominic's involvement because as the president of Laurentian University, he was someone who should be neutral in his role,” Sorbara writes. “I've never been big on the clandestine stuff, where someone appeared to be neutral to the outside world but was happy to play politics behind the scenes. It was a lesson Dominic learned the hard way.”
A text Giroux sent – arguing that Wynne should guarantee Thibeault a cabinet post, “otherwise, why bother?” was particularly concerning, she writes. And Giroux also argued there should be a short, open nomination process and for Andrew Olivier to agree to withdraw before Thibeault committed.
The demands were not what Wynne and Thibeault had discussed, and Sorbara implies Giroux was pushing for what he thought was a better deal for Thibeault on his own initiative:
“It was bizarre and was not going to help our cause. Of particular concern was Dominic telling Glenn he needed to ask for a cabinet position and, should he not win, a job. When I received the text, I sat in my office having a minor panic attack about Dominic's bad advice. I was uncertain how much influence Dominic had over Glenn. The suggestion Glenn would only run if Andrew withdrew, I knew not to be true. But the Crown would later attempt to use it to advance the theory around what motivated our discussions with Andrew.
“Dominic presented the issues as concerns Glenn raised with him, but they were inconsistent with our discussions with Glenn, and flew in the face of the discussion between Premier Wynne and Glenn just a few days before. I called the premier. She agreed with my concerns and suggested I involve Tom Teahen, who had worked closely with Dominic at the Ministry of Education. I sent Tom an email with Dominic’s texts copied into them, making several points:
- This is old-style politics; the premier does not work this way
- You know the premier outlined her practice and process to Glenn and he indicated he was fine with it
- We need him to help us get Glenn to a decision to run without the commitment outlined in Dominic’s texts; in terms of 'why bother,' Glenn told the premier he wants to make a difference
- if he runs and wins he will be able to do just that and the rest will take care of itself
- we cannot have this many voices in Glenn’s head, particularly if they conflict with what the premier has discussed with Glenn
“Tom and I talked, and then he called Dominic. Other than Tom confirming he’d reached Dominic, I did not hear much more about it until Dominic was on the witness stand. Dominic’s testimony helped lay the groundwork that the only commitment made to Glenn to get him to run was a fully funded, professionally run campaign. The issue assumed to be most important to Glenn, an appointment to cabinet, had been taken off the table by the premier on Nov. 30.”
-From pages 186-187, Let ’Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics, © 2019 Pat Sorbara (Nightwood Editions)
Sorbara said she believes Giroux was negotiating the way he would have handled things if he was in Thibeault's position, believing he was doing the right thing for his friend.
“Outside of the context of the trial, I don't think any of that would have mattered,” she said. “(But) when you read that email or the text that he sent into context of what picture (the Crown) tried to paint at the trial, I think it really that's where the lights went on about how glaring of a overstep that was.”
Giroux declined the opportunity to comment on Sorbara's book and respond to her comments.
She also comments on the role of Gerry Lougheed Jr., who was tasked with telling Olivier the party was going with Thibeault. Sorbara said she is usually more direct in these situations, but, she agreed to take a lighter approach with Olivier and have Lougheed speak with him.
“I knew there were going to be problems,” she said. “But I knew that with Glenn we could likely withstand just about anything.”
But the language Lougheed used caused major headaches, Sorbara writes, and was a result of the “old style” politics he and Rick Bartolucci were used to practicing.
This is what she says in her book:
“I explained to the lawyers why the role of Gerry Lougheed was critical in the political environment. People like Gerry are often called 'kingmakers,' and it was not an unfair assessment. They generally have run the local party for a long time and riding-level Liberals listen to them. To the OLP, Gerry was critical to the success both locally and centrally. He made things happen in the Sudbury area. For years, Gerry worked closely with Rick Bartolucci and made sure he had enough money to win election after election. Gerry was an old-style operator and Rick was an old-style politician.”
-From page 175, Let ’Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics, © 2019 Pat Sorbara (Nightwood Editions)
For me, the most interesting part of the book was Sorbara's description of the collapse of the Wynne government after June 2014. The first woman to be elected premier — who also happened to be lesbian — won the province with a savvy campaign that include the famous commercial where she's running down a long road, determined to finish the political marathon.
“It was pretty heady days,” Sorbara said, of the months following the victory. “Expectations people had of Wynne, that she would be different, that she would a different kind of leader because she was a woman just wasn't materializing. We fell into the you know, the general malaise of a 15-year government. And we weren't able to bring ourselves out of that.”
In her book, she points to the Ontario Hydro file — the rate increases and the partial selloff — as the tipping point for the public:
“The person who made the decision to sell off a government asset and seemingly ignore the plight of those suffering from the impact of high hydro bills was in no way the person the voters believed they had elected. Their confusion and unhappiness gave way to a sense of betrayal and ultimately a visceral dislike of Kathleen Wynne. This was not the Kathleen Wynne who told them she'd be the change.”
-From page 225, Let ’Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics, © 2019 Pat Sorbara (Nightwood Editions)
“It was terrible to watch,” she said during our interview, of the decline of the Wynne government. “You could kind of feel it happening. The way politics works, every single day there was always something on the front burner you're dealing with. You're not ever stepping back and sort of saying, 'OK, our numbers are plummeting. What do we need to do?' ”
In the end, the margin of error for Wynne was razor slim, since she was leading a party that had been in power for 15 years, Sorbara said, and maybe they were just coming to the end of their cycle in power no matter what.
“I mean, the numbers for two years had been pointing to us having come to the end of our term,” Sorbara said. “We weren't supposed to win 2011. We weren't supposed to win 2014. This time, people were serious — we're done with you.”
But she's very critical of the way the campaign was handled. When you think you can win, you spread resources around to try and take every riding. When you know a loss is coming, you focus resources on ridings you have a chance to hold. Otherwise, you risk losing everything, as the Liberals did.
“I don't believe we could have ever formed a majority,” she said. “Maybe we could have squeaked out something in a minority, but I sure believe we could have held party status. I would have just taken the almost opposite approach, as I say that going in 'saving the furniture,' knowing that we're going to be focused on a limited number of ridings that you could win, based on the resources.”
Even after everything that has happened — including Wynne agreeing to Sorbara's ouster — Sorbara said it was hard to watch from afar as everything fell apart in 2018.
“I'm sad that happened on Kathleen Wynne's watch, because — and I think you could tell from the book — I believe she's a remarkable woman and she did remarkable things as a premier.
“She was so important for the advancement of women in politics. For it to come to an end that way is always very, very sad. But you know, I hope and I think history will write it a very different (story) about her.”
'Let 'Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics' (Nightwood Editions) retails for $22.95 and is available from all major booksellers.
