A Call For Leadership

Jason Kenney's UCP has achieved a majority in Alberta. Proclaiming that Alberta is open for business and that “[h]ope is on the horizon,” he joins Ontario's Doug Ford both in identical sloganeering and rabid contempt for all measures related to carbon taxes or anything else that would discourage the consumption of fossil fuels.

The failure of the political class to confront the world's greatest crisis, climate change, is manifest. It therefore seems an apt time to reproduce the thoughts of a Star letter-writer about our predicament, to which I have added emphasis to underscore key points:

After the last five years of two serious droughts, a spring and summer with twice the normal annual rainfall and this unprecedented winter with wild swings in temperature and weather virtually every week, I’ve become a believer that climate change is largely man-made and very real. While some say that it’s just the vagaries of weather, I suggest that these past five years represent a serious shift in climate trend. I took up farming when I retired from a business career and the last five years have been completely uneconomic. In the farming community, there is an old saying: If it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a safe assumption to say it is a duck! Why can’t Conservatives see this?

Which brings me to my point in this letter, as a lifelong fiscal conservative, I am gob struck by the Conservative party (Progressive in Ontario and God knows what federally) who simply spout “anti” everything when it comes to climate change. At the federal level, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer plays politics on the issue and still has not provided a single shred of a positive, credible climate change plan. Further, Scheer continues to endorse a party-sanctioned candidate right here in Ontario, Cheryl Gallant, who proudly insists that climate change is a hoax. I might add that Gallant was the only MP out of over 300 to vote against the Canadian Parliament sanctioning the Paris climate accord.

Climate change is the issue of our generation and those of our children. Surely, some politicians have sufficient moral integrity to recognize the seriousness of the situation. There are real economic costs to climate change and a price on carbon is the least among these. It’s past time for Conservatives to show some genuine leadership on climate change, otherwise I’ll be supporting the only real agenda for climate change and voting Liberal for the first time in my life.

J. Hugh Brownlee, White Lake, Ont.

Over 300 years before the Common Era, Diogenes said he was looking for an honest man. More than 2300 years later, it seems he is yet to be found.

Andrea's Damascene Moment

In the Book of Luke, Jesus is reported to have said the following:

I tell you that ... there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

In Acts of the Apostles, Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus is described:

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

The pure of heart might indeed feel that those passages resonate when contemplating Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath's recent conversion to the belief that the minimum wage should be $15 per hour, latching on to a movement that has been gaining a great deal of traction over the past few years.

The more cynical might be inclined to see Ms. Horwath's new stance as rank political opportunism. Consider, for example, how she felt about such matters just two years ago:

"Well, look, I respect the work of the grassroots movements that have been calling for the $14 minimum wage, but I think that what our role is right now is to consult with families that are affected, as well as small business particularly that’s also affected”.

At about the same time, Ms Horwath was calling for the Ontario minimum raise to rise only to $12 per hour in 2016.

Apparently, however, she has some people fooled by her newfound allegiance to the working poor, as is evident from this Star reader's letter:

Raise the minimum wage, Letter April 11

At a recent speech for the Broadbent Institute, Andrea Horwath publicly demonstrated that her party has finally seen the light on a $15 living wage.

Her announcement is all the more noteworthy in a week when the North American Fight For $15 campaign had some rather momentous victories south of the border.

Governor Jerry Brown stared down the powerful business lobby within his own California Democratic Party to sign into law a path to $15 per hour. In New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stood up to Wall Street fear-mongering and signed the Empire State’s own $15 minimum wage law.

So the question for Ontarians, in a week awash in reforms and revelations, is whether any other party leader in Ontario will stand up to Bay Street bullies and bring Ontario standards into the 21st century by finally ending the shameful institution of government sanctioned working poverty.

If we can trade carbon with California can’t we also trade good ideas or will Ontario, California beat our Ontario to $15?

Mike Vorobej, Ottawa

I have never been a member of a political party. Perhaps if the day ever comes when I detect a leader acting out of principle and integrity instead of rank political expediency, I may join one.

A Guest Post From ThinkingManNeil

A frequent contributor of commentary, ThinkingManNeil, responding to my post earlier today, left an insightful and incisive analysis of Andrea Horwath. In order to provide wider readership than is usually the case with readers' comments, I am presenting it as a separate entry. As well, at the end I am providing a link to someone else who also has some interesting thoughts on the ambitious Andrea.

Not only do we of the poor and working classes not have electoral presence in the eyes of most ambitious pols, some of us can look kinda icky next to a designer togged prospective premier who may be earning $200K+ a year.

Oh, she'll most assuredly come a-courting us, kissing babies and showing up at run down schools in the Junction and trying to rally autoworkers and shut out Hamilton steelworkers for support, but then come the invites from the Granite Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the CCCE to give hour long talks over expensive catered lunches on why the tax burden needs to be lifted from the (upper) middle class, Business, and those poor, downtrodden, misunderstood and under appreciated Job Creators.

She'll harken to the neo-liberal siren song of the Drummond Report (a report written by a wealthy, TD bank economist who drives a nice car and lives in a big, comfy, pricey house that tells poor and disabled people in Ontario how they should live on even less than they do now and be damned grateful they get anything, the lazy bums...), and go ahead with the evisceration of Ontario's social safety net, education, healthcare - Harris the Horrible's Common Sense Revolution with an orange NDP glow.

And when OCAP shows up on her Queen's Park doorstep, pleading for the lessers, she'll see to it that the black BDU'd OPP veterans of the G20 protests give them a respectful bum's rush off of her neatly manicured lawn.

Oh, Tommy, Ed, and Stephen, where are you when we need you?!?

And here is the link I promised.

Andrea Again

Sorry for the provincialism of some of my recent posts, but I can't quite ignore political hypocrisy on any level. Three recent entries have attempted to chronicle the sad devolution of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Howath from that of principled politician to political opportunist; with the tantalizing prospect of power, she has forsaken the NDP's traditional constituencies of the poor and working class (sorry, I guess you folks just don't have a strong enough electoral presence) for her new BFF, small business and 'the middle class.'

Quite properly, and much to their credit, The Toronto Star is not giving her eely performances an easy ride. Today's editorial, entitled Ontario NDP’s Andrea Horwath keeps ducking hard choices offers this view:

...with the strong possibility of a spring election, Horwath should be talking about her plans for job growth, handling the province’s finances, and a solution to the gridlock that’s costing the Toronto and Hamilton region some $6 billion a year.

Instead, Horwath cobbled together several hundred words over the weekend to tell Premier Kathleen Wynne what she doesn’t want from the government, with nothing at all devoted to the NDP’s own proposals for prosperity – which as far as anyone knows so far don’t exist. Keep this up, and the NDP leader will be exposed as the kind of clichéd politician who seeks power without having any idea what to do with it.

And it is the latter that troubles me most. Howarth is doing nothing to dispel the Star's lacerating assessment of her as one seeking power only for its own sake. We have enough such blights on the political landscape already.

But then again, maybe her problems lie elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to replace what ostensibly passes as her chief source of political wisdom for one with more substance:

Andrea Horwath: Labour's Fair-Weather Friend?

In light of her refusal to say much about anything, a political disease she may have caught from her federal cousins, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath is being viewed increasingly as little more than a political opportunist. Probably the most recent example of this sad state is her reticence to articulate a position on Ontario's minimum wage.

Two weeks ago, Martin Regg Cohn offered this:

When did the party of the working poor lose its voice? Listen to the sound of Horwath clearing her throat when she finally emerged from the NDP’s Witness Protection Program this week — nine days after the panel’s exhaustive report, and nine months after its work started.

“Well, look, I respect the work of the grassroots movements that have been calling for the $14 minimum wage, but I think that what our role is right now is to consult with families that are affected, as well as small business particularly that’s also affected,” she told reporters Tuesday.

But as an acerbic Star editorial yesterday pointed out, the burning issues of the day demand that she start offering some real articulation of policy:

Horwath’s recent suggestion of consulting with business on wage increases is clearly redundant, given the fact that a panel of business and labour leaders just filed such a report — after months of discussion.

In the absence of ideas, it’s unclear what the so-called party of the people favours. Wage increases tied to inflation, like business owners? The $14-an-hour minimum wage pushed by anti-poverty activists? Given the fact that a decent wage for the lowest-paid is a key part of building a healthier society, Horwath’s silence is inexcusable – even if understandable as a short-term political tactic.

The editorial goes on to include other of the NDP leader's sins of omission. Absent is any commentary on:

- how to deal with gridlock in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area

- Premier Wynne's proposal for a made-in-Ontario pension plan

- plans for a sustainable provincial energy plan

Perhaps Ms Horwath was brought up to respect the proverb, "Silence is golden." At this stage in her life, however, considering the position of trust she has been given, she should also realize that to avoid the accusation of cynical political opportunism and expedience, it is an adage more honoured in the breach than the observance.

Then again, maybe her answers are blowin' in the wind.