Lisa MacLeod's Ambition

I'll say right off the top that I am no fan of recently re-elected Ontario Progressive Conservative Lisa MacLeod, and not just because she is a member of what has become an extremist party. Her embrace of the politics of division, her strident hyper-partisanship, and now, post-election, her hypocrisy, rankle.


Tim and Lisa in happier times

Ostensibly a staunch supporter of her leader up to and during the election, now Ms. MacLeod, a rumoured leadership hopeful, has dramatically changed her tune. In an op-ed in today's Toronto Star, entitled Ontario Tories need fresh leadership, she offers the following observation:

...we let Ontario down by not offering an alternative that more voters were prepared to accept. We have a lot of work to do over the next four years. The party needs renewal, a new direction, and most important, fresh leadership.

In what could very well be the rudiments of a pre-leadership manifesto, she talks about the need to prepare for the next election, telling us what the next leader must be capable of:

We need a person who understands urban, suburban and rural concerns, one who gets the complex makeup of this province.

But wait. Could that someone be her?

In my own riding of Nepean-Carleton, I represent new immigrant communities, expanding suburbs and a large rural area. I also take the lead on the urban issues that affect Ottawa, our second largest city. Nepean-Carleton is a microcosm of the growing and changing Ontario that our party must represent.

While not entirely disavowing the campaign under Hudak's leadership, she observes its shortcomings and includes information about herself that serves to offer redress:

Our most recent PC platform has been criticized for talking too much about numbers and not enough about people. Fact-based decision making is important, but we can’t overlook the human side. I’m a suburban soccer mom. I care about my child’s school, our local hospital and whether our community is safe, just like so many other Ontarians do. (emphasis mine)

And to drive home the point for those dullards among us, she adds:

Ontarians need a party that knows how to make their lives better in measurable ways. For example, the Schools First policy that I put forward as education critic would ensure that schools get built sooner in our rapidly expanding suburbs. (emphasis mine)

MacLeod ends her exercise in self-extolment, however, on a note with which I agree:

The PC Party has a responsibility to deliver a strong and broadly acceptable choice the next time.

It is in everyone's best interests to have strong and credible opposition parties. Such entities act as necessary checks in healthy democracies, standing at the ready to offer viable alternatives to governments that becomes stale, tired, complacent or arrogant.

Setting The Record Straight

Is the oleaginous Pierre Poilivre really the best the Harper regime can do in its propaganda efforts?




h/t Press Progress

The Long Reach Of Partisan Politics

h/t Montreal Simon

In Ontario, we noticed the long federal reach of divisive partisan politics during our recent election. Joe Oliver, our alleged finance minister, interposed his views, lamenting the fiscal state of Ontario that, according to him, is bringing down the rest of Canada. Of course, the disingenuous Uncle Joe denied trying to interfere in our electoral contest. Indeed, he kept up his unsolicited advice post-election, suggesting the following to Premier Kathleen Wynne:

“We hope that her government will follow our lead toward a balanced budget,” he said. “Canada cannot arrive at its potential if the biggest province remains in difficulty.”

In her column today, The Star's Carol Goar offers a pungent rebuttal and some advice to the minister and his government:

He ignored the fact that Ontarians had just rejected his formula, championed by defeated Conservative leader Tim Hudak. He ignored the fact that Ontario is struggling to replace its manufacturing base. And he ignored the fact that Ontario, unlike Ottawa, doesn’t have resource revenues pouring into its coffers.

Compounding the problem, observes Goar, is the fact that the Harper regime is doing nothing to help the province regenerate its economy. In my view, this sad state is the result both of partisan prejudice and a paucity of ideas from the regime's braintrust, Nonetheless, The Star offers some suggestions that we can be certain will be ignored:

- Close the multitude of tax loopholes that allow the country’s wealthy elite to stash income in shell companies that pay low corporate taxes; hide assets in offshore tax havens; write off personal expenses and exploit all the tax credits, deductions, refunds and allowances in Canada’s 3,236-page Income Tax Act.

While the late Jim Flahety closed some loopholes, much more needs to be done.

- Restore Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s original purpose.... If the federal government made it clear that CMHC’s first job is to make housing affordable, it would alleviate the need to build social housing, remove some of the risk from the real estate market, encourage residential construction and boost employment — all of which would benefit Ontario.

- Pay as much attention to Ontario’s mineral wealth as Alberta’s oil reserves.

While the regime can't do enough to promote and develop the tarsands, it has shown no interest in helping Ontario finance the infrastructure needed to mine the Ring of Fire and its rich chromite reserves.

- Fix Ottawa’s unfair equalization system.

Oliver ignored Ontario’s claims that it was being shortchanged by hundreds of millions under the convoluted formula Ottawa uses to ensure the financial burdens of all the provinces are comparable. But now Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Frechette has confirmed Ontario is being underpaid by $640 million this year. That revenue would allow the province to knock 5 per cent off its deficit.

I expect that little attention will be paid to these sensible suggestions. As we have all learned over the years, Harper and company have developed a long list of enemies. Given its ideology and its resounding recent rejection of Harperesque medicine through his surrogate, Tim Hudak, there is little doubt that Ontario has a prominent place in that pantheon of distinguished Canadians.

Calling Stephen Harper

It is always heartening when young people get involved in issues that should matter to everyone:

Making Church Relevant?

Somehow, I think Pastor Heath Mooneyham of Joplin, Missouri took the wrong religion marketing course:

Gay Pride: A Proviso

Yesterday I wrote about the considerable pride that we should all take in the progress we are making as a society, World Pride in Toronto being a sterling example. However, as Star letter-writer Blair Bigham of Toronto points out in today's edition, there is still room for improvement:

Political stripes aside, Ontario (population 13.5 million) elected the first gay premier in Canada. Other than Iceland (population 300,000), no other people has elected a gay leader.

The fact that Kathleen Wynne’s sexuality was not even an issue throughout the campaign speaks to the equity and inclusivity Ontario offers. What a place for gay people to grow up in.

And yet, despite living in one of the most gay-friendly places on earth, I learned being gay was wrong long before I learned it wasn’t. Still today slurs are thrown my way by strangers, words are chosen carefully in new social settings, and there is the perpetual evaluation of every person I come in contact with, a super-subconscious Gestalt judgment about how welcoming they would be if they “could tell.” Like the annoying buzz-hum of a wonky fluorescent bulb, barely noticeable, but oh so persistent.

The constant stress that we face here, rarely acknowledged because it shames us that we can’t just accept ourselves, cannot compare to what people feel elsewhere. Minority stress affects me, and surely as an Ontarian I have it better than nearly everyone else.

So while I offer Ms Wynne and all of Ontario accolades for making history and demonstrable progress, I pause to think of the rest of the world, and check my privilege. If anything, it recommits me to spread the amazing agency I have as a gay person in Ontario with those elsewhere and take nothing for granted.

World Pride: Our Pride

While it is never good to feel smug or self-satisfied (we've seen where that takes the right wing), there are things about which we should feel very good. Although I do not live in Toronto, as I was watching the news last night covering the opening of the 10-day World Pride Festival being hosted in that city, I said to my wife that it really is something that we should all feel proud about. The fact that Toronto, and indeed Canada as a whole, is looked upon as a place where diversity is embraced is a measure of our potential for growth as a species.

I was struck by the essential truth in the words of Mr. Gay World, Christopher Olwage, who said, "It should just be a matter of being human and respecting that fact."

As well, those of Christopher Wee, Mr. Gay Canada: “It shows how progressive we are in Canada and in Toronto about our human rights direction and the LGBT direction.”



No one would dispute that we are deeply flawed. A recent trip to The Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta reminded me once again of what an incredibly small space we occupy on the timeline of earth's evolution. So many species came before us, and so many will continue after we are gone. Yet there are days when I think that were our world not so environmentally imperiled, making our own continuation very questionable, we really could evolve into something quite special.