John Tory's place in history

Oh dear this right wing member of the National Post board and some time editorial writer is chagrined that Tory with a glorious (ie. reactionary) economic and health care program has apparently blown it against the advice of Turley-Ewart's favorite prof. Michael Bliss. Certainly Tory's move to support funding faith based schools didn't help but his about face may prevent even further damage. It seems that even Tory's allies in the press are abandoning the sinking ship and berating the captain instead of trying to help him out.

John Turley-Ewart: John Tory's place in history
The Ontario election was John Tory's to win. His Progressive Conservative Party had agreed upon a convincing economic platform and proposed opening up the public health system to private suppliers in an attempt to reduce the outrageous waiting lists in Ontario, where people are still literally dying waiting for certain treatments.

Tory and his followers were also clearly able to see the need for Ontario to get its house in order as far as power generation for homes and industry is concerned. John Tory would not have allowed the provincial economy to suffer in the name of "greening" our energy supplies.

Now all of that seems for naught in the wake of Mr. Tory's "leadership" decision yesterday -- that is his commitment to permit a free vote on faith school funding should he become premier following the Oct. 10 vote.

Mr. Tory would have shown much better leadership, indeed good political judgment, the key to winning and governing, had he decided to leave funding religious schools to a free vote in June rather than make it an issue in Ontario's fall campaign.

Faith-school funding may well be a matter of fairness in Mr. Tory's mind, but it was not a pressing issue in the minds of the Ontario electorate, who were appalled earlier this year to learn that Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government had blown about $32 million of taxpayers money on handouts to community groups with close ties to the Liberals. Ontario's auditor-general investigated this scandal and Mr. McGuinty lost a cabinet minister as a result.

To this outrage was added further reason for the good citizens of Ontario to rise up against Mr. McGuinty's Liberals when news broke this year about the Ontario Lottery Corporation turning a blind eye to lottery winners who were being ripped off by convenience store owners selling OLG tickets.

Indeed, such political missteps plus Mr. McGuinty's decision to break his promise not to raise taxes after he was elected made him a ripe political target.

That Mr. Tory failed to hit such a big target by allowing an issue to creep into his platform that was incredibly unpopular is why he will most likely lose this election. It's not the he was not warned either.

In a letter to Mr. Tory dated June 28th this year, historian Michael Bliss tried to do his part to keep Mr. Tory on track to victory. In the letter Prof. Bliss notes:

"I have phoned your office and received a perfunctory acknowledgement, emailed the party without acknowledgement, and earlier wrote you on the schools issue, again without acknowledgement.

"This letter is a last attempt to warn you that you are sleepwalking towards electoral disaster with your schools policy."

Mr. Tory never responded and headed into the election fight apparently oblivious to the danger ahead.

Prof. Bliss closed his letter to Mr. Tory writing: "I’m reminded of the bridge to the Islands issue in the [Toronto] mayoralty campaign, and of the public’s reaction to the [Conservative] attack ads you sanctioned in the 1993 federal election. You don’t want to go down in history as a politician who repeatedly was surprised to find out what the public really feels, but I very much suspect it’s about to happen again."

Yesterday Mr. Tory admitted he was surprised.