kevin p. siu

A few days ago, John Tory, leader of the Ontario conservative party, announced what essentially amounted to a revoking of his now-infamous Religious Schools issue. (In case you’ve been living under a rock, John Tory has said that he would extend public funding to all religious schools rather than just the catholic system as it is currently arranged if he is elected.)
He finally dropped the issue when he realized that his idea was doomed to begin with. There was no way people were actually going to allow public funding of religious anything, currently Catholic schools notwithstanding (note that Catholic schools have been funded since before confederation, and that it continues today because of a political deal between Ontario’s parties a couple decades ago).

Tory was inadvertantly admitting defeat to his 2007 campaign. His Conservatives were banking on a campaign that focused on McGuinty’s broken promises and backtracking – but now that Tory’s been caught blatantly backtracking, his television ads seem like nothing but hypocrisy. At least McGuinty had an excuse to backtrack ($5 billion debt), while Tory’s only claim to an excuse was the vehement opposition to the idea (which never had legs to begin with).

Barring a miracle, McGuinty’s Liberals will go on to form another government. The only question remains is whether it will be a majority or minority. Not that Tory’s defeat will be surprising, though. Despite all the hype by the media and their ‘polls’ about Tory being a better leader than McGuinty, Tory has actually been a remarkably terrible politician.

Tory’s most recent claim to fame prior to becoming leader of the Ontario PC’s was his entry into the 2003 Toronto Mayoral Election. Remember that one? The one where he lost to David Miller. Anyone who has been following politics (or the news, for that matter) will know that David Miller’s municipal government is being run into the ground, with increasing debts and a split caucus at City Hall. That Tory could not convey his supposed leadership skills over Miller should be indication to everyone of his unsuitability to politics.

John Tory was connected to one other infamous political event. In 1993, the 135-year-old Conservative Party of Canada, entered a federal election as the sitting majority government. Led by popular prime minister Kim Campbell, the Conservatives looked like they would face minimal trouble defending their government. That was, until the campaign began. Disaster after disaster struck the Conservatives – eventually escalating to the oft-cited Conservative TV attack ad about would-be PM Chretien’s facial expression.

The result of the 1993 federal election was that the sitting Conservatives lost 149 seats. I don’t have the precise figures, but I’m fairly certain that it was the worst political defeat in Canadian history (and probably one of the modern world’s greatest). The oldest political party in Canada was left with a paltry 2 seats. It helped bring to the life the right-wing Reform party as well as strengthening the radical Bloc Quebecois. The federal Conservatives were soon swallowed and forgotten. (The current Conservative Party of Canada is but a similarly named twin, but not the same party)

The 1993 Conservative campaign manager’s name was John Tory.

So, Tory obviously has a history of running political campaigns into the ground. Nothing’s really changed, despite his stay at Rogers as CEO.

John Tory is not the great leader that the PC’s are telling you he is. He’s but a failure of a politician, trying over and over again to do something he just doesn’t understand. If he were a good politician, he would never have let the one religious schools issue bring him crashing down.

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for – that’s your choice. But you have a right to be informed, too. So if you had any inclinations to vote for John Tory’s Progressive Conservatives, I’ll at least be able to say: “I told you so”. Personally, I think Tory is a lying hypocrite, which is worse than McGuinty, who is by any standards, just a really good liar (as any good politician seems to be).