The former head of Statistics Canada was set to speak out about the Harper government's controversial census change just before he abruptly quit his post, newly released documents show. The papers reveal that Munir Sheikh was going to tell staff that data from a voluntary long-form survey would not be as useful as the current mandatory form. They also show that the government tried to shape the statistics agency's public comments on the matter.
“Many of you have asked whether I believe the National Household Survey will satisfy the needs of all users of the previous long form,” says a draft text of Mr. Sheikh's planned speech to staff. “My response is that the NHS will meet the needs of many users but will not provide useful data to meet the needs of other users of the mandatory long-form census data.”
That's the only thing I can figure because his nonsense over this census issue are the actions of a man either completely bored or so bloody arrogant he just doesn't care.
Is it because John Baird got a promotion?
Because he and Stephen Harper have never liked each other and Harper is making him take the heat?
Is he going through the change?
Industry Minister Tony Clement says opponents of the Conservatives' decision on the census are just whining because they once had a “good deal” to get information they needed while letting Ottawa force citizens to supply the data.
Clement was defending the decision to do away with the mandatory nature of the long-form, 40-page census that previously went to one-in-five households. The government says Canadians shouldn't face the threat of jail or fines for not filling out the form. But the decision has been attacked by provincial governments, educators, mayors, businesses and others who say the information produced by a voluntary long-form census will not be as good as in past surveys.
“Yeah, there are groups that are upset” about the government's decision, Clement told reporters. "Hey, listen, they had a good deal going,” he added. “They got good, quality data and the government of Canada was the heavy.”
Maybe he knows the Neoconservatives will never win another election and he doesn't want to sit in opposition again.
With Stephen Harper once again in hiding, leaving someone else to clean up his mess, Tony Clement is showing his true colours.
Yellow being the dominant one.
Left with scripted talking points, Harper's long time adversary Clement, is showing how he operates and it's clearly not very well.
But the good news is, part of the infrastucture spending was for a circus school, so he now has options.
The reviews of his performance – at least from a bevy of political pundits and the opposition – were not good. Maclean’s scribe Scott Feschuk provides a stinging bit of humour under the headline, “The Drowning of Tony Clement’s Credibility.” Noting that, like most Canadians, the minister likes his job and wants to keep it, Mr. Feshuk explains that “Tony Clement must now wake up each morning, walk out into the world and say things that make him sound like a wet-lipped halfwit.”
He adds that Mr. Clement must also “perpetuate a campaign of fear-mongering that even the most dedicated mongers of fear would hesitate to monger: Defenceless grandmothers receive the long form and get a’scared that they will be going to jail!”
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
When Anthony Panayi entered the University of Toronto, he had reinvented himself as Tony Clement, and was ready to inflict his Reagan/Thatcher adoration on the University's Tory Youth.
What he lacked in physical stature, he made up for with enthusiasm, and through aggressive marketing and the help of cohorts, he accomplished his goal, building up the campus Tories to almost 500 members.
With strength in numbers they were ready to take on the world of federal politics, and the timing couldn't be better.
Brian Mulroney was in the process of trying to reinvent himself as a man of the people. During the 1976 leadership convention, he had aligned himself with people like Conrad Black and Paul Desmaris of the Power Corporation, running a glitzy, in your face, campaign. His opposition was able to paint him as an "elitist" and he lost the race as a result.
But by 1983, he had learned his lesson, and gone were the Cadillacs and lavish posters. He was going to be a man of the people, opting to travel around in an old Plymouth, fly economy, and dress down his campaign office.
His campaign manager, Peter White, also saw the potential in veering away from the progressive side of the party and tapping into the vote rich right-wing. So Mulroney's rhetoric had already changed to reflect things like lower taxes, balanced budgets and a free market economy.(1)
But White had also discovered a gold mine in a group of neoconservative youth from the University of Toronto, led by Anthony Panayi Clement.
The campus radicals were also instrumental in the defeat of federal Conservative leader Joe Clark by corporate lawyer Brian Mulroney. "In 1981 to '83 there was a guerrilla campaign against the leadership of Joe Clark orchestrated by Brian Mulroney and the people who backed Mulroney," says Campbell. "In Ontario, the PC campus and youth associations were all hotbeds of anti-Clark activity and we were all on the anti-Clark side." The success of the right young Tories in helping force a leadership convention and in electing Mulroney over Clark strengthened their confidence. (2)
The Young Conservatives had also claimed a victory in 1982, at the Ontario Policy Convention.
They had been upset with the expansion of the Ontario Human Rights Code, under premier William Davis, seeing it as an intrusion of the state. So, led by Tom Long, who had cut his political teeth campaigning for Ronald Reagan (3), "... the young Tories tried to force a debate on the issue at a party policy convention. The senior guard warned the young rebels to tone it down; policy conventions were no place to debate policy. But the campaign continued, and faced with the prospect of an ugly public fight, the leadership compromised. Representatives of the youth wing were allowed to help draft the wording of the final resolution on amending the code at the convention. "It wasn't perfect," says Clement, "but it was something we could live with." (2)
But their work for Brian Mulroney would turn out to be perfect, as he had a landslide victory in 1984, winning the largest majority government in Canadian history.
Another Young Conservative Goes to Ottawa
At the time there was another Young Conservative who was helping to boost the fortunes of Brian Mulroney. Then going by the name Steve, he and his girlfriend, Cynthia Williams, volunteered in the offices of Jim Hawkes, Progressive Conservative MP for Calgary West.
Already a member of the National Citizens Coalition, he too had begun to adopt radical right-wing views and a zeal to see them put into practice.
"At the[town hall]meeting they were among the few young people in attendance ... Steve in particular was disgusted with the Liberal government ... My recall is that he did not know very much about the organized political party aspect of politics ... he had concerns about the policy part of politics. They [Steve and Cynthia] joined the association. Then the next thing I knew, they were working within my riding association as volunteers, and members of the executive." (4)
Harper and his girlfriend would help out with Jim Hawke's campaign and recruited many young members from the University of Calgary, where he was studying economics. One of those was a young man named John Weissenberger, who introduced him to the neo-conservative policies of William F. Buckley.
When Harper joined Jim Hawkes in Ottawa as his legislative assistant, Weissenberger looked after things on the local front. However, after working with Hawkes on UI reform (UI, Unemployment Insurance was the forerunner to EI), that never materialized, he became disillusioned and returned to school in Calgary. In a later speech at the founding of the Reform Party, Harper would call for end to "... government financial involvement in the unemployment insurance system..." (5)
But this would not mean the end of politics for Steve Harper. After leaving Jim Hawke's office in 1986, he enrolled in the University of Calgary's master's program, and came to the attention of Robert Mansell with the school of economics. Mansell had been an opponent of Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Program, and saw in young Steve, an ally. So he encourage him to come to an assembly where there was going to be the discussion of creating a new national party, centred in the West, that would be dedicated to advancing western policies.
The keynote speaker was a man by the name of Preston Manning. After they met, Steve caught the bug and began to ...
... network with some of the conservative think-tanks, such as the National Citizens Coalition and the Fraser Institute, trying to mobilize some of the conservative resources, and also helped to establish a right-wing organization, the Northern Foundation." (6)
The wheels were in motion for a right-wing revolution.
Sources:
1. Mulroney: The Politics of Ambition, By John Sawatsky, MacFarlane, Walter & Ross, 1991, ISBN: 0-921912-06-04, Pg. 471-472
2. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 33
3. Tom Long: Dead wrong for PCs: CCRAP hopeful "Callow, shallow, glib", By Scott Piatkowski, Winnipeg Free Press, 2000
4. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3, 2005, Pg. 14
5. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6 3, Pg. 116
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
When Tony Clement was named the first health minister in Stephen Harper's cabinet, the Canadian Medical Association raised the alarm.
Former Ontario health minister Tony Clement, once dubbed ‘Two-Tier Tony’ for his oft-stated belief there must be more “choice in health care,” has been appointed federal Minister of Health for the newly-minted Conservative government. Critics immediately tabbed the 45-year-old lawyer’s appointment as an omen for further devolution of federal authority in health care and disinterest in enforcing the principles of the Canada Health Act.
“It’s quite shocking,” said Mike McBane, executive-director of the Canadian Health Coalition. “It sends a very clear signal that the Prime Minister would appoint someone who is ideologically committed to privatizing the delivery of the public health care system, someone who was aggressively involved in dismantling the Ontario health care system, in firing nurses and shutting down hospitals, and someone who’s an ideologue. He’s not someone who’s balanced and interested inevidence.” Ontario Health Coalition director Natalie Mehra said Canadians should be “deeply concerned,” given Clement’s support for the privatization and deregulation of long-term care facilities and for the creation of for-profit hospitals in Brantford and Ottawa, while serving as the province’s health minister from February/2001-October/2003. (1)
Credit Where None is Due
It's always interesting when I hear people say that Clement was praised for his handling of the SARS epidemic. That epidemic was a bit of a wake-up call for the arrogant Clement, because he looked around and asked "where are all the nurses?" Good question since he had fired them all.
And after candidly admitting that the public health system was “close to collapse.”
Critics duly noted the system’s deterioration was self-inflicted, as it had been gutted by Tory government measures that included laying off thousands of nurses, as well as turfing scientists in provincial health labs scant months after Clement assumed the portfolio. (1)
The front line workers during the SARS epidemic, knew exactly who was to blame:
As a union of front line providers, we can attest that the SARS outbreak was marked by chaos and confusion, inadequate resources and planning, and a determination to place economic interests above health and safety interests. Employers and government all too often excluded the input of workers. Such an outbreak was almost inevitable given the starvation of our health care system. Worse, we have seen little that gives us hope that the necessary changes are happening.
With the cutback of hospital beds and resources stretched to the limit, there has been a longstanding problem in Toronto hospitals with wait times in emergency rooms. So much so that the Toronto Emergency Medical Services has recently had to devise a new system for leaving patients in hospitals to ensure that ambulance paramedics can return to service in a reasonable amount of time.
As a result, during the outbreak it was not uncommon for paramedics to be required to wait for hours on end in their ambulance with a suspected SARS cases before being allowed to take the patient into emergency. Indeed, paramedics were often re-directed from a hospital unwilling to accept a suspected SARS patient. We are not convinced that the necessary improvements that are required in infection control have been made since the outbreak. Indeed, some negative practices are deepening. (2)
He scrambled to clean up his mess, throwing his weight around, but only history credits him with handling the crisis, instead of preventing it, or at least lessening it, when he had a chance.
Clement always put corporations above people and loved the power of sticking it to those who were less fortunate. Growing up Anthony Payani, raised by a single mom, I don't think he was terribly affluent. But then when his mother married former Ontario Attorney General John Clement, suddenly he was royalty who could snub his nose at everyone.
In 2002, he announced that MRI's would be available to those with money, so they wouldn't have to wait in line with the peasants.
The Ontario Health Coalition reacted with outrage over Health Minister Tony Clement’s announcement of the opening of for-profit bidding on 25 MRI and CT scan machines for Ontario. With this announcement, the provincial government has made clear its intention to take non-profit public hospital services and fund for profit corporations to provide them in private clinics.
“Stubbornly clinging to an ideological approach with no public mandate and no outcome-based evidence, the provincial government is risking the future of our public Medicare system and must be stopped,” said Irene Harris, coalition co chair. “We view this announcement as an extremely grave threat to the future of our Public Medicare system and will respond in kind.” - The Minister still has not justified creating for-profit cancer treatment at Sunnybrook Hospital in the face of a Provincial Auditor’s report that found that the for-profit treatment was more expensive and that waiting lists had not changed. (3)
Later that year he went to Banff where he plugged private health care. The only thing he left out were the facts:
Since it got into government the Ontario PC party [under Mike Harris] has radically altered the balance of public not for profit and private for-profit control of Ontario's health system: approx. 90% of Ontario's laboratory sector is now controlled by a private sector oligopoly of three companies: MDS, Gamma Dynacare (recently bought by Lab Corp), and Canadian Medical Laboratories.
The non profit Victorian Order of Nurses, VHA and Red Cross have closed programs and offices across the province as homecare has been handed over to for-profit corporations such as Bayshore Health Inc., Paramed, Bradson, ComCare, WeCare and others. The majority of Ontario's long term care beds are now controlled by for-profit companies as a result of the PC government's bed awards over the last several years. Several corporations are the big winners: the multinational giants Extendicare Inc. and Central Park Lodges, and domestics Leisureworld and Regency Care.
Cancer treatment is now offered for profit at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital, through Canadian Radiation Oncology Services Ltd. Health Minister Tony Clement announced two for-profit hospitals to be built in Ottawa and Brampton with awards to private consortia to be announced in the new year.
.... The government has faced ceaseless complaints as more and more evidence is unearthed that residents' care levels in Ontario's long term care facilities are the poorest in Canada. The Provincial Auditor has found that profitised cancer treatment costs more and hasn't dented waiting lists. Private labs have taken the most profitable section of the service and left the most expensive to the public. (4)
And he didn't do much better as federal minister of health. When it was discovered that several deaths were the result of the products Sleepees and Serenity Pills II, among the nearly 12,000 unapproved natural health products on the market, in Canada, W-Five ran the story.
W-FIVE requested several times to speak to Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement about the four cases of estazolam and Health Canada's enforcement measures, but our repeated requests were declined.
When they tracked him down, on the run, he blamed it on the Liberals. Typical. When they were first elected their answer to everything was "thirteen years" referring to the length of time the Liberals had been in power before them. However, they didn't realize that at some point you have to change the channel. It wasn't until NDP Pat Martin pointed out that they were now part of that thirteen years, that they shut up.
Sources:
1. Two-tier Tony Clement appointed new minister of health, Canadian Medical Association Journal, February 22, 2006
2. The Canadian Union of Public Employees Presentation to the Justice Archie Campbell Commission into the SARS Outbreak, September 30, 2003
3. For Profit MRIs and CT Scanners Extremely Grave Threat Ontario Health Coalition Warns of Public Response, Globe and Mail, July 8, 2002
4. Minister Clement's Semantics in Banff Will Disguise Fatal Poison Pill, Ontario Health Coalition, September 4, 2002 5. What's in the Pill, W-Five, CTV News, February 23, 2008
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada Before entering politics, Al Palledini was the owner of the Pine Tree Ford Lincoln dealership in Woodbridge, Ontario. He was best known for his slogan "Any Palladini is a pal of mine" and a series of television ads created by a young Rick Moranis.
But with the help of Reform Party members who taken over the riding association, he beat out his next opponent by more than 8000 votes.
Palledini* was likable enough and always smiling, but he also earned a reputation for "barely taking the time to open his mouth before changing feet". (1) He was also ill prepared to become a cabinet minister, having just a grade eleven education and never having been involved in politics before.
In fact, when Mike Harris called him to tell him he would be the new Minister of Transportation, he thought he had dialed the wrong number. "This is Al Palledini, Mr. Harris ... " (2)
What Palledini didn't realize was that neoconservatism demands that cabinet ministers are either ill qualified or won't blink. He fit the first description. Political science professor and author Brooke Jeffrey explains:
His [Mike Harris] theory was unique, but understandable if one considers his neoconservative perspective. Normally, ministers function as spokespersons for the "constituencies" they represent through their Departments. The minister's role, around the cabinet table, is to put forward legislation benefiting these client groups, or to express concerns about the proposals of other departments which might have adverse implications for their constituencies. .... But Mike Harris has a different view of government, and so naturally his view of the role of ministers is also at odds with tradition. ... If they were to have any hope of implementing their ambitious and radical agenda, no minister could be allowed to be captured by client groups ... (3)
In February of 1996, when the Harris government announced that they would be pulling the public transit funding (to help pay for the 30% cut to income tax), Palledini was rudderless trying to deflect criticism. (4) This was tough on municipalities, especially larger urban centres that required this service. Harris tried to offset it by suggesting that his cabinet ministers would forgo their chauffeur driven limos, causing Palledini to state "Fighting the traffic to come downtown, I'm not used to. I wouldn't want to do it everyday. It's rough." (5)
Palledini was not totally useless however. I have to say that I liked the late Al Palladini and that I admired his performance as Minister of Transportation. Unlike John Snobelen, he didn’t poison the waters talking about the need to create “a useful crisis” to instigate reforms, and Palladini went after drunk drivers and truck safety with a vigour that I’ve not seen in many a minister. (4)
He was just out of his league. In the end it was not his incompetence however, that caused his demotion but a public scandal, when it was learned that he had been paying $1500.00 a month in child support for a baby he had with a woman, not his wife. (5) On October 10, 1997, he was demoted to Economic Development, Trade and Tourism.
Palladini's move, which many saw as a demotion, also allowed former Harris adviser and neo-con stalwart Tony Clement to take over the reins at Transport as Palladini moved on to become Minister of Economic Trade, Tourism and Development. In announcing the shuffle the premier nevertheless chose to accentuate the positive, describing Mr. Palladini as "the best salesman in government" and declaring he had "the energy, enthusiasm and commitment to market Ontario around the world." (5)
And Palledini did not disappoint those who looked forward to his comic relief.
By 1998 Mr. Palladini was up to his old tricks again. Rather than selling Ontario to the world, he was busy lambasting the cab drivers of Ottawa for "shoddy" vehicles and incompetent service. Residents of the nation's capital, always attuned to slights from the provincial capital, responded with their own gibes at the hapless minister. Finally, the mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, managed to put the matter in perspective by pointing out that the issue of licensing was a municipal, not a provincial, responsibility in any event, and that he didn't "think we need a royal commission on the matter."
The uproar over his broadside had barely subsided when the minister was widely quoted for his enthusiastic reply to a reporter's tongue-in-cheek question about the state of the economy and recent buoyant liquor and condom sales. "I think they go hand in hand," the minister replied, apparently serious. "I think it's great ... I hope they give Mike Harris's government the credit for all the partying that's going on, and all the positive things that are happening in our economy. I think it's all tied in. It's all one and the other." There was no official word on the reaction of the Tories' "family values" caucus, but it seems unlikely they were amused. (5)
Al Palledini died on March 7, 2001 in Mexico. Support for Harris's reign of terror was plummeting. Two by-elections in particular "suggested that the bloom was off Mike Harris’ rose" Palledini's riding of Vaughan-King-Aurora, went to Liberal Greg Sorbara in a byelection on June 28, 2001, where he took 61% of the vote, and in another; Beaches-East York the Conservative candidate could only muster 10% of the vote. (4)
Footnotes:
*Palledini's legislative assistant was Joan Tintor who would later become a "Blogging Tory". In 2007, the Harper government gave a contract for communications consulting worth up to $20,000, to Tintor, for "communications professional services not elsewhere specified." They claimed this was not for her blog, but she refused to be interviewed.
In his new book, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, party strategist Tom Flanagan notes the Tories' innovative use of blogs in the 2006 election campaign. He cites in particular two members of the Blogging Tories, Steve Jank and Stephen Taylor, who write highly partisan blogs on federal politics. Mr. Flanagan writes that campaign manager Doug Finley "appointed people to monitor the blogosphere and to get out stories that were not quite ready for the mainstream media." These bloggers "amplify and diversify our message," he wrote.
Sources:
1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, By Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 177
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
A few years ago, I was having coffee with a friend and she was discussing how hard it was for her to manage as a single mom. This was during the Mike Harris era, and despite the fact that he boasted about cutting income tax by 30%, he offset it with user fees and reductions in services, so the net gain was minimal.
She lamented that she had been unable to save money and said that when she retired she would probably end up in a single room, reduced to eating cat food.
Not wanting her to stress, I patted her hand and said "Don't worry, Chris. You'll never be able to afford cat food."
In Mike Harris's Ontario, the very rich got richer, while everyone else was lucky to get by. And if you complained, he had very big riot police, ready to make you forget you were ever hungry.
And the cat food comment, was not unique as there were many reports that seniors had been reduced to eating it for nourishment. Whether true or not, it was certainly possible.
At the bottom of this page is an episode of a recent Steve Paikin show on TVOntario, where a panel is discussing whether or not the Common Sense Revolution had been a success. I can certainly see what many people have been suggesting lately, that our media is tipping to the right. Usually Paikin is a pretty enlightened guy, and yet to debate the issue, he has a former Harris cabinet minister, a former Harris "Whiz Kid" with close ties to Guy Giorno and Tony Clement, and a right-wing journalist.
The only offsetting voice is that of Marshall Jarvis from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association. He does a very good job of reminding people that revisionist history is just revisionist history, but the facts are the facts. And the fact is that Mike Harris was a train wreck.
And if we needed a reminder of that, the choice to speak up for Mike, Dave Tsubouchi, will sure jolt our memory.
David "Tuna" Tsubouchi
Dave Tsubouchi was Mike Harris's first Minister of Community and Social Services, who came down with a bad case of political foot in mouth disease. The day he was sworn in, a reporter asked about welfare reform, to which Tsubouchi replied: "I haven't figured out how to be an MPP yet, let alone a cabinet minister."
Unfortunately, he never did figure out how to be either.
But that didn't stop him from adopting the same confrontational attitude as the rest of the caucus, making arbitrary decisions and then refusing to explain himself.
It is difficult at the best of times for marginalized and disadvantaged people to have any public voice. Political participation is traditionally low among people who are already excluded from the social and political mainstream (Jackman 1994). Since the election of the Harris government, Ontario has also seen a truncated democracy specifically around access of the most marginalized people to the political process. The government has closed down various mechanisms that had been established by previous governments to consult with groups particularly affected by changes to social programs. Thus, for example, after the 1995 election Minister of Community and Social Services David Tsubouchi simply refused to meet with the Social Assistance Advisory Council (made up of social assistance recipients and representatives from community agencies) that was supposed to serve as a consultation body to represent recipient perspectives. This left the council no option but to resign. Internal documents indicate that the same ministry has deliberately adopted a policy that it will not consult with advocates and recipients. (1)
Not that the decisions were ever really his to make. All that was handled in the backroom, by people like Guy Giorno Leslie Noble, Tom Long and Deb Hutton (Tim Hudak's wife)
Tsubouchi's job was just to try to justify the actions. Boy did he mess that up.
In the Tories' first year in power, the Social Services minister had caused the government more embarrassment than any other member of executive council. Tsubouchi was kept in cabinet, in part, because he was the only member of a visible minority in the Tory benches, and because Harris accepted that the rookie minister had faced an impossible task.
As minister supposedly responsible for delivering succour to the poorest in society, Tsubouchi's mandate had been, in fact, to increase their hardship. It was he who was charged with slicing the income of welfare recipients by 21.6 per cent; he who was charged with forcing them to work for the money that was left. The situation would have been difficult enough for the most adept and experienced of politicians. But even though Tsubouchi was, in fact, more experienced than most in his caucus, having served on Markham council for six years, he seemed to have learned nothing while there, at least in regard to debate. On the floor of the House, the performance of the bearded, mild-mannered amateur poet and actor was fumbling, repetitive. sometimes almost incoherent. "Well, Mr. Speaker . he would begin, like an actor who had forgotten his lines, desperately improvising while he waited for a prompt. None came.
The opposition would have targeted Social Services as a key area of attack regardless of who held the portfolio. But when it became apparent that Tsubouchi was the weakest actor in the Tory cast, they tore into him with the gusto of undergraduate film critics. (2)
The opposition would joke "That's one man we'll never ask to resign" (3). He was a gift.
But some of his best gaffes were when he was trying to convince those on welfare that they could eat on $ 3.00 a day. And he knew how, or at least he thought he did.
On October 3, 1995, [Bob] Rae rose in the legislature for his first question of the day. The Liberals had already been hammering away at a recent Tsubouchi gaffe; the minister had advised shoppers on welfare that they could absorb his government's cuts by buying dented tins of food or waiting for tuna to go on sale for sixty-nine cents. Now Rae rose, right hand in jacket pocket, as was his custom, and solicitously asked Tsubouchi if he knew just where one might find tuna at such a low, low price.
.... Tsubouchi assured the leader of the third party', that tuna was commonly available at that price. "In fact," he added helpfully, "even if it's not priced at sixty-nine cents, quite often you can make a deal to get it for sixty-nine cents." After a moment's stunned silence, the House erupted. The sounds might have resembled outrage to those listening in on television, but in fact most members were roaring with laughter, including government backbenchers, several of whom looked up at the incredulous reporters in the gallery and shook their heads in woe. The only people not laughing were Tsubouchi and Harris. The premier hunched forward in his chair, staring grimly at his desk. When Speaker Al McLean finally got the House to quiet down, Rae affected an air of bemusement. "I can honestly say I was not anticipating" the response, he told the House, "but I'd like to ask him, when was the last time he bartered for food?"
In the wake of such debacles, the Tories tried to improve the rookie minister's verbal fencing skills, bringing in a communications expert on a $25,000 contract. But her efforts produced little visible effect, and within a few weeks of the tuna incident. Tsubouchi was at it again, this time apologizing to the House after Toronto Star reporter Kelly Toughill pointed out to him that new regulations would cut welfare payments for 115,000 people with disabilities, something the Tories had promised not to do. In his apology Tsubouchi lamely claimed that the cuts were inadvertent. A patently angry Harris berated his own minister in front of reporters. "That's no way to run a government and it better not happen again," he warned. (4)
But the dented tins and tuna were just a warm up.
In response to a question, again by NDP leader Bob Rae, he indicated that he had a shopping list showing how to live within the limits imposed, that he would be happy to share with Mr. Rae. Having publicly announced its existence, Tsubouchi then stalled for weeks before finally giving it privately to Rae, apparently believing he could keep it from the public.
The list was published in most papers and became a topic of debate for several weeks.
Tories attending a fundraiser found their cars pelted with the menu staple [bologna] as they arrived. Diners in posh Toronto restaurants debated whether tuna could be found for less than 69 cents (one businessman claiming he had seen it advertised for a mere 63 cents in Leamington), and a Toronto Sun columnist actually followed the menu for a month and reported on it. Tsubouchi never recovered from this fiasco. He was demoted barely a year after his appointment, to the much less demanding Consumer and Commercial Relations portfolio, and has rarely been heard from since.
And yet here he is singing the praises of the Harris regime, as though he was a prominent participant, and not a laughing stock.
Between he and Al Palledini, we often thought the Ontario Legislature was a spin off of SCTV:
Correcting Some of the Revisionist History
Mr. Jarvis is absolutely correct when he states that the comments made by the other three on the panel were an attempt to rewrite history. Leslie Noble claims that they consulted ordinary Canadians but nothing could be further from the truth. The only consulting done was with Corporations and right-wing fringe groups like the PGIB, the National Citizens Coalition, the Fraser institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
She also defends Harris's cuts suggesting that they were due to the downloading of services by the federal government. That is true in part, but Brian Mulroney did the same when Bob Rae was premier.
And as for responding to concerns of the public, the agenda for the Common Sense Revolution was contrived at the University of Toronto by a group of young radicals, including Tony Clement (aka: Tony Panayi), Tom Long and Leslie Noble. It had absolutely nothing to do with meeting any one's needs but their own.
And the promotion of the so-called CSR was created by a Republican strategist, Mike Murphy, right down to the 30% tax cut. Bob Rae made mistakes and yes he was inexperienced, but much of his reputation was "created" by the Ontarians For Responsible Government, an offshoot of the National Citizens Coalition.
And yes Mike Harris did win in 1999, but it was through craftiness and deception. I'm doing a separate posting on that.
It's important to understand this for two reasons. The first is that Mike Harris's chief of staff, Guy Giorno is now Stephen Harper's chief of staff, and he is created the same kind of confrontational and secretive administration for Harper as he did for Harris.
The second is that Mike Harris's protege is Tim Hudak, the new leader of the Ontario Conservatives, and we have to make sure that he never gets elected.
Sources:
1. Mike Harris's Ontario: Open for Business, Closed to People, Rights and the Right, By Ian Morrison, Fernwood, 1997, ISBN: 1895686733, Pg. 73
2. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 182
3. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, By Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 174
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
If anything defines the Mike Harris years in Ontario, it is their love of corporate fat cats. The higher up the corporate ladder, the more clout you had with Harris and the boys.
And they would go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate them.
There are lots of examples of this, but one of the best is the Adams Mine scandal.
A Harris friendly company purchased the mine in the hopes of turning into a dump site, but there were grave concerns. The pit's rock walls were unstable, and there was a great potential for contaminants to leak into the groundwater.
Despite this, Harris used every trick in the book to try and make a ton of money for his buddies, even selling them 2000 acres of crown land at rock bottom prices. Land they had no authority to sell.
Public Concern Temiskaming is demanding to know how the Conservative government can allow the sale of 2000 acres of Crown Land near the Adams Mine to a company that may not hold title to the Adams Mine property. The Conservatives had justified the secret sale of Crown Land to the Cortellucci Group on the basis of the Cortellucci s claim of ownership over the adjacent Adams Mine property. But Cortellucci s claim to title is now subject of a major lawsuit. The Cortellucci Group have been named in a $10 million suit by waste giant CWS (Canada Waste Services) over control of the Adams Mine site. Charlie Angus of PCT says the lawsuit raises major questions about the government s attempt to sell the Crown Land at the surprisingly low price of $22 an acre.
You just can t sell buffer land to people who don t have clear title to the original property. I know the Cortellucci s are the biggest campaign donors to Ernie Eves, and I know the government has been trying to push this sweetheart deal through without any public input, but surely, the issue of who actually owns title to the land has to be addressed before any sale is allowed, stated Angus.
The CWS lawsuit alleges that dump promoter Notre Development engaged in the purported sale of the Adams Mine site to the Cortellucci Group even though CWS had a $4.6 million lien on the property, as well as a right of first refusal over any new Adams Mine dealings. Angus says the failure of the Conservatives to address the issue of title at the Adams Mine is just the latest in a series of politically-inspired gaffes over the Crown Land deal. There s been a smell about this secret land deal and it s not just garbage. This is a government that is hell bent on trashing public process and carrying out an unjustified fire sale of Crown Land just so that Tory developers can make hundreds of millions of dollars by bringing back the Adams Mine. (1)
And this was not the first time that the Cortellucci Group were given preferential treatment.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-St Clair): My question is to the Minister of the Environment and Municipal Affairs. Earlier this month, your colleague Mr Gilchrist resigned from cabinet as a result of a police investigation into allegations that government policy was for sale for the price of $25,000. You, sir, wrote a letter clearly attempting to influence a decision of the Ontario Municipal Board on behalf of developers with clear financial ties to your party. In fact, Jay-M Holdings contributed over $15,000 to your party.
Minister, you're aware that a number of other developers have a great interest in the Oak Ridges moraine and they too have a great potential to gain from your involvement. To what extent was your interference prompted by financial contributions to your party and to what extent are you prepared to stand up today and put a freeze on the Oak Ridges moraine to ensure that proper development takes place over time?
Hon Tony Clement (Minister of the Environment, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing): I thank the honourable member for the question and would say to him, as I said in this House last week as well, that the letter he makes reference to was not a letter to the OMB; it was not a letter to any member of the OMB. It was a letter to the regional chair. It did not take a position on the issue before the OMB. It took a position defending a piece of legislation over which I have carriage. It was advising him of the letter of the law and in no way was it an attempt to in any way influence a quasi-judicial tribunal. It was not even written about an issue that the tribunal had carriage of. So I disagree with his characterization.
In terms of who gave what to whom, I know that all political parties receive donations from individuals. I'm aware that our party has been the most successful at that because we have the best record for the people of Ontario, but it had no impact on my decision to write a letter or not to write a letter. Mr Duncan: According to a report prepared by noted York University professor Robert MacDermid, 28 companies with links to the Cortellucci and Montemarano Development Group made 209 contributions to your party, totalling $335,000, between 1995 and 1997. That same group of companies made no contributions to this political party. One of those companies, is Fernbrook Homes Ltd. Let me read to you an ad about Fernbrook Homes, and I quote this from their ad which is readily available on the Internet: "Now previewing, a private, gated community overlooking ... the Oak Ridges moraine." Can you confirm that this is the same Fernbrook Homes Ltd which is tied to the Cortellucci and Montemarano group of companies who made 209 contributions to your party totalling $335,000? (2)
The Cortellucci Group would end up contributing almost a million dollars to the party, including $47,000 to Jim Flaherty's leadership run and $40,000 to Tony Clement's. (3)
There is no doubt Cortellucci's Tory connections run deep, as do his pockets. Since 1995, the Cortellucci group of firms have donated almost $1 million to the party and played host to one of the marquee fundraising events on the Tory calendar a dinner every fall that brings in more than $300,000 in one evening. The $900,000 in donations to the party made up until 2001 represent the largest amount of money to come from any one company or group of companies with common ownership, outpacing even the firms owned by Peter Munk and the Barrick Gold fortune. Donations made since midway through 2001 are not yet publicly available.
Major banks, by comparison, have donated roughly between $200,000 and $250,000 to the Tories in the past eight years. The fundraiser primarily draws developers and builders and was first championed by the late Tory cabinet minister and successful car salesman Al Palladini. Insiders say it was Palladini, who represented the riding of Vaughan-King-Aurora, who brought Cortellucci and his business partner, Saverio Montemarano, into the Tory fold and urged Cortellucci to make friends with former premier Mike Harris.
Harris and Cortellucci were especially close, Tories say, adding the developer has yet to form any sort of personal relationship with Premier Ernie Eves. (4)
And not just the provincial conservatives:
[Cortellucci] also hosts a string of annual fundraisers for cabinet ministers, federal Tory leaders and Canadian Alliance politicians. In 2000, Cortellucci donated $100,000 to the Canadian Alliance under then-leader Stockwell Day, according to York University professor Robert MacDermid. On the development side, Cortellucci, along with his brother Nick, owns a string of home building companies and firms that do the excavating and grading for new subdivisions. (4)
Harris tried everything from loosening environmental standards, to creating a crisis so that he could assume control of Toronto. But in the end, the dump site did not materialize, but Clement did learn how to play the game.
Tony Clement Goes on Safari to the U.S. to Bag Oil Sell Out
Turns out he was in the United States protecting the 'proportionality' clause in the NAFTA agreement. This clause is good for the U.S. but could be devastating to Canada.
According to the Parkland Institute:
This obscure-sounding clause essentially states that, when it comes to energy, no Canadian government can take any action which would reduce the proportion of our total energy supply which we make available to the United States from the average proportion over the last 36 months.
In other words, if over the last 36 months we have exported just under 50 per cent of our available oil (including domestic production and imports) to the United States—and we have—then no government in Canada can do anything which would result in us making less than two thirds of our total oil supply available to the US.
...this clause seriously jeopardizes our own energy security in this country, and severely hampers our government’s ability to set our own energy policies. ... For example, if a natural disaster were to hit eastern Canada tomorrow, our government could not say that we will cut oil or gas exports to the US by 10 per cent in order to increase the oil and gas available for disaster relief in Canada. (5)
And According to the Dominion:
As the US election campaign kicks into overdrive, Canadian politicians and oil executives are stepping up lobbying efforts to make sure whoever controls the White House keeps purchasing notoriously dirty oil from the Alberta tar sands.
Executives from energy company Nexen Inc., which has major investments in northern Alberta's heavy oil industry, and Tony Clement, chair of a Canadian cabinet committee on energy security, met with Democratic candidate Barack Obama's top energy advisor Jason Grumet in late August to cement the "energy partnership" during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.In addition to official political pressure from Canadian cabinet ministers attempting to force Obama's hand on the tar sands, the oil industry has hired high-powered lobbyists of its own. Gordon Giffin**, a former US ambassador to Canada, is now a registered lobbyist in Washington for the energy firm Nexen Inc.(6)
The Canadian people will always come last with this government.
Footnotes:
*Charlie Angus is now an NDP MP, and is doing an excellent job.
3. Government accused of secret land deal, By Richard Mackie, The Globe and Mail, May 8, 2003
4. Developer's Tory party ties run deep - Caught in controversy over land deal: Proposal involves Adams Mine, By Kate Harries and Caroline Mallan, The Toronto Star. May. 9, 2003
5. Over a Barrel: Exiting from NAFTA's proportionality clause, By Gordon Laxer, John Dillon, July 16, 2008
6. Canada's Tar Lobby: Tar Sands Lobbyists Focus on US Democrats, By Chris Arsenault, The Dominion, September 8, 2008
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
In an interview with Steve Paikin, former Mike Harris insider, and long time Tony Clement colleague, Leslie Noble; suggested that Harris could not have been all bad, otherwise he would never have been re-elected in 1999.
But there were three contributing factors to his 1999 victory:
1. Money
2. Deceit
3. Theft
1. All Kinds of Money
One thing we keep hearing about the Harper Neoconservatives, is how much money they have and their ability to fund raise. And while they will try and lead you to believe that the majority of their donations come from ordinary Canadians, that is not true. Their largest backers are the corporations and wealthy Canadians who stand to gain the most from the Neoconservative agenda.
And like Mike Harris, Stephen Harper changed the rules for political contributions, to try and bankrupt the opposition, while they cleverly used non-profit and religious organization to rake in cash on their behalf.
One good example of this is Jim Flaherty's supporter and friend Charles McVety, head of Canadian Christian College. He has set up several religious front groups, many of which are political. He does separate the political ones by stating that no tax receipt is allowed:
We need your financial support to continue fighting for family, child protection, democracy, justice, religious freedoms, and political accountability. Please donate $100 to the Building the Future campaign. Help us help you influence policy and law. NOTE: Due to CFAC's political actions to support family, religious freedom and democracy, Revenue Canada will not allow us to issue charitable tax receipts. (1)
However, no matter what group you decide to donate to, they all go to the same place:
Press the button at McVety’s Word.ca TV show, shown on The Miracle Network and it leads to the donations page for the "Institute for Canadian Values" seeking new members (annual fee to join, $35.00) and 'will accept donations'.The Institute for Canadian Values is not a registered charity and is as political as The Canadian Family Coalition. Of course they are all housed in Christian College ... here is another interesting issue. If our donor gives through the the main ICV site hoping to support the work of that politically minded organization, how would McVety’s staff know NOT to send her a tax receipt that would go for a donation to the college? Would a receipt be sent anyway? (1)
So by having the funds all go to one place, whether earmarked for the political or the charitable, they are able to launder political money and issue receipts that would not be allowed otherwise.
Advocacy group activity in 1999 also reached record levels. At least 29 groups took part in the campaign and together spent well over $6 million, more than both the Liberals and NDP. The TV advertising of the main advocacy groups was as heavy or heavier than what the NDP managed to buy on a sample of 15 TV stations. (1)
But Harris's system to generate larger amounts of money was a bit more transparent.
Party contribution data demonstrate that the government's near doubling of the legal limit on contributions to political parties in an election year (from $14,000 to $25,000) was prompted by the Tories' dependency on contributions from wealthy individuals and large corporations who give the maximum donation possible. The higher limits on contributions brought the Tories an additional $2.2 million, while the Liberals took in $277,000 and the NDP $103,000 as a direct result of the changes.
To almost all Ontarians, the higher contribution limits are irrelevant because they cannot afford to donate such large sums ... [Robert] MacDermid concludes that both previous and existing contribution caps are not a restraint on, but rather a licence for, the very wealthy and corporate interests to try to influence government. (2)
Mike Harris himself bragged that he had the support of 100 corporations, many of whom gained enormously from the neoconservative agenda. And they certainly helped to influence the election results:
More than two-thirds of the money the Conservative central campaign raised came from corporations. MacDermid calculates that 16 per cent of all the money raised came from just 19 corporate conglomerates. For example, TrizecHahn and its subsidiary Barrick Gold made 17 contributions worth a total of $121,000, and the Latner conglomerate, which includes companies such as Dynacare, Greenwin Properties and Shiplake Investments, gave over $100,000. Over all of the contribution periods in 1999, TrizecHahn and related companies gave to the Tories $255,000, the Cortellucci and Montemarano companies $254,000 and Latner companies $220,000. (2)
2. When First We Practice to Deceive
York University political scientist Robert MacDermid says the Tories are operating on a permanent campaign footing, helped by changes to the Elections Act and the Election Finances Act last year that have given them an electoral edge unseen in the history of Ontario politics. In his recently released paper, Changing Electoral Politics in Ontario: The 1999 Provincial Election, MacDermid reveals how these election law changes gave the Tories an unfair advantage in the 1999 provincial election campaign. And he argues that the Harris government's extensive use of government advertising and Conservative Party pre-campaign* advertising has rendered controls on campaign spending meaningless. (2)
They also shortened the period of time for campaigning which benefited them immensely:
When the government shortened the campaign period from about 40 days to 28, it benefitted fund-raising that depends on large donations from relatively few individuals and corporations. The Tories raised $4.9 million dollars without spending a penny on fund-raising, while it cost the NDP $206,000 to raise just over $400,000. The shorter campaign also brought the unregulated pre-campaign period closer to election day and allowed the Tory campaign to advertise in the pre-campaign period as much as in the campaign period without any concern for
spending caps. (2)
And they reduced the number of seats, claiming that it was a cost cutting measure but instead just erased seats they knew they couldn't win:
The government's 21 per cent reduction in the number of MPPs, from 130 to 103, has resulted in few cost savings to the taxpayer because of increased members' spending and a projected salary increase. MacDermid argues that this measure has in fact cost Ontario citizens, reducing their chances of receiving timely services and assistance from their elected representative. (1)
In their book: The provincial state in Canada, Keith Brownsey and Michael Howlett, also wrote of the Harris government:
"As in 1995, the Tory campaign was a well-executed, generously funded and probably the most undemocratic Electoral campaign that post-war Ontario had witnessed." (3)
3. Run Thief, Run
But what probably factored the heaviest into the Mike Harris victory was the abuse of our tax dollars for self promotion.**
Question: What you are doing is unprecedented. Your current $4-million spending spree is just the latest. It comes on top of millions spent on education propaganda. It comes on top of millions spent on wasted welfare propaganda. It comes on top of millions wasted on business propaganda. In total so far, and it's early going yet, early days yet, you have wasted over $42 million worth of taxpayers' money in a desperate attempt to save your own skins. Minister, why should taxpayers be involved in this plot to fund your re-election campaign? Minister, you're wasting $42 million of taxpayer dollars on PC Party propaganda. It doesn't matter how you slice it and how you dice it, that's what it's all about. (4)
The self-promotion also included enormous expenditures for signs. I remember those. "Pay Homage to Mike Harris Here" ... "Last Chance to Pay Homage to Mike Harris for the Next 300 Feet" ... "Honk if You Like Mike Harris. Honk Even if You Don't Like Mike Harris. We have Riot Police and we Know How to Use Them" OK, maybe that's not exactly what they said, but we knew what they meant.
"... the log for three stations in the 12 months before the campaign, shows the Tories advertised in the months before the campaign at unprecedented levels, buying almost as many TV ad spots in the month before the campaign as they bought during the campaign and spending as much money on advertising before the campaign as they spent during it. The Tories used government advertising as part of their overall re-election campaign and the key ministries of Health and Education spent $20 million dollars on advertising in the run-up to the campaign. Government advertising ran at unprecedented levels during the campaign, bathing voters in feel-good spots and positive imagery. (1)
We need to watch for some of this stuff in both the next federal election and the next Ontario provincial one, now that Tim Hudak, Mike Harris's protege is heading up the party.
Footnotes:
*The Harper government was the first in Canadian history to run attack ads against their opponents outside of an election campaign.
**Harris's chief of staff, Guy Giorno was behind this advertising campaign at our expense. He is now Stephen Harper's chief of staff and apparently the "brains" behind the Canada Actions plan and the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars on self-promotion ads and signs
3. The Provincial State: Politics in Canada's Provinces and Territories, by Keith Brownsey and Michael Howlett, UTP Higher Education, 2001, ISBN-13: 978-155111368, Pg. 193
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
By 1990, the Ontario Conservatives with a new party leader and new president, were in trouble.
There was good news and bad news for Brampton South MPP* Tony Clement right after the 1990 election. The good news was that he'd been elected party president. The bad news came during his first day on the job, when he received a phone call from the party's chief financial officer. "Congratulations on becoming party president," said the CFO. "I just want to let you know that we're $5.4 million in debt. That means before we pay a nickel on staff, before we pay a nickel on brochures, anything, we have to pay in interest $625,000 a year —$13,000 a week. And right now we have about $4,000 in the bank."
That was the financial state of the Big Blue Machine following the 1990 leadership campaign. Mike Harris had inherited a massive debt, racked up during all those leadership campaigns. After the fall election of 1990, things looked grim for the Tories. With the party consistently at 15 or 20 percent in the polls, the $5.4 million debt sat like a huge boulder on a road, blocking any chance the Tories may have had of rejuvenating themselves. That's when Mike Harris made one of the toughest decisions of his political career — he shut down party headquarters. It was the only thing the party could do, but it meant that the once mighty Big Blue Tory Machine of Ontario no longer existed. Traditional Conservatives were aghast. It was unthinkable for them; it was akin to the Albany Club running out of twelve-year-old scotch. The Tories had no party headquarters and no paid political staff. (1)
The election held September 6, 1990, put the Conservatives in third place with 20 seats. But the results of this election would prove to be a blessing in disguise, because it gave Bob Rae's NDP a majority government, at a time when Ontario was heading into a severe recession.
But this also meant that a socialist government had taken the helm, and there was no way corporate Canada was going to allow this, so their advocacy groups swung into action. Leading the charge was the National Citizens Coalition, who created a spin-off group called Ontarians for Responsible Government, headed up by Stephen Harper's** former VP when he himself was president of the NCC, Gerry Nicholls.
Throughout the government of NDP leader Bob Rae, Gerry headed the NCC project group, “Ontarians for Responsible Government”. Among numerous activities this group erected anti-Rae billboards throughout the province. This style of billboard advocacy was imitated nationwide and was featured in Campaigns and Elections magazine. Besides overseeing and co-coordinating the NCC's overall political and communication strategies, Gerry also acted as the group’s media spokesman, edited its newsletters and wrote its op-eds, news releases and fundraising letters. (2)
Bob Rae didn't stand a chance. Nicholls describes the constant attacks.
The NCC’s Golden Age occurred in the early- to mid-1990s, when Bob Rae was the NDP Premier of Ontario. To be blunt, Rae was a disaster. His economic platform of high taxes, big spending, and massive deficits was wrecking the economy. Of course, this made him the perfect poster boy for the NCC. We lambasted his ruinous, socialist agenda with newspaper ads, radio commercials, TV spots, and billboards. At one point, we dubbed him the “Buffalo Business Booster Man of the Year,” because we believed that his onerous taxes were driving Ontario businesses to New York State. Another time, we put up a billboard which featured three photos: one of a mousetrap, labeled “Mouse Killer,” another of a fly swatter (“Bug Killer”), and, finally, a photo of Rae (“Job Killer”).
These ad campaigns generated a lot of publicity for our organization and attracted a lot of people to join the NCC as paying members. Rae’s ineptitude made it easier than ever for us to mount fundraising campaigns. Basically, all I had to do was write letters to people saying “We want to dump Bob Rae,” and they would send me back huge cheques to pay for more anti-NDP ad campaigns. In fact, I must confess to feeling something akin to pleasure — albeit slightly guilt-laden pleasure — in those days of bad economic news. After all, the worse things got for Ontario’s economy, the better things got for us.
What all this goes to show is that if you want to make a living from politics in any way, even if you are just engaging in advocacy work, you need a bad guy or a villain. To mobilize your supporters, you have to be able to point to somebody and say, “Hey, there’s a scary guy out there whose policies are going to hurt you. That’s why you need us.” (3)
Actually Bob Rae's tenure was not as bad as history suggests. He himself admits that he made mistakes, in large part due to inexperience, but he also accomplished a great deal.
The National Citizens Coalition put up billboards with Rae and Stalin side by side, and rich stockbrokers led a protest parade to Queen's Park and shouted for Rae's head. He never had a chance. Bay Street and big business shunned him and his government like they were lepers. Still, Rae managed to save the jobs of the Algoma Steel Workers in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and the jobs of the workers in the De Havilland plant in Toronto. The media was hostile to Rae's government. Today the media keeps talking about his NDP government, but never mention that he presided over the worst Ontario recession since the Great Depression. (4)
And those hostile attacks were often personal, and understandably rattled the premier.
The National Citizens' Coalition, a shadowy front group with big money, had already rented a billboard just around the corner from Queen's Park, displaying posters worthy of Allende's Chile. The huffing and puffing of right-wing types who could never bring themselves to go to Ottawa to worry about Mulroney and Wilson's deficits (much higher and far more out of control than ours) was set in permanent motion. They now have billboards fawning over Mike Harris. (5)
Rae was right. Mulroney had created the largest deficit in Canadian history. The largest of course until Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper would blow that record out of the water. Why was Rae's deficit, that helped to save jobs, wrong; and yet the Harper government's good when it has done little to protect jobs? Employment figures are misleading because many people are opting for part-time, or much lower paying jobs out of necessity.
It's for this reason that I don't think Jack Layton could ever be prime minister because these "shadowy" groups financed by the corporate world simply won't allow it. It's too bad because I really like Jack Layton and loved Ed Broadbent when he headed the party.
Footnotes:
*Tony Clement was not yet MPP. He wasn't elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario until 1995.
** In 2001 and 2002 Gerry Nicholls wrote fundraising letters and ad copy for Stephen Harper during his run for the Canadian Alliance leadership. His fundraising letters raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Harper campaign. (2)
Sources:
1. Right Turn: How the Tories Took Ontario, By Christina Blizzard, Dundern Press, 1995, ISBN 1550022547, Pg. 9
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
The billboard to the right was designed by Gerry Nicholls when he was running the anti-Bob Rae campaign for Ontarians for Responsible Government, an offshoot of the National Citizens Coalition.
I've read several books on the Mike Harris Revolution and all ignore the influence of these right-wing groups, that played such an important role in the success of the movement.
Colin Brown Jr., son of the founder of the NCC, Colin Brown, was invited to speak to the Ontario legislature in 1997.
I appreciate the chance to speak to you today. My name is Colin Brown and I'm the president of Ontarians for Responsible Government. As our name suggests, we at ORG believe in responsible government. That means we believe in government that is careful with tax dollars That means we believe in government that's efficient and, most of all, we believe in a government that promotes economic freedom. We came into being around in 1991 to oppose and expose the ruinous socialist policies of Premier Bob Rae and the NDP after his first budget. For four years we battled that government and ultimately contributed to its defeat at the polls in 1995. (1)
And indeed they did. For the entire duration of Bob Rae's premiership, the OFRG did nothing but harass, while building support for a neoconservative takeover.
The National Citizens Coalition
The National Citizens Coalition, which was started in 1975, on the advice of Preston Manning's father, Ernest Manning; had always been considered to be a right-wing fringe group. But after helping to get Brian Mulroney elected, they began to earn some legitimacy, and with 50 members of Mulroney's caucus belonging to the NCC, it was not too difficult to influence policy.
In 1987, when Stephen Harper, who had joined the NCC in 1980, was helping to start the Reform Party, he worked with the NCC and it's then president, David Somerville. Somerville had been a journalist for the Toronto Sun when Peter Worthington was the editor, so his devotion to right-wing causes was already well tested.
Somerville's connections with the Reform Party were even more direct. He attended virtually all of their assemblies during his term of office as an observer." At the founding convention of Reform in 1987, he told reporters, "If NCC supporters notice a remarkable similarity between the political agendas of the Reform Party of Canada and the NCC, it may be because an estimated one third of the delegates are NCC supporters." Although he continued to argue the NCC was beholden to no other organization, he nevertheless declared enthusiastically after Preston Manning's speech in 1991 at the Saskatoon convention that "it was conceivable to think of him, for the first time, as Prime Minister Manning." Not surprisingly, an NCC poll released that summer also indicated more than 60 per cent of NCC members outside of Quebec planned to vote Reform.(2)
And while Stephen Harper has been credited with writing policy for the Reform party, most of it was actually cribbed from the NCC handbook. (3) They would also put $ 50,000.00 into his 1993 campaign, that brought him to Ottawa as an MP.
But besides simply being engaged in guerrilla warfare against Bob Rae, the NCC also worked closely with Mike Harris and his team.
In 1994 Somerville was asked to address the Ontario Conservatives' platform committee, the group of whiz kids Mike Harris had assembled for his "Common Sense Revolution." According to a report on his presentation in the NCC's June 1994 Consensus, Somerville urged Harris to "come out strongly in favour of privatization, contracting-out, repeal of pro—labour union laws and immediate action to eliminate the deficit". (2)
Corporate money began to flow, and the debt of the party was gradually reduced.
But it would take more than just the NCC if the Revolution was going to have any success, and just as with the Reform Party, Harris could count on several, including the Fraser Institute, of which he is now a fellow. Michael Walker told Enterprise Magazine in 1995, that he and Mike Harris were regular fishing buddies.
Another important group working behind the scenes was the Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB) led by Craig Chandler. In January of 1994, Mike Harris attended a PGIB rally in Hamilton, Ontario, where he stated "I encourage you to join the PGIB is you have not already and demand a restructuring of the public sector to both cut costs and improve services. It is time to go forward with a common-sense plan to unleash the power of the marketplace." and on March 14, 1997, from The Globe and Mail: "...the Calgary-based Progressive Group for Independent Business, a group known as the brains behind Ontario Premier Mike Harris's Common-Sense Revolution. " (4)
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, then led by Jason Kenney also featured a Harris pledge as part of their literature, and praised him for promising to cut taxes.
But the most important influence on the success of the Harris Revolution came from south of the border. That coming next.
Sources:
1. Pre-Budget Consultations, Legislative Assembly of Ontario, March 6, 1997 2. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2 4, Pg. 413
3. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3, 2005
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
After the 1990 election, the Ontario neoconservatives had five years to build up their party. They had hired Republican strategist, Mike Murphy, to create the "Common Sense" campaign, fashioned after one he ran for New Jersey Governor, Christine Todd Whitman, right down to the 30% reduction in income taxes.
Anthony Panayi, now Tony Clement, was president of the party and acting as secretary for Harris, as they travelled the province and networked with right-wing organizations, in preparation for the next election.
But they had one stumbling block that could lead to their downfall: The Reform Party. There were several members who wanted Reform to run in provincial elections, and began making preparations for an Ontario party. Kimble F. Ainslie, who had been PC leader in Southwestern Ontario, left to form the Reform Association of Ontario, which left Clement and others worried that they could split the vote.
In their research on the 1990 election, the Tories discovered that the presence of fourth parties meant a difference between a minority and a majority government for the NDP. If the Tories had picked up two-thirds of the fourth-party vote that went to groups such as the Family Coalition Party, they would have won 10 extra seats in the legislature. Instead of only 20 seats, they would have had a far more respectable 30, leaving the NDP to form a minority government.
It fell to former party president ... Tony Clement to staunch the flow of votes from the Conservatives to fourth parties. The biggest fourth-party headache for the Tories was the threat of Reform running in Ontario. The federal Tories obviously had failed to respect Reform. Ontario Tories didn't want to make the same colossal blunder. Clement, son of former Ontario attorney general John Clement, gave himself the task of learning everything about the western-based party that had wreaked such havoc with his federal counterparts.
"I wanted to learn not only about them, but to allow them to learn about us," Clement recalled. "We were absolutely convinced that if they were to look at us, and look at where we were coming from, we might not be able to satisfy them on 100 percent of the stuff, but we could satisfy them on 80 percent of it. And maybe that would be enough to reduce or eliminate the threat of splitting the vote and allowing 130 Liberals to get in, just as we'd seen 98 out of 99 Liberals federally in the province of Ontario." (1)
But Clement did not have to fight this himself. A group led by Craig Chandler, Focus Federally For Reform (FFFR) (2), came to the rescue, as he would many times for the neoconservative movement. Chandler had provided input for the Common Sense Revolution and wasn't about to throw it all away now.
The Tories took a two-pronged approach. They planned to make connections with the grass roots as well as the elite of the Reform Party. Concerning the grass roots, Clement hit pay dirt when he acquired a fairly comprehensive list of every Reform member in Ontario, some 25,000 names. The Tories sent out mailings incessantly to every Reform member on that list, with letters that went a little like this.
"Hi, my name's Mike Harris. You don't know a lot about me but here's some policy. Here's where we stand as a provincial party. You might be interested in it." The plan was always to lead with policy. Grass-roots people talk about policy. There was no point telling people to vote Conservative to avoid splitting the vote. Voters have no stake in strategic voting. They simply don't care. Main Street Ontarians care deeply about issues. Reformers hate the old top-down style of politics and like discussions on policy. The Tories caught the wave. In mailing after mailing, they asked the Reformers for their opinions — on education, crime, and the deficit. They sent out questionnaires and were amazed at the number that were returned.
Kindred souls with shared goals. Besides, the Reform Party was already in trouble when it was discovered that they had neo-Nazis operating within their ranks.
"We were very, very clear though, in our dealings with them that we weren't going to change who we were for them. Mike was very clear on this. We would share information with them. We should share who we were. If they felt comfortable with us, that was their choice, come on board. We're an open party. You can join up, you can get involved in the riding associations, etc."If you do not feel comfortable with us, this is who we are, we are not going to change who we are for you, but we understand," Clement said. He stressed that there was never any intention to "out reform Reform."
"We never said, 'How can we change ourselves to make our-selves more acceptable to you?"' Clement recalled. That would have been as much an affront to Reform followers as it would have been to mainstream Conservatives. The Tories kept it simple: they shared policy statements, introduced their leader Mike Harris, and told Reformers that they were welcome to climb aboard. A lot of Reform members took up the invitation and easily integrated themselves with the Tories at the riding level. In Cambridge, the federal Reform Party candidate headed up the candidate search committee for the Tories' provincial candidate. In Durham West and in Al Palladini's riding of York Centre, Reformers were members of the executive.
In addition to courting grass-roots Reformers, the Ontario Tories set out to create a working relationship with the movers and shakers within the federal Reform Party. Mike Harris met three times with Reform Party leader Preston Manning, the first meeting taking place in December 1993. They met again on 3 May 1994. At that time, Harris and Clement talked to Manning, his campaign manager Rick Anderson, and Ed Harper, the only Reformer from Ontario, prior to the release of the Common Sense Revolution. They shared with Manning and his people their ideas on welfare reform, tax cuts, and deficit reduction, and they asked the Reformers if they had any ideas which they wanted to share with them. The provincial Tories needed Manning and Reform on side. More specifically, they needed to spell out to Manning that there was no room on the right for a fourth party in the Ontario election. (Before the Tories left Ottawa, they discussed their radical plan with Tory leader Jean Charest, his policy gurus, and Conservative senators.)
The third phase of the campaign to deal with the Reform threat took place the day after the launch of the Common Sense Revolution in the spring of 1994. Harris met with Manning and his people and then the Tory caucus. They invited Jean Chretien and the Liberals, but they were too busy. Ah, well. Essentially, said Clement, they were treating the federal Reform Party with respect, while not trying to pretend to be something they were not. As a result, Manning decided not to branch into provincial politics. In October 1994, Tory efforts paid off. In an official vote at the Reform General Assembly, close to 70 percent of the members from Ontario and two-thirds of the Canada-wide membership voted against running candidates in provincial elections.
Clement attributed the higher vote in Ontario to the massive effort which the Tories had made to get their message out to Reform members in that province. There were no deals struck, no high-powered strategic discussions. It was a matter of each leader setting out policy and forging informal links. Formal ties were far less important than getting to know each other. And it worked. Reform stayed home during the 1995 election. (1)
Ainslee was not happy, and accused the Harris team of sabotaging him. The results of the election were 82 seats for Tories, 30 for the Liberals, and the NDP were reduced to 17.
Sources:
1. Right Turn: How the Tories Took Ontario, By Christina Blizzard, Dundern Press, 1995, ISBN 1550022547, Pg. 64-67
Documents released today about the decision to suspend the mandatory census, show three things.
