December 26, 2007
Villain: John Tory
Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2007––the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months. Get your dose, starting Boxing Day and running into the new year, three times a day––sunrise, noon, and sunset.
By all accounts, John Tory is an individual of impeccable character and integrity who planned to restore civility to Ontario politics. But after positioning this fall’s provincial campaign as a question of leadership, he showed himself to be an unmitigated disaster as a candidate and party leader. And his ignominious defeat revealed everything that’s wrong with contemporary elections. Apart from a tax cut here or a slight increase in funding there, Tory never distinguished himself from Dalton McGuinty. His pièce de résistance—a Conservative fumble of historic proportions—was to attempt to introduce actual ideas into an arena where leaders squabble over the middle of the spectrum. Tory offered to extend public funding to private religious schools, a relatively minor policy idea. The Liberals seized upon the issue, McGuinty blatantly fear-mongered, and Tory never again controlled the message. Ultimately it was Tory’s fault that all other issues—the fragile manufacturing sector, the health care levy, the neglect of Toronto’s crumbling infrastructure, or the laughable Liberal funding of cricket clubs—receded into white noise.
First Tory tried to explain the idea away to a jittery public. Then, with mounting criticism from the media and from within his own party, he backpedalled as fast as he could to escape the public’s taste for schadenfreude. His compromise of a free vote on the issue made Tory one of those rare politicians who broke a promise before being elected to office, as well as the best advertisement for the robust statesmenship of McGuinty. Now he sits in an unhappy purgatory. Unable to let go of his thirty years of political ambitions, he still leads a party that is traditionally unforgiving of failed leaders. His colleagues say the right things in public, of course, but are inevitably sharpening knives in back rooms, ready to revolt at a moment’s notice.
Photo from the Progressive Conservative Party website.
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Tory offered to extend public funding to private religious schools, a relatively minor policy idea. The Liberals seized upon the issue, McGuinty blatantly fear-mongered, and Tory never again controlled the message. Ultimately it was Tory’s fault that all other issues—the fragile manufacturing sector, the health care levy, the neglect of Toronto’s crumbling infrastructure, or the laughable Liberal funding of cricket clubs—receded into white noise.
There is a rather extraordinary leap of logic here.
Perhaps the failure to talk about other issues is, rather, the fault of those who avoided talking about the other issues: the politicians who seized on the issue, and the media outlets which fostered those politicians', um, mongering.
McGuinty didn't need to "blatantly fear-monger," because the public was overwhelmingly against the idea of public funding for religious schools to begin with; the Catholic school funding written into the Constitution isn't really that popular with non-Catholic Ontarians (and for a lot of Catholics, its loss isn't even a deal-breaker, frankly).
Tory essentially poked the slumbering beast of negative opinion with a stick, thinking that it was a good idea. It wasn't, and Ontarians were reminded of something about their province that, by and large, they consider unnecessary and wasteful.
McGuinty didn't need to "blatantly fear-monger," because the public was overwhelmingly against the idea of public funding for religious schools to begin with..
On the contrary, that's the very nature of fear-mongering -- you play up and focus on the issue which is most sensational, and it's most sensational because of the solid wall of opinion against it. If the public weren't overwhelmingly against the idea of public funding for religious schools, McGuinty could not have seized on it to fear-monger.
the Catholic school funding written into the Constitution isn't really that popular with non-Catholic Ontarians (and for a lot of Catholics, its loss isn't even a deal-breaker, frankly).
That's misstating things. If there were not public support for funding Catholic schools, then we would do a constitutional amendment to get rid of it -- same as Quebec did just a few years ago. It wasn't even a big deal.
(Of course Quebec, along with just about every other province 'cept Ontario, does subsidize ethnic and religius minority schools. So the debate, to the extent there was one -- and it was more of a head-nodding consensus than a fired-up debate -- was slightly different there.)
That's misstating things. If there were not public support for funding Catholic schools, then we would do a constitutional amendment to get rid of it -- same as Quebec did just a few years ago. It wasn't even a big deal.
Getting public support for a constitutional amendment to change something institutional and already in place only happens when there's really significant disapproval of that something, though. At best, Ontarian disapproval of Catholic school funding is tepid dislike.
Yes, I think you've got it.
Ontarian disapproval of extending funding to other religious minority schools was significant enough that McGuinty could jump on the issue to fearmonger.
Ontarian disapproval of curtailing existing Catholic school funding is tepid enough that, unlike in Quebec, a constitutional amendment is unlikely. There is not really significant disapproval of the Catholic funding among Ontarians.
That is why McGuinty's fearmongering was successful, but Tory's and others' reverse-fearmongering attempts (re: McGuinty's heavy involvement in the Catholic system) were unsuccessful. McGuinty could count on a solid wall of disapproval (re: minority schools). Tory and others could not (re: Catholic schools).
To move from this to blaming Tory for McGuinty's successful fearmongering and, therefore, failure to address other issues, is a stunning leap in logic.