Five of my classmates and I attended the Ontario PC convention on Feb. 23 in London. We got in with media passes arranged by our political reporting instructor by day / city newspaper editor by night.
The thrill of covering the convention for class was two-fold: not only did we get out of writing the following week's assignment on the yawn-a-thon federal budget, but we also got to witness the infamous speech by John "Please Don't Fire Me" Tory. Can you stand the excitement?
Anyway, with the number of articles printed about this in the week after the convention, this story will seem a bit outdated at this point but I'm only getting around to posting it now. Chalk it up to the 18 other assignments I'm already working on for the next few weeks, multiply that by job applications, and subtract the energy I lost by randomly getting sick a few days ago.
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In the upstairs hallway of the London Convention Centre, just before John Tory’s speech at last Saturday’s Ontario Progressive Conservative conference, NDP MPP Peter Kormos called Tory an articulate and effective speaker.
Tory’s half-hour speech was certainly articulate. But it wasn’t too effective.
In the week leading up to the PC convention, the media had pegged the most interesting item on the conference agenda: the vote that would take place immediately after party leader Tory’s speech, deciding whether there would be a leadership review or not. Most critics had predicted that Tory would need at least two-thirds of the party’s vote in order to gather enough support to stay on as leader.
Others, like Kormos, said it didn’t matter how many votes Tory got on Saturday—his leadership had been in jeopardy since October 10.
The day of the last provincial election was “a humbling experience” for Tory and for the Conservative party, he said in his speech. After a humiliating defeat in which the party gained few new seats in the legislature, and in which Tory himself lost the riding of Don Valley West to Liberal Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, major factions of the party were calling for a leadership review.
Kormos, who attended the convention as a “monitor” (read: spy) for the NDP, said Tory would be in a very difficult and unenviable position.
“He’s going to be constantly swimming upstream,” he said.
Calling the speech “critical” to his future position, Kormos said it was clear that Tory’s goal would be to “avoid more slippage” in support levels, as opposed to trying to gain new ground. He said he couldn’t predict what Tory’s strategy would be, adding that his surprising adherence to the issue of funding faith-based schools -— arguably the policy that cost Tory the 2007 election -- made him somewhat unpredictable.
“Hopefully he had better advice on this speech than on the election platform,” said Kormos.
Tory’s speech was an intelligent and humble affair, beginning with an apology for having let the party down and a promise to do better next time. He argued that it would be a waste of time for the party to spend the next year in a “divisive, expensive leadership” race when they should be focusing instead on issues like health care, education and community safety.
“Let me be clear: if I believed the party’s chances in the next election would be better with another leader, I would step aside immediately,” Tory said. “But our own history, and that of other parties, has shown that switching leaders after a defeat is not the path to victory.”
He cited the one case in which the Conservatives kept Mike Harris as their leader after a defeat, resulting in two successive majority governments. He also mentioned Prime Minister Stephen Harper, describing his current federal administration as “a Conservative government of purpose and principle”—-to which the conference delegates responded with deafening applause.
Unfortunately for Tory, Kormos pointed out that the reference to Harper got a stronger reaction from the audience than anything else in the speech.
“The audience did not respond,” Kormos said afterward to reporters. “A whole lot of this audience was sitting on its hands, even at points when any Conservative should have been enthusiastic.”
Although Kormos thought the speech was “well-delivered” and “obviously well-crafted,” reaching out to more liberal issues like societal violence and also to “hardcore former Harrisites,” he said it came four months too late.
“I’m convinced that even most of the Liberals—-when I saw how little they had on their agenda after being elected, I began to reach the conclusion that they didn’t expect to win,” said Kormos. “Mr. Tory was the premier-in-waiting until he forced and drove his faith-based school agenda. He handed the election to the Liberals who ran with virtually no platform.”
Dave Thornton, a Liberal staffer and monitor who attended the conference, would not comment on what his party would make of Tory’s speech.
“I’m here as a volunteer and an observer,” he said. He referred questions to labour minister Brad Duguid. Calls to Duguid’s office manager this week were not returned.
The results of the vote following Tory’s speech were 66.9 per cent against a leadership review. Tory took several hours to think about his decision before stating that he would stay on as party leader late Saturday night.
Among other issues being discussed following the results is the question of where Tory will run in the 2011 election. Speculation about which PC candidate might be likely to step down and offer his or her riding to Tory has been fruitless so far. Kormos said he hadn’t heard of any contenders.
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