Preville on Politics

September 2007 Archive

What’s up John Tory’s sleeve?

Posted on September 28, 2007 by

The latest polls and projections show the Liberals moving into majority territory, making gains at the expense of the Conservatives. I’ve just been emailing friend and fellow blogger John Lorinc about how dull the campaign has become. Everyone has been sticking to their one-note scripts (McGuinty: faith-based schools are bad; Tory: breaking promises is bad; Hampton: breaking promises is bad for working families). Stalemate. As long as the lines of attack don’t change, nor will the direction of the polls, which have had the Liberals on a slow but steady climb since the summer. I wrote Lorinc that Tory, who must surely be as bored with his own campaign as the rest of Ontario, will need to go out on a limb soon. That’s when Lorinc put forward this intriguing proposition:

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Councillor Stintz wants you to apologize

Posted on September 28, 2007 by

Karen Stintz is among the most effective performers in the political theatre of city council. She is smart and quick witted. She is a forceful orator with a vocal intonation and timbre that resonate clearly in the chamber, as opposed to the monotone, adenoidal blubberings of so many others men and women on council. She is a deft communicator, able to quickly define an issue, ask pointed questions and back her opponents into a rhetorical corner. And she is really, really good at appearing and sounding really, really insulted.

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Dartboard Miller

Posted on September 28, 2007 by

On Wednesday, Mayor David Miller rose in council chambers and introduced a motion to reverse the Monday closings of community centres. For his actions, his opponents—who have been fighting for weeks to get the centres reopened—tried to beat him senseless. It was an entertaining show, the kind you’d never see in Ottawa or at Queen’s Park, where Question Period is limited to 40 minutes a day and each question and answer is limited to less than 60 seconds. Under the clamshell’s rules, every councillor had the right to grill the mayor for a full five minutes, and all those who oppose Miller’s tax plan signed up to take their shots.

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Another argument for faith-based schooling

Posted on September 26, 2007 by

I have previously pointed out that all John Tory’s arguments in favour of faith-based schools are purely secular. They are also uninspiringly bureaucratic: teacher certification, standardized testing, school-board oversight. The closest he gets to mounting a spirited defence of his policy is when he says “it’s the right thing to do,” by which he means fairness (fund all faiths or fund no faiths), which is also tepid. Since Tory seems unwilling to mount a more passionate secular defense of faith-based schooling, I’ll do it.

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The case for MMP

Posted on September 25, 2007 by

Here’s a link to an entry in James Bow’s always-thoughtful blog that links to Andrew Coyne’s column on the issue of mixed-member proportional representation, which is the electoral system that Ontario will adopt if a majority of ballots are cast in its favour on October 10. Coyne’s column struck me as funny because he cannot hide his boredom with the existing first-past-the-post system. Yet his perspective is typical. While most Ontarians know little about the MMP proposal, those who do—like Coyne, and Bow, and me, and every other political junkie in Ontario except Sheila Copps—have invested great hope in its success, believing it to be the cure for many of our democracy’s ills.

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Stop nodding, Dalton!

Posted on September 21, 2007 by

I watched the leaders' debate last night not as a journalist—in an office, with other journalists, in stony silence, listening to every word—but in situ, in my home, amid my normal routine. Which is to say, I listened to the first half-hour on the radio while feeding my son his supper in the kitchen and the rest on TV, leaving the room intermittently to help a tired mother deal with a fussy, tired kid. In other words, for parts of the debate I was either listening without watching or watching without listening and constantly multi-tasking but always paying attention.

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Quoth the mayor: a two-month synopsis

Posted on September 20, 2007 by

I’ve been perfectly clear. The city is facing a crisis. We cannot run a deficit. We need these new revenue tools. Everyone understands that. Torontonians understand that. Members of council understand that. Without new revenue tools, there will be cuts to city services. Council has spoken. I respect the will of council. I will now cut services. These cuts are necessary. There will be cuts to police services. No, there will not be cuts to police services. I have been perfectly clear.

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How to watch an election debate

Posted on September 19, 2007 by

Coverage of election debates always focuses on a single, false question: Who won? Debates are never so cut-and-dried as to produce a clear winner—there are too many exchanges, some of them quite detailed and complex, and each leader always scores a few points for their team by the time the final bell sounds. What debates can do, however, is make an accusation stick: they offer the best chance to pierce a rival’s armour and inflict a political wound. By the end of Thursday night’s debate between the three main party leaders, the question that will matter most is: Do you believe, as John Tory and Howard Hampton keep saying, that Dalton McGuinty cannot be trusted? Because if voters still aren’t buying that line on Friday morning, they’ll likely never buy it.

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UPDATE: Councillors inundated with pro-tax emails

Posted on September 14, 2007 by

The Web site launched yesterday at a rally led by Mayor David Miller, www.fairtaxes.ca, encourages people to “click here to write to your city councillor” and tell them you support Miller’s Fair Tax plan. Click on the link, and what you get is a form letter that goes not to your councillor, but to all councillors. The site barely been up for one day—it’s only noon as I write this—but already every councillor’s inbox is overflowing with more than 1,300 emails.

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Time for a TTC fare freeze

Posted on September 14, 2007 by

Now that the TTC has raised fares for metropasses, tickets and tokens, it seems like a good time to remind everyone that Howard Hampton has promised a two-year freeze on transit fares if elected. It’s the kind of promise that usually proves foolhardy, because you never know what will happen to make costs go up. If the price of oil or electricity suddenly spikes, the promise could prove hard to keep. But the idea of a fare freeze is one whose time has come.

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The tax debate meets the race for Queen's Park

Posted on September 13, 2007 by

image for The tax debate meets the race for Queen's Park

This morning Mayor David Miller, flanked by a bevy of city councillors and surrounded by a supportive audience, launched a public education campaign on his taxation proposal—now called the Fair Tax Plan. Anyone who’s been reading this blog for the last four months knows that this initiative comes about four months too late, but oh well. Better now than never. And yet, it could end before it has barely begun: council is not scheduled to vote on the tax plan before October 22, but Miller is now calling for a special meeting of council to vote on the new taxes before the end of September.

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McGuinty’s Teflon-coated broken promises

Posted on September 12, 2007 by

Everybody loves a horse race, especially one with a photo finish, and that’s what many are predicting in Ontario’s election: a too-close-to-call campaign that will result in a minority government. This is everyone’s preferred scenario because it is the stuff of drama and tension—but right now it is all wishful thinking. Much of it is based on the belief that Dalton McGuinty’s broken promises from the 2003 campaign will come back to haunt him on election day. But McGuinty is more immune to attack than most give him credit for.

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The secular argument for faith-based schooling

Posted on September 11, 2007 by

Has anyone yet noticed that all the arguments John Tory marshals in favour of his proposal to fund religious schools are purely secular? He’s pushing three specific buttons: his proposal would ensure properly certified teachers, a government-certified curriculum, and school board oversight for every student in the province. As Dalton McGuinty positions himself ever more firmly as the defender of public education, expect him to come under pressure to explain why he allows 50,000 Ontario students to receive none of these benefits.

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Clever, clever Liberals

Posted on September 7, 2007 by

image for Clever, clever Liberals

The McGuinty platform is full of appealing promises (full-day kindergarten saves parents money and opens up daycare spaces) and wicked political moves. By announcing his intention to never roll back the Health Care Premium, he can credibly pretend to afford all his promises, which John Tory cannot. The first week isn’t over yet, but McGuinty has taken it in a landslide. Tory’s just playing out the clock now and getting ready to regroup for the next round.

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Religious schools and the meaning of diversity

Posted on September 6, 2007 by

The Protestant supremacism of Orange Ontario is alive and well and cloaked in the sheep’s costume called secular humanism. This is the conclusion I have drawn from absorbing the vehement reactions in the public and the press against John Tory’s proposal to fund religious schools in Ontario, which to my way of thinking falls within Canada’s best traditions of encouraging diversity and tolerance.

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Minority Report

Posted on September 4, 2007 by

There were no brownouts in August. In fact, to John Tory’s misfortune, we’ve had a remarkably mild summer, with most nights pleasantly cool. With no outward and visible signs of utter mismanagement by the McGuinty Liberals, recent polls are inconclusive at best. Some claim a minority of some sort, while internal Liberal polls show them in the 40% range, which is near majority territory. Today’s Star lists 15 key ridings, but far more than 15 ridings need to swing to produce a minority for any party. For Tory, just like the mayoral election in 2003, it will all come down to the last three weeks of the campaign. Back then, if he’d had an extra week to campaign, he’d have won. Let’s see if he gets the timing right this time.

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Welcome back. Now gird yourself

Posted on September 4, 2007 by

I had a nice holiday. You too? Peachy! Just don’t ask anyone who works for either Mayor Miller or his close allies how their vacations were. Many had to cancel their travel plans this summer, so they could help strategize and organize what will be an all-out push this fall in support of the proposed new land-transfer and vehicle-registration taxes. Expect a hustings-style campaign that will, in effect, amount to a referendum on David Miller’s plan for the city. By my reckoning, this is very good news.

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Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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