Niagara Falls, Ont. — Ontario's Progressive Conservatives are united in the belief that they have to renew their party. But they are a lot less united in how they do this, and this means that things are going to get worse before they get better.
The Conservatives were pummelled in October's election. They are nearly $9-million in debt. The party head office has been virtually shut down and fundraisers face not only disdain on Bay Street but fierce competition from federal Conservatives gearing up to take on Prime Minister Paul Martin.
Dealing with the finances may be the easy part, however. Much tougher will be the task of deciding which face will be presented to voters in the next general election, in 2007.
Tory Leader Ernie Eves's announcement at a party conference over the weekend that he wants to relinquish the leadership by September has unleashed the furies. In the next few months, the Tories will be facing more horrors than are found in the haunted-house exhibits on tacky Clifton Hill around the corner from where they are meeting.
The Ontario Conservatives struck a chord with voters in 1995 with a platform that emphasized tax cuts and balanced budgets. They got through the 1999 vote by tweaking those policies but were felled in October by offering up a confusing grab bag of policies. Mr. Eves boasted on the weekend that "we had by far the best platform," but alas for him, history is written by winners, and the 72 Liberals in the legislature are a rebuke to him.
The blame game is intense. But Mr. Eves, among others, takes pride that "this party has been down before, and we've always fought our way back." Indeed, there was much talk among the 600 delegates about the period after 1990 when the third-place Tories under Mike Harris plotted a return to office. It's become the stuff of mythology. Party officials can't say more than a few sentences without uttering golden phrases about "consulting with the grassroots" in the hope that this will provide the magic formula for a quick return to government.
But who will control the consultation? Mr. Eves's quasi-resignation has started a leadership race, official or not, for this right, and the divisions already are clear.
The presumed front-runner is the charming, ideologically fierce Jim Flaherty. He placed second in the leadership contest in 2002, with an appeal to the party's right wing — he wanted, for example, to jail the homeless and ban teachers' strikes, and he criticized Mr. Eves as a "pale pink imitation" of Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty. He promises more of the same this time.
Mr. Flaherty's detractors are not ready, however, to grant him the mantle worn by Mr. Harris. He is criticized for never really lining up behind Mr. Eves, a major sin in a party that dominated Ontario politics in the last century by prizing loyalty to leaders.
Mr. Flaherty already is having to contend with bites on the ankle from a former cabinet colleague, Frank Klees. The well-groomed MPP from exurban Toronto is not considered a heavyweight within Conservative ranks, but he stirred the pot this weekend with broadsides against unnamed "highly paid consultants" — come on down, Leslie Noble and Jaime Watt — whom, he believes, "hijacked" the party and distorted its policies.
Mr. Klees was also seen as getting at Mr. Flaherty with his denunciation of so-called wedge issues — policies that are so breathtakingly audacious (jailing the homeless, for example) that rival parties won't touch them. "I think we've wedged ourselves right out of office, and that can't continue," Mr. Klees said.
So, some sort of pushback from the Tory left — labels in the party are relative — seems likely. It may even come from John Tory, a functionary from the Bill Davis era when ideology was less important than staying in power.
Mr. Tory, who picked up a lot of fans from his remarkable bid last fall to be Toronto's mayor, said he's still undecided about trying for the leadership. But he's already offered his thoughts about the rebuilding process, and they don't suggest he believes the Flaherty fondness for the Common Sense Revolution is the ticket. "If we try to stay in the past, we're destined to remain in opposition for a long time," he said as he wondered aloud why the Conservatives were shut out in urban Ontario.
Mr. Eves, in his speech to the convention on Saturday, appeared to buttress the anti-Flaherty offensive. He cautioned Tories not to rebuild on "a narrow ideological or moral purpose," and instead proposed broad-based coalitions based on common interests.
This, combined with repeated praise for red Tory icon Robert Stanfield, drove Flaherty supporters up the wall. A party veteran wondered why Mr. Harris merited only one mention in the 23-minute speech.
Mr. Flaherty seems up for the battle. "I expect there will be a group that will advocate anybody but me," he said yesterday. "And there will be a group that will say Mike Harris was a terrible government, and we've got to go back and be a Bill Davis government. I'm not going to be there."
Exuberant bloodletting beckons in the next few months. Those in the ringside seats are advised not to wear white.
