Warren Kinsella's Speech to OSSTF
April 8, 2006

It's been just a few days since the Ontario Liberal Party lost
in three by-elections, in Toronto, Whitby and Ottawa. Great candidates
in all three ridings, great organization, great effort. But the Liberals
still lost. Lost.

So why aren't John Tory and Howie Hampton running around
trumpeting the results of the March 30 by-elections? Why aren't they
telling everyone that the end is near for Dalton McGuinty and his party?
I have ten theories about that. I call them the Top Ten Reasons
Why McGuinty's A Winner, and Why He's Going to Win.

Here goes.
People still think Dalton McGuinty is a good man: I've
heard about the polling. I've seen the polling. I've even done some of
the polling. And the bottom line is this: Dalton McGuinty's approval
ratings are not just where Liberals wanted them to be, mid-term: they're
better. People weren't wild about the health care premium but - even
back when that tough decision was made - they understood why he had to
do it. With a $7 billion deficit left by Harris and Eves, it was shut
down hospitals, and fire nurses - or find more money to pay for health
care. Voters understood that. McGuinty is seen as a grown-up boy scout
by most voters: earnest, hard-working and - while not perfect, and who
is, etc. - someone who will always stop to give your car a push when
you're stuck in the snow. John Tory, meanwhile, a lot of voters expect
to drive on by - in a chauffeured limo. He's a nice guy, he'll smile and
wave at you. But he'll still drive by.

People still like McGuinty's Grits: A poll conducted by
SES Research just a few days ago - one of the firms that came closest to
predicting the outcome in the most recent federal election - found that
nearly ten per cent of Ontarians favour Dalton McGuinty's party over
John Tory's Tories. At 41 per cent support, in fact, McGuinty is more
than double the 20 per cent of voters who like the NDP. Among women,
Dalton's gap over John is 15 points. And among 18 to 30 year olds his
party has double the support of the Tories. What does that mean? Well,
it means that the endless braying and screeching about broken promises
and Fiberals and other clever Toronto Sun headlines are just that - a
lot of dumb Toronto Sun headlines. With Liberal voters, who read fine
newspapers like Murray's or mine, McGuinty's party is generally doing
what it has to do. There is no ideologically driven, mean-spirited class
war, as there was when the Conservatives were in power. Voters remember
what it was like in those bad old days. They don't want to go back.

McGuinty Undersells then Overperforms: When I was much,
much, younger, and when I had a lot more hair, I was a litigation lawyer
in Ottawa. I thought the Meech Lake Accord stunk, so I started helping
out Jean Chretien in his leadership bid. When he offered me a job in his
office, I had a lot of friends and clients and family sit me and say:
" Don't throw your life away, Warren. Don't do it. That man will never,
ever be Prime Minister." Well...I guess he did okay, didn't he? He went
on to win three back-to-back-to-back majorities, and every election he
contested in his home riding of Saint-Maurice. In politics, as in
sports, winning usually is a pretty good measure of success. Part of
Chretien's winning formula, and McGuinty's, is being like Canadians
themselves - modest, ordinary, never bragging. Undersell what you're
doing, then overperform. Voters remember that. It's why Stephen Harper
won the federal election, by the way - he emphasized his ordinariness.
He was a hockey Dad with a bit of a paunch, and he wasn't rich. There
are a few million of us just like that in this country. That's why
McGuinty will win the next election. As with Harper, in a battle for the
hearts and minds of Canadians, Tim Horton's will always beat out room
service at the Four Seasons. McGuinty's Tim Horton's. John Tory's the
Four Seasons.

Stephen Harper is Dalton McGuinty's best friend: There
aren't many Tories who will say this out loud - but enough of them have
told me, so I'll tell you, without naming names. "Warren," one of them
said, who is very, very, very close to John Tory, "If Stephen Harper
wins, John Tory is screwed. Tories in Ottawa, Liberals at Queen's Park."
Some might call that electoral symmetry, or alternation, or balance. I
call it plain old reality. With Harper in power - possibly for another
six years - Dalton McGuinty has become the last Liberal standing in
Canada. The chances of voters wanting to hand over virtually every level
of government in Canada to one political party are somewhere between
slim and none. Because, let's face it, Jean Charest and Gord Campbell
are good guys, but they're not Liberals. And NDP governments in Manitoba
and Saskatchewan won't exactly be seen as adequate balance to a Canada
dominated by conservatives. So will Ontario voters want to keep McGuinty
around, as balance? Hell, voters in every province are going to want to
keep Dalton McGuinty around!

McGuinty's doing the job he was hired to do: Dalton
McGuinty was elected with a big, fat majority less than two years ago.
He told everyone that the Conservatives had made a Hellacious mess out
of government , and voters believed him - because they knew it was true.
When Janet Ecker did her budget stunt out at Magna - an event that will
rank as the stupidest, dumbest, goofiest political decision this
province has seen Jesus was a little fella, by the way - she said three
times that the budget was balanced. Well, that was what we in Calgary
call a goddamned, stinking lie. But it amazed me, as the 2003 provincial
election campaign unfolded, how many voters knew that already. What
Liberals heard from voters, over and over, was not that they wanted the
Conservatives humiliated. That was a given. What amazed me was how many
of them were saying, in church basements and campaign offices, that
Liberals wouldn't find governing a walk through the proverbial park.
They told the Grits it would be tough, and it has been. But, according
to the polls, and according my gut, they're still with the Premier. They
know McGuinty is doing the job he was hired to do.

McGuinty's record is good: Leaving aside the smaller
class sizes, the smaller deficit, the more doctors and nurses. Forget
about that stuff for a moment....You hear that? That's the sound of
social peace. No rioting at Queen's Park. No people being shot to death
for protesting in a provincial park. No welfare Moms being left to die
alone in sweltering apartments. Jobs are up, unemployment is down,
people feel good.

John Tory is Dalton's other best friend: Let me say
something a Liberal isn't supposed to say. I know John Tory. I have
worked with John Tory. I like John Tory. But John Tory still isn't going
to beat Dalton McGuinty. Why? Let me tell you a story. After John lost
the mayoralty race - and he should've won, because he would have been a
good mayor - I heard he was thinking about the Conservative leadership.
When we finally got together, I told him I felt like a spouse who was
being cheated on - I was last to officially find out. He asked me what I
thought, and I told him the truth. McGuinty is going to beat you, John,
not because you aren't an urban, urbane man - you are. That's what the
Tories need. Your problem is they don't know it. Under Harris and Eves,
the Conservatives consciously and deliberately hacked the word
" progressive" out of their name. They took an axe to it. Liberals didn't
do that. They did. So here's my point, I said to John Tory, who I still
like a lot. My point is this: you want to jump back in time to the time
of Bill Davis. But everyone around you - in the caucus, in the party -
want to jump back to the meanness of the Mike Harris era. Everyone in
your party still thinks beating up on homeless people is good public
policy.

Two terms is the rule: In North American politics, the
rule of thumb is that you get two kicks at the can. George Bush Sr.
didn't, and neither did Jimmy Carter. Up here, it's pretty hard to go
straight from a big majority right into opposition. These two guys are
the experts, not me, but I think that John Tory needs to do more than
just run around calling McGuinty's people "Fiberals." He needs to
present clear reasons why McGuinty deserves to be kicked out, and a
clear reason why he deserves to win. So far, he hasn't done either. And
that's why McGuinty is ten points ahead of him.

McGuinty's the media's worst nightmare: Reporters like
covering conflict, not consensus. The journalistic pickings have been
damn slim for reporters in the McGuinty years: jobs and economy up,
scandals down. Media solution? Drive him out of office! The voters, as
we will see, have a different agenda.

With McGuinty, what you see is what you get: He ain't a
millionaire, or a powerful former corporate executive, or even perfect.
He never claimed to be. He's a regular Joe Schmoe, and Ontario is full
of regular Joe Schmoes. If you close your eyes, it's not a stretch to
picture him riding public transit, or lending you his lawn mower when
yours breaks down, or having him over for a barbecue. With John Tory, as
much as I like him, it's kind of hard to picture him doing any of those
things. Dalton McGuinty is going to be re-elected in Ontario because he
most resembles the people who live and work here. And because, at the
end of the day, they like him and the job he's doing.

In politics, that counts.
...

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