Is Dalton McGuinty doomed?

Nov 5th, 2010 | By | Category: In Brief

Premier Campbell (l) and Premier McGunity (r) : heads of government for the two largest anglophone provinces of Canada, in happier times.

Jim Coyle at the Toronto Star is probably or even almost certainly right: Despite the “ripples through Queen’s Park” launched by  the surprise resignation of BC Premier Gordon Campbell this week, Ontario Premier Dalton “McGuinty is within a year of an election. In all likelihood, there’s too little time to change leaders. And, in any event, on the HST, he’s probably passed the point of no return … For better or worse, the Liberal government will ride this leader, and this policy, to the polls.”

Nonetheless, among the small band of happy warriors who suffer from too much interest in Ontario political history, Campbell’s resignation is bound to bring to mind the oh-so-longue durée of the old PC Dynasty. As some may have already forgotten, from 1943 to 1985 the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario held office without interruption, under half a dozen different premiers. And one of the PC Dynasty’s secrets was to change horses – er, premier-party-leaders – before the sovereign people had a chance to become too fed up with the one in office.

More recently, Mike Harris tried to turn this same trick, and it didn’t work. After a mere 6 years and 292 days as Ontario premier, he passed the torch to Ernie Eves in the middle of April 2002. Then Eves’s Conservatives were defeated by McGuinty’s Liberals in the October 2003 election. But the problem here may have been that Mike Harris’s aggressively  right-wing Common Sense Revolution had strayed too far from the time-honoured Ontario progressive-conservative formula of “strict public morality, competent businesslike administration, and cautiously progressive social and economic policies in substantial harmony with the ideals of the people.”

Dalton McGuinty and his wife Terri celebrate Liberal defeat of Ernie Eves’s Conservatives, in the new premier’s Ottawa riding, October 2003. Photo: Jonathan Hayward/CP.

In the deepest provincial past since the start of the 1867 confederation in Canada, this progressive-conservative formula was (only somewhat ironically) invented and then perfected by Ontario’s first Liberal or “Great Reform” Dynasty – in office without interruption from 1871 to 1905. And this period was dominated by the alleged “Christian politician,” Premier Oliver Mowat – who still holds the Ontario record for time served in the office (23 years and 270 days: Oliver Mowat is also, btw, the great great uncle of present-day Canadian author Farley Mowat, recently inducted into Canada’s so-called Walk of Fame!).


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“Premier Dad” McGuinty “plays at recess with Jaylen, 7, a student at Mount Joy Public School in Markham, September 2010.” TANYA TALAGA/TORONTO STAR.

Over the past several years it has sometimes seemed that Dalton McGuinty bears some vague resemblance to Oliver Mowat, making due allowances for the many ways in which everything has changed everywhere over the past 125 years. All this has made some of us who are altogether too interested in the Ontario past wonder whether Dalton McGuinty just may wind up serving as  premier for almost as long as Oliver Mowat? (Also allowing, of course, that nothing nowadays ever seems to last at all as long as it used to?)

Over the past several weeks (or is it even many months?) some of the ground beneath this quite benign view of Premier Dalton McGuinty has begun to shift. Last week Adam Radwanski at the Globe and Mail felt compelled to speculate: “there are signs, more of them by the day, that paternal guidance isn’t what voters are looking for in their leaders … Mr. McGuinty’s very nature appears to put him diametrically at odds with a political mood that is hardening.” He “may yet navigate his way past the anti-incumbent fervour that has spread across from New Brunswick to British Columbia, not to mention south of the border. At the moment, though, he appears almost uniquely ill-suited to overcome the wave surging toward him … In other, less angry times, he’d  probably be right. But at a time when Rob Ford can get elected mayor of Toronto, the market for ’50s sitcom dads is starting to look a little thin.”

This is without any doubt quite compelling stuff in November 2010. Against it all, however, is the view that on the longue durée theory of “the French Annales School of historical writing … a key to adequately understand modern democracy is the understanding of centuries old, pre-modern structures of governance and what impact these have on democracy today.” Ontario of course is not France and its longue durée is still quite modest indeed. Yet, Dalton McGuinty is actually something a bit more complicated and deeply rooted than “50s sitcom dads” on American television. Moreover, what is Rob Ford all about if it isn’t a plea for more respect for the way it used to be – in the good old days? And who really knows? It could even be that in the early 21st century the market for 1880s alleged Christian politicians (who also stood up bravely for “our mixed community,” even then) may soon enough stage some kind of comeback?

Canadian author Farley Mowat, great grandnephew of Ontario premier Oliver Mowat, being interviewed at induction ceremony for Canada's Walk of Fame, October 2010.

(Oh, and btw again, today the Ontario small business with which I am associated received a cheque from Premier McGuinty in the mail. It is to help compensate for whatever we may be suffering as a result of the introduction of the new Ontario Harmonized Sales Tax or HST, the BC version of which is one of the things that has prompted Premier Campbell’s resignation out on Canada’s beautiful Pacific coast. The actual amount of money involved is negligible at best. But our office manager, who is always – as I know all too well myself – working hard to stop one or another gravy train in our particular Central Canadian location, is very pleased.)

Randall White is the author of Ontario 1610—1985: A Political and Economic History, and Ontario Since 1985.

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