Conservatives need a new script on climate change

December 5, 2019

One of the most frustrating things to watch is how political mistakes keep repeating. The Scheer Conservatives badly lost an election (my hot take), and certainly there are a lot of disappointed people running about in conservative circles. Before I comment on the Scheer leadership question, I believe it is important for Conservatives to do...Read More »

The Astonishing Lack of Attention to Ontario Government and Politics

September 26, 2018

Many people have been asking me about my thoughts on the recent release of the Ford government’s line-by-line audit and the unbelievably high deficit and debt numbers released by the Tories. It has been interesting to see the reaction to how this has all unfolded. The reaction switches from disbelief, to telling us something we...Read More »

Sex-Ed Reform Presents a Perfect Chance to Show Tories are Ready to Govern

July 16, 2018

Not long ago, on this blog, I called for the Ontario PCs to change the nature of the conversation the party is having with Ontarians. Some months later, the Tories super charged the rhetoric, won an election, and gave Ontarians its ‘government for the people.’ A populist revolt worked wonders during the election, and it did certainly fuel...Read More »

An era of ‘David Copperfield’ Budgeting

April 4, 2018

Ah, budgets don’t balance themselves, and it’s also true that budgets don’t deficit themselves either. Both require choices. And voters have to ask that, in a period of economic growth, why the heck are we ballooning our debts and deficits by so much? If we can’t make the tough choices when times are reasonably good,...Read More »

With Ford at the helm, Tories poised to win biggest majority ever!

March 11, 2018

I certainly suspect a fair number of pundits to write off Doug Ford’s prospects this June, but I won’t be one of them. As I have been saying for some time now, Doug Ford is capable of winning a general election against Kathleen Wynne, but his path to victory would look a heck of a lot...Read More »

WTF PCs

February 17, 2018

This is crazy! I can’t put my phone down and it starts buzzing again. ‘Did you hear the latest?’ one writes. Another says ‘What the hell is going on?’ Amidst this chaos, my e-mail lights up: dozens of people have signed up to volunteer for the party. Volunteer for what, one wonders, or for whom? ...Read More »

PCs need not see the past as prologue for the future

February 7, 2018

Tories can be their own worst enemy. Just when victory is in its sight, turmoil seems to erupt. We go through this process where we elect our leaders through the most open and democratic method of any political party only to have that leadership instantly questioned post leadership in perpetuity. No, I’m not just speaking of Patrick...Read More »

The final chapter of the biggest scandal in Ontario’s history

January 22, 2018

A cri de coeur of parliamentarians that oppose government is to call everything, real or not, a scandal. To be sure, as I have written on these pages before, there were many within our own ranks that questioned whether this gas plants scandal really amounted to a scandal at all. However, what is undeniably true about the gas...Read More »

People’s Guarantee is a Reflection of a New Conservatism

December 7, 2017

People have asked me what I think about the PC plan for ‘real change that works for people.’ Admittedly, given my hockey duties on Saturday morning, I only saw about 3/4 of Patrick Brown’s speech to a boisterous PC crowd. I only recently just finished reading the platform, so it’s time I write my review....Read More »

Sir John A wasn’t perfect, but that’s OK

September 11, 2017

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was a founding father of this country. More than 100 years after he died, we today find ourselves trying to make sense of his legacy. This latest episode arrives to us by a motion passed at a meeting of an Ontario teachers’ union to ask school boards to remove Macdonald’s...Read More »

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