Hey, remember when B.C. had the crackpot politics and Ontario was the sober one?
Gosh, this goes back to the days of Amor de Cosmos, our second premier and the founder of this newspaper, who, contrary to his name (it’s supposed to mean “lover of the universe”) used to get in fistfights in the street.
B.C. can boast the first cabinet minister in the Commonwealth to be convicted of taking bribes, another found guilty of fraud and a few more who engaged in some highly entertaining personal indiscretions, bringing a smile to the frostbitten lips of our fellow Canadians, who have come to rely on us for such diversions from the bleak snowscape that sprawls so desolately on the wrong side of the Rockies.
We had a whole succession of scandal-plagued premiers who flung themselves out of office before they could be expelled. Bill Vander Zalm got chased out by a controversy involving a bag full of cash and the sale of Fantasy Garden. Mike Harcourt fell on his sword over Bingogate. Glen Clark got done in by Casinogate. It wasn’t getting caught driving drunk in Hawaii that led to Gordon Campbell’s early departure (his Liberals actually rose seven points in the polls) but depart early he eventually did.
In fact, B.C. chewed through premiers with such regularity that after Dave Barrett we went 42 years without voting one both in and out of office in general elections (and you can argue that Christy Clark wasn’t actually defeated at the polls, either).
British journalist Matthew Engel of Britain’s Guardian newspaper once described B.C. thusly: While the province is “definitely one of God’s better ideas … its politics are vicious, corrupt, polarized and rather charmingly wacko.”
By contrast, Ontario has been the exact opposite. Serious, dark-suited, grey-haired Ontario has always been Canada’s older brother, the dependable one. It’s where our finance ministers come from. It’s where our corporate headquarters are. Reasonable. Prudent. Dull as a Canadian sitcom. Until this weekend.
Sunday morning, Canada woke up to A) daylight time and B) Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford, both of which were a shock to the system. Ford leading the Ontario PCs is like Tommy Chong driving a school bus.
Yes, that Doug Ford. Kind of a cleaned-up version of his brother Rob, the late Toronto mayor, only without the smoking-crack-with-gangsters videos. This one, too, is a populist with his own cloudy reputation.
“Ontario used to be called bland,” says Michael Prince, the Lansdowne professor of social policy at the University of Victoria. In fact, 14-year Ontario premier Bill Davis, he of the Big Blue Machine, extolled that as a virtue, famously saying: “Bland works.”
Can’t say that anymore. In fact, the opposite is true. In quick succession the Ontario Progressive Conservatives have gone from a leader accused of sexual misconduct to one compared with Donald Trump. Who’s next, Snooki from Jersey Shore?
It seems it’s notoriety that gives candidates an automatic edge now. What was it P.T. Barnum said about there being no such thing as bad publicity? “I guess we live in the age of instant brand recognition,” Prince says. It worked for Trump.
While many compare Doug Ford to the U.S. president, Prince sees more of a parallel with Mike Harris, the onetime golf pro who as Ontario’s Progressive Conservative premier was known for a policy of financial restraint and deep cuts to social programs. “He was Ontario’s Ralph Klein.”
Klein was hugely popular in Alberta, even when his personal behaviour — once, when drunk, the premier burst into a homeless shelter, berated its residents and threw money at their feet — proved lacking. He was hardly the only political leader whose personal foibles were forgiven as long as he gave voters the kind of government they wanted. Some of the Democrats who despise Trump were willing to forgive Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky affair. Trump supporters clearly tolerate (and some actually cheer) the kind of behaviour that would have automatically disqualified any candidate not that long ago.
The standards for seeking public office have fallen. There has been a dilution, a dumbing down, of what is expected of politicians, Prince says. Throw off a few cheap and easy slogans (“Make America great again”), pander to discontent and anger, and you’ll find a base. The public used to demand better than that. “Doug Ford wouldn’t have taken flight a generation ago,” Prince says. Now he has, even in sober Ontario.
