The glories of an autumn day
It was a lovely fall afternoon, with crystalline blue skies and the first touch of colour in the trees. And if that weren't enough of an invitation to feel good about the world on this Sunday afternoon, the last Blue Jays game of the season was being played, there was a cornucopia of high-profile sports events on television and there was even a popular book fair in a downtown Toronto park.
But for more than 600 north Torontonians none of this held the charm of sitting in a hot auditorium for two hours to hear politicians talk about the economy, health care, education and crime. If politics as a spectator sport is dead, someone forgot to tell these people.
The occasion was an all-candidates' meeting for the riding of Don Valley West. The contest pits Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory against Kathleen Wynne, a long-time civic activist who served for the past year as education minister in Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government. The race is also being contested by Adrian Walker of the Green Party, New Democrat Mike Ken, and Daniel Kidd of the Family Coalition Party. (The last two candidates didn't appear for the meeting.)
The race is a battle of titans. Mr. Tory, who had won a by-election in a rural constituency north of Toronto, wanted to prove himself in the big city and chose a place where, as he said, he spent 48 of his 53 years. In doing so, he took on Ms. Wynne, who is tough-minded, well-connected and articulate. Both camps think their candidate will win, which means that at least one of them is wrong.
More than a few constituents have offered that this is a pity.The two-hour candidates' meeting was a classic of its type, except that the organizers had the good sense to draft the questions themselves and thus deprive long-winded audience members the chance to hold the meeting hostage. The centrepiece of the 12 questions was one on Mr. Tory's proposal to spend $400-million to bring into the public system the private religious schools that are now educating 53,000 students. The crowd was fiercely partisan on the issue although the ranks of Conservative and Liberal supporters seemed evenly split. Mr. Tory's supporters cheered when he said he wanted "fairness" and "inclusion." Ms. Wynne's supporters cheered when she said the Conservative proposal would destroy social cohesion. There were even a few people who cheered when Mr. Walker advocated a public system free of faith-based schools.
When it was all over, the audience filed out into the fading afternoon. Nothing had been decided but everybody had had a chance to be heard. "It was a good debate, everybody did a good job, there was a good crowd out," said Mr. Tory. "I think we conducted ourselves on the stage in a civilized manner and that's what people want to see. That's what democracy is all about." He's right about that. For one afternoon, at least, there was a sense that people care about their society and want to be involved.
A glimpse beyond the partisan
The roundtable is one of the staples of an election campaign. This is the way it
works: a party leader blows into town and sits down with a group of apparently ordinary
people to exchange views about the issues of the day.
Such events are almost always tedious. The participants at the round table are
carefully screened and cannot be counted on to same anything remotely frank. When Ontario
Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty blew through Lindsay a couple of weeks ago, he sat down in a
high school library with a group of teachers, parents, students. The discussion was
moderated by the local Liberal candidate. The cameras were place, everyone had a
microphone.
The point of the event was to heap praise on the McGuinty government's education
policies.
"My sense is that we made a pretty big difference the past four years," Mr.
McGuinty said to start off the discussion. Surprisingly, no one disagreed.
The conversation, such as it was, was so strained that most reporters and not a few
of the Liberal Leader's staff took to scouring the library stacks and magazine racks for
something to read.
I got one quote out of it, which came from an exchange Mr. McGuinty had with
student Tina Vanderweilin.
"How many strikes have you had in the past four years?" the Liberal Leader asked.
"What do you mean?" a flustered Ms. Vanderweilin replied.
"Teachers strikes," the Liberal Leader shot back.
"None," she said.
And, with that, Mr. McGuinty sat back with an air of self satisfaction.It came to a
merciful end within a half hour and the caravan moved on. It was a big day in the lives of
the people who got to sit down the the Ontario premier but it made not a whit of difference
in the way the reporters travelling on the Liberal bus covered Mr. McGuinty's campaign.
Occasionally, however, these roundtables produce something of worth.
Such was the case the other day when New Democratic Party Leader sat down with a
group of senior citizens -- and his local candidate, to be sure, -- in a hotel meeting room
in Elliot Lake.
The point was the show that the Liberal government's health policies weren't up to
snuff. Mr. Hampton and most of the participants stuck to the script in an unimaginative
way. But Robert Fairbrother stole the show with a compelling tale that caught my
attention.
Mr. Fairbrother, 65, is a retired ambulance orderly with diabetes and heart
problems. He lives in Elliot Lake but has to travel to Sudbury for specialist treatment.
He gets a $78 government grant for such journeys but finds that doesn't even begin to cover
his costs for gas, lodging and meals. He reckons that he's spent $10,000 on his own health
care in the past few years.
He had triple bypass surgery a number of years ago and he recently discovered that
the bypasses have disintegrated. Doctors have told him that he would be unlikely to
survive further surgery so he is living with the diagnosis that he could live another five
years but perhaps only another five months.
Mr. Fairbrother said he feared further privatization of the health system,
particularly drug benefits. He offered the sort of partisan that were gold to Mr.
Hampton's ears, saying that the Liberal government "makes it tough on us seniors."
But the quiet, dignified way in which he outlined his plight took it beyond the
realm of politics.
"The only thing that is keeping me going is the meds and if they take that away
from me, I'm sunk because I can't afford $1,000 a month," he told Mr. Hampton.
For once, a leaders' roundtable deserved attention.
A special kind of agony
There is a special kind of agony involved in covering an election campaign in Ontario these days and unless someone does something it will be endured by generations to come.
It's not so much that very few people care what's going on. That's a given. Ontarians know they have a provincial government but they would really rather not be reminded of it. They pay attention to Queen’s Park only when they really, really have to.
No, it's the time of year that is bothersome. September is almost always a lovely month in Ontario. The days are mostly still warm and sunny while the nights are crisp.
Yesterday, for example, the dawn was just breaking when Howard Hampton's New Democratic Party campaign bus pulled away from the legislature for a quick trip to Waterloo, an hour's drive away. By the time we got there, the sun was rising in the sky and you could tell it was going to be another glorious day.
As soon as his (indoor) campaign event at the University of Waterloo ended, we were hustled back on to the bus for the drive back to Toronto. The NDP rally at Hart House on the University of Toronto campus was outdoors, which only made things worse, somehow. The students lazing in the sunshine looked awfully content in their ignorance of the finer points of Mr. Hampton's campaign platform.
And now, after an afternoon indoors distilling the essence of that campaign, we are in the air to Sault Ste. Marie, flying through a lovely, bright evening. By the time we get there, it will be dark and another day of a lovely month will have gone by.
It was like this four years ago when Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty defeated the Progressive Conservatives. Among the 150 promises he made then was one to fix the date of the next election for perpetuity for early October.
He initially chose Oct. 4, in commemoration of his Oct. 2, 2003, victory. He switched it to Oct. 10 to avoid conflict with a Jewish holiday. But what about the conflict with my love of the last days of summer and the early days of autumn?
Just think of the glories of September. The baseball pennant stretch is alive with drama. The National Hockey League is gearing up for a new season. The Toronto International Film Festival? Glimpsed from a passing bus.
By the time this ends, the days of lunches on restaurant patios will nearly be over. Golf courses will start fretting about frost. We'll be digging in a drawer for the windshield scraper before too long.
It's not too late for the government to come to its senses. Why not fix the date for April? Yes, the days would be lengthening and there would be the promise of spring. But, in these parts, April isn't spring. It's barely past blackened, caked ice by the side of the road. The Stanley Cup playoff marathon is just starting.
We could campaign knowing that it was very unlikely that somebody was sitting on a beach with a cold beer at hand. A summer of picnics and goofing off is at hand, all of it unsullied by the thought of an impending election.
And the best part of an April election is that it would occur about the same time as we submit our income-tax returns. This might remind Ontarians that these guys are looking to spend real money -- our money -- and that it would be good to pay just a wee bit of attention to what's going on.