Two years ago, Tim Hudak locked up the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario by promising to do away with the province’s human-rights tribunal.
But Mr. Hudak now has his eye on a bigger prize that will require broader support. So last week, while most everyone was distracted by the final days of the federal election campaign, he risked creating a rift within his own party by making his biggest backtrack since becoming leader.
Mr. Hudak’s address to the Nepean Chamber of Commerce passed completely under the radar. But in the midst of an otherwise unremarkable stump speech, he jettisoned his past pledge to rely only on the courts system to enforce the province’s human-rights code.
In place of that promise, Mr. Hudak offered to “fix” the quasi-judicial system currently in place. By empowering the tribunal to weed out “frivolous” complaints and end the backlog of cases, he said, his party would give Ontario “a fair and balanced system.”
In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Hudak did not offer much by way of explanation for his about-face. He’s “had the chance to travel across the province and speak to various groups, small businesses and individuals about the system,” he said, and decided that making the tribunal more like the courts – including adopting “more clear rules of evidence” – would restore faith in it.
There is no great mystery, however, as to why the Conservatives’ position has softened. Having watched their previous campaign go off the rails because of former leader John Tory’s pledge to expand funding for religious schools, they’re loath to embrace another hot-button social issue that could blow up on them before the Oct. 6 election – particularly when they are riding high in the polls and eager to turn the vote into a referendum on Dalton McGuinty. And the religious schools comparison has already been made by MPPs Christine Elliott and Frank Klees when they ran against Mr. Hudak for the leadership.
The danger, for Mr. Hudak, is that he will alienate the growing libertarian wing of his party, with whom he has formed an uneasy alliance.
It was to secure the support of the fourth leadership candidate, Eastern Ontario MPP Randy Hillier, that Mr. Hudak promised to scrap the tribunal in the first place. And keeping the outspoken former head of the Ontario Landowners Association happy is important to the Tories’ future prospects.
The Landowners, who have strong pockets of support in rural Ontario, have played an increasingly strong role within Mr. Hudak’s party. That recently included knocking off veteran MPP Norm Sterling for the PC nomination in another Eastern Ontario riding, which upset some long-time Tories. But the alternative would be breaking off and forming their own party, which would create major vote-splitting headaches.
Since Mr. Hudak has worked hard to create a big tent, the reversal on the tribunal is unlikely to cause an immediate and obvious divide. While Mr. Hillier could not be reached for comment on Thursday, he communicated through his office that he “fully supports Tim’s plan.”
But the changing human-rights position, which is likely to upset not just the Landowners but also other members of the Conservative base, speaks to Mr. Hudak’s challenges in building the sort of broad coalition that helped Prime Minister Stephen Harper capture the majority of Ontario’s seats in the federal election.
The Tories need to keep motivating their base, which includes not just the Landowners but also other grassroots members who believe human-rights commissions are out of control. But doing that can make their priorities appear skewed to swing voters, including the recent immigrants they need to woo in suburban ridings.
In this instance, at least, Mr. Hudak has opted to worry more about the latter. The human-rights tribunal was a good leadership issue. But he’s hoping everyone will have forgotten about it by the time the fall campaign rolls around.
