07.27.2010 07:25 AM

Little Timmy’s Summer Tour: the reviews keep rolling in!

In case you have noticed, which you almost certainly didn’t, Ontario Regressive Reformatory leader Little Timmy Hudak has been traveling the province this Summer.

And, just last week, he and his caveman caucus held a news conference every single day. 
Most days, they got no coverage at all.  Some days, however, they have been rewarded with some boffo reviews.  A sampling:

  • Belleville Intelligencer, May 13, 2010: “Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is in town today. You may see him with a portable podium with his name and a party slogan on it, standing out front of the Local Health Integration Network offices on Dundas Street today. 

You might think there’s an election on. But, you’ll know Hudak. 

He’ll be the angry man telling you all that LHINs are a waste of money and he’s even had his staff do Freedom of Information requests to determine who spent what on a Montana’s meal while on the taxpayer’s dime…. We’ll let the politicians debate the merits or waste of the LHINs in the Legislature. A dog and pony show with e-mailed notices to draw attendance by local media outlets to score fast headlines in a hit-and-run fashion, though, smacks of cheap electioneering. 

The LHINs may very well prove to be an ineffective use of health care dollars. But, what Hudak won’t elaborate on is the fact that a mandatory review of LHINs provincewide will be undertaken in 18 months. The requirement was built into the legislation that created the LHINs and there will be ample opportunity there and in the Legislature before then to put the LHINs under the microscope. Our political process has become a series of orchestrated, headline-grabbing bits of street theatre and today’s event is a perfect example. 

Let Hudak expound on solid policy alternatives before he rolls into town with an election-style, made for photo-ops vaudeville routine. 

Show us some solid alternatives, not dog-and- pony, please.”
  • Barrie Examiner, May 19, 2010: “Ontario voters have long memories. The last time a Tory government was in power, it was the Mike Harris/Ernie Eves Conservatives — which cut welfare and all sorts of other services. 

Fairly or unfairly, Walkerton is their legacy. 

Hudak, of course, has the provincial election during the fall of 2011 in mind. He’s trying to give Ontario voters a viable alternative to the Liberals. 

But it hasn’t taken long for things to get sticky for Hudak. He needs to have more detailed answers.”
  • Guelph Mercury, June 18, 2010: “Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak was once again all talk and no promised action during a visit to Guelph. 

As he did in previous stops – Hudak has been in Guelph four times during the last 14 months – he lashed out at Premier Dalton McGuinty and the looming harmonized sales tax, which takes effect July 1. 

But the leader again failed to offer a concrete solution to the tax.”
  • Globe and Mail, July 7, 2010: “I wouldn’t have expected Tim Hudak to put forward a really nuanced post-G20 treatise on the balance between security and civil liberties. That’s not the way opposition politics tends to work. 

Still, I would have expected something a little more sophisticated than this… 

The Conservative Leader’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Toronto Sun came off like something on that paper’s letters page, or like a transcript of a kneejerk call to a talk-radio station… If Hudak and his strategists didn’t see any political advantage in trying to convince their supporters to come around to that line of thinking, fair enough. But it’s disappointing that the leader of the Official Opposition actively discouraged Ontarians from looking at relevant issues in a more serious way. 

I’m not sure if he took his position because he genuinely believed it, or because he thought it would be the easiest way to score points. And I’m honestly not sure which would be worse.”

4 Comments

  1. Paul R. Martin says:

    I realize that you really like the current premier; however, the Ontario government had a lot of bad press lately. Running the war room will be interesting as the Conservatives will have a lot of dirt to throw at your party.

  2. CQ says:

    When do these leaders ever visit specific ‘grassroots’ ridings within Toronto. Seems to me, it is only for big media presentation stuff to be carried across the GTA as a whole.

  3. Catherine says:

    Actually Warren you could easily substitute Michael Ignatieff for Tim Hudak in your post and it reflect a similar sentiment. Just saying.

  4. Lipman says:

    Cream of the Crop:

    10% Fresh, 90 Percent Rotten….

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