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Kathleen Wynne’s former cabinet colleague doesn’t mince words.

“Kathleen is all about Kathleen,” the former colleague says.  “That’s always her focus.”

One of her former fundraisers and advisors is similarly candid with this writer.  “I appreciate all the nice things you’ve been saying about me, but thought I should let you know I haven’t been involved with [Wynne] for months,” he says.  And he’s very happy to have nothing more to do with her, the former advisor says.

A former Liberal candidate, Jim Curran, is willing to let his name be used.  He is livid about Wynne’s ahistorical decision to concede defeat days before the vote, thereby consigning her candidates and caucus to political oblivion. Says Curran: “What Kathleen did to her candidates was pretty much the shittiest thing I’ve ever seen a leader do to her own, hardworking, selfless, dedicated candidates who have put their lives and families on hold for the party they believe in. It was absolutely selfish and totally disgusting.”

There are lots more stories like that, but suffice to say this: Kathleen Wynne lost.

She lost because her $70,000-a-month campaign Wizard ran the worst campaign in modern Canadian political history.  She lost because her war room was a joke – “the surrender room,” as someone said. She lost because she had no message to offer Ontario’s voters.  She lost because what messages she had – inter alia, “Sorry Not Sorry” – were juvenile and idiotic.  She lost because she thought she won in 2014 – when, in fact, Tim Hudak snatched defeat from the clichéd jaws of victory.

She lost because she gave up the political centre. She lost because she and her mercenary inner circle saw the Ontario Liberal Party as a vehicle for their personal ambitions – and now they have left it with massive debt, adrift, a shell.

But, mainly, Kathleen Wynne lost because of Kathleen Wynne.  She lost because something – Hubris? Self-delusion? Ego? – persuaded her to stick around longer than she should.  Something persuaded her that it was all about her.

Because, as her former senior cabinet colleague notes, to Kathleen, it is always all about Kathleen.

Now, there can be little debate that Kathleen Wynne was smart, she was driven.  No debate.  One does not become a Premier, generally, by being an idiot.  But, her intelligence notwithstanding, Wynne refused to see the writing on the wall.

It was there for all to see.  For two years leading up to the 2018 Ontario general election, Kathleen was the most unpopular Premier in Canada.  Angus Reid and other pollsters dryly reported on it at regular intervals: Wynne was deeply despised by Ontarians.  They wanted change.  They wanted her gone.

She didn’t seem to care.  Solipsism, or something, told her that she could communicate her way out of her dilemma.  She was, of course, the Premier who hustled to every Loblaws in Ontario to promote limited beer sales like it was the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize.  She could communicate anything, she told herself.

The polls told a different story.  A while ago, this writer and others commissioned a poll by a reputable national agency.  It showed that the Ontario Liberal brand was popular.  It showed that mostly McGuinty-era policies were popular.  It showed that, with former cabinet minister Sandra Pupatello at the helm, the party could win another majority.

But, under Wynne, the poll showed that the Ontario Liberal Party was heading straight for the rocks.

Last Thursday night, the Ontario Liberal Party – formerly one of the most successful political parties in the Western world – hit the rocks.  It was reduced to barely a half-dozen seats and no party status.

To the end, Kathleen Wynne made it all about her. “I have not lost the passion for continuing this work,” she said.

But  Ontario long ago lost any passion it had for her.

Comments (16)

The Wizard, and Wynne, have destroyed the Ontario Liberal Party.

A rump in the Legislature.  A massive party debt.  A terrible, terrible campaign – possibly the worst in Ontario political history.

So where do Ontario Liberals go from here?

I gave many years of my life to the Ontario Liberals.  They were my political home – until Kathleen Wynne arrived, that is.  When she arrived, all of the McGuinty/Chrétien Liberals were driven out.  We were maligned and shunned.  Offers of help were ignored.  Some days, Kathleen refused to even utter Dalton McGuinty’s name.

Now Kathleen and her Wizard – who was reportedly getting $70,000 a month to preside over the worst campaign some of us have ever seen – are gone, or going.  I like Kathleen, as a person, and wish her the best in her future endeavours.  But good riddance to Kathleen the politician, and her Wizard and her Board.

So where do we Ontario Liberals go from here?

Not so long ago, when it became apparent to some of us that a Wynne-led Ontario Liberal Party was headed for disaster, Daisy Group commissioned a poll by a reputable national agency.  We wanted to know what would happen if the OLP was led by the woman who should have won in 2013 – the woman who was knifed in the back after a shady backroom deal involving Messrs. Murray, Hoskins and Sousa.

Below are the key findings, never before seen publicly.  They show three things:

1. The Ontario Liberals would have won last night, big, with Sandra Pupatello.
2. The Ontario Liberals would have picked up support in precisely those places where the PCs and the NDP triumphed last night.
3. The Ontario Liberal brand was strong – but only with Pupatello as leader.

So, you may ask yourself: can Ontario Liberals come back from last night’s disaster?

Yes. But only if Sandra Pupatello is leader.

And, if she wants the job.

Comments (32)

This is pathetic. It’s farcical.

And, as I will show everyone next week, it was completely needless.

If she had left a year ago – and if she had taken her pitiful Wizard and the Board with her – we could have won.

This is on them.

Kathleen Wynne on Saturday acknowledged that she will no longer be premier after the June 7 election and encouraged voters to elect Liberal candidates to prevent the NDP or PCs from securing a majority.

“Even though I won’t be leading this province as premier, I care deeply about how it will be led,” the Liberal leader said during a campaign stop in Toronto.

Public support for Wynne’s Liberals has plummeted since the election started on May 9, and Wynne said that a “confluence of things” led her to make her statement on Saturday.

Comments (24)

Three things about this extraordinary investigative story.

One, it’s behind a paywall because journalists deserve to get paid just like you are.  Do you give away your goods and services for free?  Neither should they.  Cough up a few bucks and subscribe, for Chrissakes.  Don’t be cheap.

Two, this story is going to have an impact on the Ontario election – in a way that is very unhelpful to prominent Ontario Liberals.

Three, I left Navigator when Glen Murray arrived there, unbidden by me.  I despise him. His life is about to get very complicated, and deservedly so.

Snippets:

On March 23, 2013 – a Saturday – Mr. Murray travelled to the farm fields south of Bolton that Solmar sought to build on.

In an interview with The Globe last year, Mr. Murray acknowledged that he did not travel alone, but he declined to identify whom he was with, other than to say it was a “planner” or “consultant” for Solmar…During his site visit, Mr. Murray e-mailed his chief of staff, David Black, and asked him what powers he had, as minister, with respect to the housing development.

Mr. Black responded with blunt advice: “There is no action you can take.”

Mr. Black (who is now chief of staff to Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli) declined to respond to questions from The Globe. But his e-mails to Mr. Murray – obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – show he was concerned that his boss was with someone from Solmar.

And that was potentially a big problem. Solmar had taken Caledon to the Ontario Municipal Board, the quasi-judicial body that has the power to overturn the planning decisions of cities and towns, and a decision had yet to be rendered. But the OMB can be overruled by cabinet – which is why, Mr. Black warned his boss that day, ministers are forbidden from interacting with developers currently before the tribunal.

“I hope you are not in the Bolton area with anyone who might have an active OMB case,” Mr. Black e-mailed to Mr. Murray. “Ministers meeting with active OMB appellants can be grounds for the Premier to ask for your resignation because it can look like you are trying to influence the outcome of an OMB case.”

…But his interest in Bolton did not fade. On April 18, Mayor Morrison and two of her staff drove to Queen’s Park at the request of Mr. Murray.

According to Ms. Morrison and another staff member present that day, Mr. Murray scolded them for what he said was poor planning. He had a specific idea, too: The swath of land south of Bolton should be designated for homes .

Next, Minister Murray asked all of the aides, including his own, to leave the room. All of a sudden Ms. Morrison found herself in the type of meeting she had long refused to take – one without witnesses. And what unfolded next reminded her why.

“In my opinion, he threatened me,” said Ms. Morrison, who recounted the exchange, over several interviews with The Globe. “He told me that he had some complaints against me that were very serious and that he could make them go away if I changed those lands to residential.”

Ms. Morrison, then in her 10th year as mayor, insisted she had done nothing wrong, and that Mr. Murray could do whatever he liked with those “complaints.”

As he prepared to leave the room, she says, the minister repeated one more time that she “had better” permit homes on that land.

The kicker, about the Premier who received a complaint from a Mayor about one of her Ministers making a threat – and the Premier who did nothing about it, and why:

There is another person whom Ms. Morrison says she told about the encounter: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

In December of 2013, she heard Ms. Wynne on the radio claiming, in the wake of a massive ice storm, that she had spoken with all the mayors in the GTA. Ms. Morrison – who had lately become disenchanted with politics and had decided not to seek re-election the following year – became enraged: She had never heard from the Premier in the storm’s aftermath.

And so she sent the Premier a letter that made a pointed reference to a TV ad, filmed in Caledon, that showed Ms. Wynne out for a run. “Perhaps you have forgotten that Caledon is one of the GTA municipalities, not just a scenic location north of the city to film jogging commercials.”

Not long after, says Ms. Morrison, Ms. Wynne called her and said, “I got your letter … I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

“I’ll tell you why,” the mayor replied, and chronicled Mr. Murray’s conduct. She says Ms. Wynne told her “I’ll be dealing with him.”

Ms. Morrison said that, at the time of that phone call, she didn’t realize that Solmar had donated $20,000 to Ms. Wynne’s 2012 leadership campaign – a sum that was among the largest contributions it received.

It was the last time she spoke with Ms. Wynne. 

 

Comments (10)

What will Justin Trudeau do?

When Kathleen Wynne loses, that is. Because she is going to lose the Ontario election. Badly.

The reasons are myriad. She leads a wildly unpopular government. She’s been the most unpopular Premier in Canada for eons. She should’ve resigned more than a year ago, to give someone else a chance to rebuild. Ego and self-delusion persuaded her to stay.

She was also encouraged to stay by a cabal of self-interested advisors who convinced her that she won in 2014 – when, in fact, it was simply a case of Tim Hudak losing. They were the leftover dregs of Paul Martin’s crew, the ones whose treachery and sophistry consigned the federal Liberal Party to a decade in the wilderness, from 2005 to 2015.

Under Wynne, this inept gang has run the worst campaign in modern Ontario political history.  They cravenly sought to squeeze every last penny out of the Ontario Liberal Party and the provincial treasury. They will leave the former in tatters, with an expected $12 million debt and a puny legislative rump.  Wynne’s campaign wizards are finished.

If she’s lucky, Kathleen Wynne will be, too. If she is lucky, she will lose her Toronto seat on election night. In that way, she will be spared demands that she immediately quit. Her constituents will make the decision for her.

But what of her closest political ally, Justin Trudeau? What does the evisceration of the Ontario Liberal Party mean to him?

It means good things and bad things, in equal measure.

The bad is plain to see.  Kathleen Wynne was Justin Trudeau’s closest provincial ally.  Before she became the most unpopular Premier in Canada, Wynne helped Trudeau on the 2015 election trail.  She lent him staffers, and her cabinet and caucus members, too.

With the Ontario Liberal Party machine reduced to just a few seats – and maybe none at all – it will no longer be around to assist Trudeau in 2019.

If he looks around his office, the federal Liberal leader will know why this is a big problem.  His Chief of Staff, his Principal Secretary – along with several ministerial Chiefs of Staff and senior advisors – all come from Queen’s Park.  Trudeau knows he would not have won power without the support of Ontario Liberals.

Also problematic is who will fill the Premier’s chair.  It is in the interest of Ontario PC leader Doug Ford (and, to a lesser extent, Andrea Horwath) to take on the role of leader of the opposition to Trudeau.  It keeps Ford/Horwath popular with their respective base, and – in Canadian politics – the provincial squeaky wheel usually gets the federal grease.

But, for Trudeau, not all the news is bad.  A Premier Ford or a Premier Horwath almost certainly means a re-elected Prime Minister Trudeau.  Ontario voters are among the shrewdest in Canada.  They rarely – less than ten per cent of the time in the past Century – elect the same party to represent them at Queen’s Park and on Parliament Hill.

Ontario voters like to hedge their bets.  That, in part, is why Wynne’s days were numbered the moment Justin Trudeau won big majority in the Fall of 2015.  And it’s why he’ll likely keep winning as long as a partisan antagonist is ruling the roost at Queen’s Park.

For Justin Trudeau, then, the loss of Kathleen Wynne is a decidedly mixed bag.  There’s good news, and there’s bad news.

For Kathleen Wynne, however, the news is all bad.

She’s done.

Comments (29)

So the Wynne Liberals revealed their big, big Doug Ford scandal: he allegedly paid for a few party memberships before he became leader.

Big deal.

“It’s nothing burger,” one senior Ontario PC operative said to me after the Ontario Liberal press conference ended.  “Steady as she goes.”

Now, scandals (real or imagined) have a way of taking on a life of their own. Even though the voting public aren’t nearly as preoccupied with scandal as the media and politicians are – Exhibit A, the Clinton/Lewinsky “scandal,” Exhibit B, the entirety of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign – selfsame media and politicos are undeterred. They love scandal-mongering more than, you know, talking about boring stuff like “policy.”

Here, then, are a few helpful bullets on scandal-mongering.  The politicos and media won’t pay attention, but I know my smart readers will.

• Scandal-mongering doesn’t work. 
• The media/politico chattering class call everything a scandal, and always append “gate” to the end of same, to no discernible effect.
• The public already think everyone in politics is a crook, so the breathless revelation that someone involved in politics is a crook isn’t ever a revelation to them.
• Joe and Jane Frontporch, the aforementioned public, have heard the hysteria and histrionics about “scandals” too many times, and don’t believe any of it until the perp is led away in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs.
• Joe and Jane believe the real scandals are things like the lack of a job, or having to lay in a hospital corridor for two days to get health care, or spending billions on security and deranged, lone-wolf fanatics still figure out a way to kill innocent people – those are the real scandals.  Not someone expensing something by bona fide mistake, or the dissemination of political party membership cards, or consensual adults with zipper problems.

The Martinesque operatives around Kathleen Wynne are running the worst campaign in Ontario political history.  And, the next time they cry “wolf” about some other scandal, nobody is going to believe them.

They’re done.

Comments (31)

My old friend David Akin got in touch with me about a study that Global News has put together. Akin and a team of researchers looked at where the three provincial party leaders have been since the election started – and it tells a very telling story.

What I’m hearing is that, presently, Wynne and her Wizard have one safe seat in Toronto, and a couple leaning their way.  That’s it.  Everything else is blue or orange.  So that suggests to me that Akin’s analysis is right.

Anyway: that debate is going to be pretty important, I’d say.  Comments are open.

A Global News analysis of the campaign itineraries of each leader adds some new data points to support what multiple polls have already shown. The NDP, in second place, have the wind at their backs. The front-running Progressive Conservatives are largely playing it safe. Meanwhile, the Liberal mission from day one appears to have been “Save the Furniture” by placing the leader in a series of ridings considered Liberal strongholds like Ottawa-Vanier, Mississauga-Malton, Guelph and London North Centre.

Struggling to avoid becoming the third party in Queen’s Park, Wynne has been campaigning in several ridings her party won by 20 points or more in 2014.

“The Ontario Liberal Party is calling its campaign ‘Care Over Cuts’ but it should be called ‘Save the Furniture’ [or]’Shore the Core’ because that’s what [Wynne’s] doing,” said Warren Kinsella, a Toronto-based lawyer and political consultant who played a key role in the election war rooms for winning Liberal campaigns for both Jean Chretien and Dalton McGuinty. “You can tell that by the ridings she’s visiting.”

Up to and including Friday’s published itineraries, Wynne has made or will make 28 campaign stops but just six, or 21 per cent, have been in ridings where one of her opponents is the incumbent.In fact, on Thursday night she visited for the first time a riding where the PCs are the incumbent, stopping in at a brewery and pub to meet with a handful of supporters in the GTA riding of Whitby.

“Everything can change, but when you look at where she’s going and what’s doing, it’s not a growth strategy,” said Karl Belanger, a veteran of several federal NDP campaigns, including the “Orange Wave” of 2011 that vaulted Jack Layton into the opposition leader’s office in Ottawa.

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You get to leave power in one of two ways.

One, you get to leave on your own two feet, at a time and place of your choosing.

Or, two, you leave in a pine box.

The latter happens when politicians start to believe their own bullshit. The latter happens when politicians gorge themselves on the pap that is being served up to them by their servile stafflings, the ones who depend upon said politicians for a paycheque. The latter happens when a politician starts to lose touch with real people, and is only hanging out with Deputy Ministers and people who are on the payroll.

Kathleen Wynne, who I like as a person – even though she didn’t even deign to respond to my long-ago offer (and that of not a few others) to help – did not leave when she could have and should have. By default, she chose the pine box.

It isn’t going to be pretty.

Comments (14)