安省进步保守党领导人竞选: Doug Ford获胜

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As Ontario Progressive Conservative party members begin voting to choose a new leader, we will profile the four candidates over the coming days. The leader will be announced March 10.

Suggest to Caroline Mulroney that she lacks the political experience of her rivals in the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race — or that trying to win her first seat in any legislature, a party leadership and a premier’s office in less than five months sounds just a bit crazy — and she will tell you that she brings a “different kind of experience” to the table: “I’ve been working for 20 years in law and business, I started a charity, and I’ve been doing that while raising (four) kids,” as she told CBC the day of her campaign launch.

If experience is your ballot question, that might not be hugely convincing. Successful financiers, lawyers and philanthropists enter politics all the time. Often they are parents. The most unique experience she can claim is growing up at 24 Sussex Drive, and that might have kept some people out of the spotlight for good.

The morning after winning the leadership race in June 1983, Brian Mulroney celebrated his daughter Caroline’s ninth birthday at a party in the Chateau Laurier. Postmedia File

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was constantly at war with the media, and when his wife and kids made public appearances they were fair game in a way that looks downright savage today. CTV morning host Ben Mulroney, Caroline’s younger brother, recalls with particular annoyance the suggestion that his mother had insincerely taken up the cause of cystic fibrosis — “an awful disease whose child victims are both blameless and photogenic,” Susan Riley wrote in a 1998 book called Political Wives: Lives of the Saints. “There is something patently insincere about Mila, something people sense even through a television screen.”

In fact, the Toronto Star’s Carol Goar reported, Mila was speaking almost daily with sufferers of the disease and with bereaved parents.

“It was a blood sport,” Ben Mulroney marvels of Ottawa in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Mulroney family sits down to breakfast in this March 1992 photo. Clockwise from left are Ben, 16, Caroline, 17, then-PM Brian, his wife Mila, Mark, 12, and Nicolas, 6. Postmedia File

The most infamous episode was Frank magazine’s “Deflower Caroline Mulroney contest,” which Brian Mulroney characterized as “an incitement to gang-rape my daughter.” But even ostensibly non-satirical coverage was often incredibly tone-deaf. “She must have developed a decided interest in guys by now,” Hubert Bauch mused in the Toronto Star in 1991. “And from all appearances, she’d have no problem getting noticed.” The headline was “The blooming of Caroline.” She was 17.

“I’m more reserved in general as a result of it,” says Mulroney, now 43, in an interview at her tackled-together midtown Toronto campaign office. She suggests dealing with media is the steepest learning curve she’s currently navigating.

“There was a lot about politics that seemed like fun from a young kid’s perspective,” she nevertheless recalls: “I saw my dad, my mother and all the people who were part of the party in Ottawa, and of different parties, working really hard for what they believed in.” Thirty years after the bitter “free trade election” of 1988, she notes, people from all parties are “fighting to keep NAFTA alive.”

“It shows you that you (might) be unpopular and you might be criticized in the media,” she reasons, but that history will reward you “if you do what’s right.”

Mark and Caroline Mulroney attend a ceremony where their father received the Order of Canada from Governor General Romeo Leblanc in 1998. Wayne Cuddington/Postmedia News

Brian Mulroney recalls Caroline didn’t seem much bothered by the bad press as a child, and credits her mother. “Mila’s attitude always was … ‘consider the source, and let’s move on’,” he says. “’We don’t have time to waste with these vile personal attacks by mediocrities.’”

“We have many things in common, but one thing in particular is that we never really are hurt by criticism,” says Mila Mulroney. “If it’s just rude and maligns you without any point of reference, then you just totally dismiss it. If there’s value in the criticism I’m sure she’ll take it and she’ll examine it and she’ll figure it out.”

“My mother did a tremendous job of raising four children in Ottawa under a spotlight,” says Caroline. “I wanted to hear from her whether she thought (entering politics) was even something that I should consider because of the age of my (pre-teen) children. She was very encouraging, and I raise my children a lot in the way she raised us.”

Caroline Mulroney and Andrew Lapham after their wedding ceremony on Sept. 16, 2000 in Montreal. John Mahoney/The Canadian Press

Mulroney paints herself as a classic families-first centrist compassionate conservative — someone who believes “government should be the last resort,” but nevertheless “has a role in helping our most vulnerable.” This week she proposed policies that would get unlicensed daycare operators trained and licensed, while reviewing plans for more government-provided daycare spaces for cost-effectiveness. Like all the candidates, she opposes the carbon tax that anchors the People’s Guarantee platform released in November, but she has taken a moderate line on the other major divisive issue: she says she shares parents’ concerns about a lack of consultation on sex-ed, but sees no reason to change the curriculum. “I think for three years, it’s worked,” she says.

As high-profile as much of Caroline Mulroney’s childhood was, she has since flown mostly under the radar. Even her 2000 wedding to Andrew Lapham — son of former Harper’s magazine editor Lewis Lapham, and great-great grandson of Texaco Oil co-founder Lewis H. Lapham — was lower-profile than it might have been. Guests included everyone from George and Barbara Bush to Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, but society reporters mostly failed to squeeze intimate details out of tight-lipped organizers.

Caroline Mulroney with her husband and family. carolinemulroney.ca

After studying government at Harvard, Mulroney moved to New York in 1996 and into investment banking at Bear, Stearns. From there it was on to New York University’s law school, where she graduated in 2001 and took on a role as associate director of the university’s Pollack Center for Law & Business, organizing events and conferences. “She was a wonderful colleague, energetic, imaginative, great with people and diligent,” recalls William T. Allen, a renowned corporate law professor at NYU.

Mulroney was living the sort of life thousands of hyper-ambitious 20-somethings lead in New York, albeit in very nice West Village apartments. She was called to the bar in New York, and practiced in the employee compensation and benefits group at Shearman & Sterling. And she says she loved the work despite the “100-hour weeks” and middle-of-the-night post-Enron-collapse conference calls with Japanese clients. But ultimately, as her mind turned to family, she determined the lifestyle was unsustainable.

“I hadn’t yet figured out — and I think a lot of women may experience this — what (my) career was going to look like,” she recalls, “because I had always thought I’d be a partner by the time I was 30, and I’d also be a mother of four by the time I was 30.”

Ontario PC leadership candidate Caroline Mulroney looks on prior to addressing The Economic Club of Canada at Toronto’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, March 2, 2018. Peter J Thompson/Financial Post

Mulroney and Lapham relocated to Toronto, where Lapham is chairman of Blackstone Capital. Mulroney completed the coursework to be called to the bar in Ontario, she says, but “then we found out we were expecting our fourth child.” At 33, she decided the business world was better suited to her talents than trying to dive back into a law firm. She’s currently on leave from investment advisers BloombergSen.

With her sisters-in-law, she also co-founded the Shoebox Project, a charity that provides what she calls “little luxuries” to homeless women around the holidays. What began as a family-and-friends project quickly grew to include chapters in many cities across North America.

The Mulroney-Laphams have a very fine home in Forest Hill and another very fine home on Lake Simcoe, in the York-Simcoe riding she hopes to win on June 10. Her two daughters attend school in Toronto in French, continuing the family tradition of bilingualism. Indeed, Mulroney’s good reviews go all the way back to Lycée Claudel in Ottawa: “She was a great student (I was not),” recalls Eric Vani, a classmate who is now an Ottawa realtor. “She was empathic and sharp and a whole lot more mature than I was.”

“Empathetic” is a term that many who know Caroline Mulroney use to describe her. “Quick study” is another. One recent colleague and friend, who asked not to have her named used for professional reasons, recalls watching Mulroney, not long into the job, handling a very difficult client conversation with remarkable aplomb and diplomacy, where both sides hung up satisfied.

“(She approaches) those conversations not saying ‘I need to convince you that our position is right and yours is wrong’; instead (she’s) able to have both parties hang up and go ‘OK, we’re all satisfied, we’re going to remain partners.’”

Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, left, his wife Mila, centre, and their daughter Caroline Mulroney during the announcement of the $60 million Brian Mulroney Institute of Government and Mulroney Hall at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., on Oct. 26, 2016. Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press

That’s certainly a transferrable skill in politics (not least Ontario Tory politics). And Mulroney credibly says she loves the door-knocking part of the job. If she is “reticent” (her word) with media, in a one-on-one conversation she seems entirely at ease, self-assured and unaffected — former Conservative cabinet minister Lisa Raitt, a friend and supporter, calls her “un-flashy.” “Completely unpretentious and grounded,” says longtime friend Sarah Miller. “She kind of has these nerd-like qualities,” says Kim Bozak, another friend. “She’s not a grandstander by any means.”

How that’s playing out in the leadership campaign, and how it would play out against very talented campaigners like Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath, remains to be seen. Mulroney seems increasingly comfortable speaking her mind publicly, but still looks half-embarrassed when delivering talking points, such as the idea that fellow candidate Christine Elliott was until recently “working for Kathleen Wynne” as the province’s patient ombudsman.

Clockwise from left: Ontario PC leadership candidates Caroline Mulroney, Doug Ford, Tanya Granic Allen and Christine Elliott. Chris Young/The Canadian Press

Pressed as to whether she has some beef with the office itself, Mulroney could only retreat to the talking point: “The issue with Christine is simply that she was working for Kathleen Wynne a month ago, and we need somebody who’s going to fight Kathleen Wynne, and not somebody who’s been working for her.”

She hasn’t much time to hone those skills, and while Elliott’s decade of experience at Queen’s Park was far from triumphant, it might prove more compelling to members desperate for a win than Mulroney’s “different kind.” Mulroney is attempting a rapid ascendency the likes of which Canadian politics has rarely if ever seen. Still, assuming she manages to hold York-Simcoe for the Tories, the worst she can do is lose the leadership — something many very famous Canadian politicians have done before, including her father.

“I always give the same advice: politics is about timing,” says Raitt, who consulted with Mulroney as she considered whether to bite off a far bigger chunk of politics than she had planned. “Sometimes the timing of the right time to run is very different from what you think is the right time in your life, and you have to figure out which way you’re going to go. Nothing is ever perfect.”

Caroline Mulroney had any number of reasons to stay where she was. But her mother, for one, isn’t even slightly surprised she’s where she is now. “Public service is in our kids’ blood,” she says.

 

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Vote for new PC leader appears to be a two-horse race: Christine Elliott and Doug Ford

Ontario PC leadership candidate Christine Elliott speaks during a debate in Ottawa on Wednesday, Feb. 28. Ms. Elliott has lost two previous bids for the leadership.

Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Published March 2, 2018 Updated 39 minutes ago

Patrick Brown's departure from the Progressive Conservative leadership race was chaotic for the party, but it may have buoyed the campaigns of Doug Ford and Christine Elliott, as many of the former leader's supporters have bolted for one of the two camps in the past week.

Ontario's Tories began voting on Friday in a leadership contest that supporters of the three main campaigns have said will be tight. However, in the days since Mr. Brown abandoned his run to reclaim his old job, legislators and supporters who had stood by the 39-year-old leader have largely avoided Caroline Mulroney, a political newcomer who took a hard line against the former leader. The eventual winner, according to several party members, will be the candidate who can persuade voters that they would do the best job of uniting a party that has suffered a difficult month of infighting and can lead them to victory against Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberals during the June election.

The four candidates are Mr. Ford, a former Toronto councillor, Ms. Mulroney, who has raised more money than all the other candidates combined, Ms. Elliott, a former MPP, and Tanya Granic Allen, an activist who opposes Ontario's new sex-education curriculum. Former MP Paul Calandra had supported Ms. Mulroney, but switched to Ms. Elliott in late February. The PC candidate in Markham-Stouffville, Mr. Calandra said he expects the race to be a duel between Mr. Ford and Ms. Elliott.

"I heard from a lot of people who wanted us as a party to get our acts together, and I realized the right person to bring us together, with deeper roots in the party, was Christine Elliott," he said. Ms. Elliott lost two previous bids for the leadership.

He said Ms. Mulroney is a strong candidate, but feared "her team hasn't been up to the job."

The six-week campaign for the leadership, the shortest in the party's history and the closest to a general election, was dominated by Mr. Brown – his resignation, his choice to run for his old job, and his eventual withdrawal on Feb. 26. Mr. Brown's withdrawal changed the race, said Rod Phillips, the party's star candidate in Ajax and the former head of Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. One of Ms. Mulroney's strongest supporters, Mr. Philips said crowds at her events have been growing beyond expectation since then.

"What I judge this by is momentum," he said. "I just introduced her and we had 100 people more than we expected. The crowds are telling me that there is enthusiasm for her new approach."

According to Elections Ontario, Ms. Mulroney's camp has raised more than $703,000. By comparison Mr. Ford has disclosed $63,424, and Ms. Elliott $122,030. The money is a sign that people like Ms. Mulroney's message, Mr. Philips said.

One of the senior conservatives who has endorsed Mr. Ford since Mr. Brown withdrew is MPP Toby Barrett, who was caucus chair for the former leader. He said many of Mr. Brown's supporters do not want to vote for anyone who may have helped undermine the former leader when he was trying to save his career.

Ms. Mulroney had called on Mr. Brown to step down, Ms. Granic Allen called the former leader "corrupt," while MPP Randy Hillier, who supports Ms. Elliott, filed a complaint with the province's integrity commissioner about Mr. Brown's personal finances.

"I don't think Patrick Brown's loyalists would be amenable to joining those teams," Mr. Barratt said, so he backed Mr. Ford, whose embrace of business he supports. "He also brings a tremendous amount of political experience in one of the hottest political arenas anywhere, the City of Toronto. It makes Queen's Park look staid and predictable."

Tanya Granic Allen says she aims to be a voice for those who felt “disenfranchised” by former Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown. Leadership candidates for Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives spoke after their second debate on Wednesday.

The Canadian Press

 

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Special report: Progressive Conservative leadership earthquake shakes local bedrock
By Hank Daniszewski, The London Free Press
Friday, March 2, 2018 8:45:27 EST PM

Paul Lachine illustration

Three months to go until the next election.

No leader at the helm.

A chaotic, hurry-up race to fill the job already all but over, and the voting unfolding now.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster for the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, right?

Not so fast — especially not in Southwestern Ontario, the party’s stronghold that accounts for one-quarter of its strength at Queen’s Park.

Until six weeks ago, facing the ruling Liberals weighed down by the baggage of nearly 15 years in office, the Tories looked like shoo-ins to win the June 7 election. A government in waiting.

Then came the earthquake in the party’s leadership.

Voting by card-carrying Tories for a new leader began Friday in a race triggered by unproven sexual misconduct allegations against former leader Patrick Brown, who resigned in late January only to jump into the race to replace him and then, almost as quickly this week, step back out.

By next Saturday, when the votes are counted, the Tories will have a new boss. Three women and one man are vying for the leadership, none of whom even has a seat in the legislature. The winner will have only two months to whip the PCs into shape for a campaign against Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.

But if you think that’s a godsend for the Liberals and the New Democrats, especially in the Tories’ Southwestern Ontario bedrock, you might be wrong.

Drill down into that regional foundation, rock that never totally crumbled even when hometown London premier David Peterson’s Liberals swept to power in the mid-1980s, or Bob Rae’s New Democrats in 1990, or Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in 2003, and you’ll find insiders confident that what appears to be turmoil at the top of their party will only solidify their Southwestern Ontario base.

The question is, can the PCs led by a new face — a former prime minister’s daughter, a former federal finance minister’s widow, an infamous former Toronto mayor’s brother or a one-issue activist fighting the province’s new sex-education curriculum — break out of their Southwestern Ontario rural bastion, into urban seats they haven’t owned since Mike Harris steered the party hard to the right and led it to power more than 20 years ago?

“These ridings are conservative, as blue as you get in Ontario. . . . But we have some work to do in the city,” said Joshua Workman, the PC riding president in Liberal-held London North Centre — the only Liberal seat in the 10-riding London region.

Workman, an aide to nearby MPP Monte McNaughton of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, was caught up in the fallout of Brown’s dramatic fall from the top as Brown’s deputy campaign manager. He was one of three key officials who quit as soon as the allegations against Brown — which Brown has denied — surfaced.

But Workman, for one, a veteran insider of both provincial and federal election campaigns, said Brown’s departure will bring stability and focus.

Ontario PC leadership candidate Christine Elliott speaks as candidates Tanya Granic Allen, left, and Caroline Mulroney participate in a debate in Ottawa on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS

“Patrick Brown was not in a position to continue to lead our party into an election. The party is better off now that he has left the race,” he said.

He said rural ridings remain loyally conservative, both provincially and federally, and the Tories will have a good chance at picking off London urban seats, including London North Centre, where Deb Matthews — a Liberal cabinet heavyweight and former deputy premier to Wynne — is retiring with the election call.

“With Deb stepping aside, it’s wide open” said Workman, noting PC candidate Susan Truppe has a high profile as a former MP for the same riding.

Pre-election optimism from party veterans is natural. But there may be something to that for the Tories in the wider London region, where the PCs hold seven seats — their largest regional concentration of ridings anywhere in Ontario.

A recent Forum Research survey suggested the PCs are headed for a massive majority in June, with 49-per-cent voter support — even higher in Southwestern Ontario, where their numbers are highest at 54 per cent.

Forum found Southwestern Ontarians thought former MPP Christine Elliot, who lost to Brown in the 2015 leadership race, would make the best leader, at 20 per cent, followed by Caroline Mulroney, former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s daughter, at 14 per cent.

But when voters in the region were asked which party they’d vote for, based on different potential leaders, Brown — who was still in the race at the time — fared best, with 52-per-cent support compared to 42 per cent provincially.

Doug Ford, brother of the late former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, ran second-best at 50 per cent.

Despite the tumultuous leadership race, Workman said the public may perceive the PCs are taking decisive action to clean up their internal mess.

And, far from the media reports the PCs are falling apart, Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said it’s his reading the Brown debacle hasn’t tainted the party’s brand — and certainly not in Southwestern Ontario.

“He never had high approval ratings He never connected that well Ontario voters. It was more of anti-Liberal vote.”

Bozinoff said the entry of high-profile candidates such as Elliott, Mulroney and Ford have given the Tories a boost.

“The public sees this as internal squabble — all related to Patrick Brown,” he said.

Veteran Queen’s Park watchers, however, note the PCs have blown big leads in the polls before — under John Tory in 2007, when his vow to extend faith-based education funding hobbled the party, and under Tim Hudak in the 2014 election, when he vowed to cut 100,000 public-sector jobs.

“They either shoot themselves in the foot or the Liberals turn it around. It makes you cautious about predicting what will happen,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto.

What is predictable, he said, is that rural Southwestern Ontario will remain Tory-blue and the key battleground will again be cities and their suburbs.

“It doesn’t matter who the PCs choose as leader — it doesn’t matter if Patrick Brown stayed in the race. The rural area would have stayed with the Conservatives. The challenge for them is the urban seats,” he said.

Wiseman said he’s not surprised Ford has strong support in rural areas because of his populist anti-elite campaign.

“The rural areas feel like they have been screwed, that things have been run by the cities. He looks like the anti-politician.”

Veteran party insider Jeff Lang, the only Harris-era Tory who failed to win a seat in the London area in 1995, agrees Ford’s brash conservatism plays well in rural Southwestern Ontario even though his power base is in suburban Toronto.

“He is the anti-Wynne, anti-establishment outsider — ‘drain the swamp’ — all of that,” said Lang.

But like Wiseman, Lang, a veteran campaign manager, said the PCs have to guard against squandering their own chances.

“The PCs have no one to blame but themselves for the longevity of the Liberals. They just haven’t been able to pull it together. The Liberals are amazing campaigners, and if you underestimate them you have a problem,” he said.

 

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Ontario PC leadership hopefuls stop in Windsor
CTV Windsor
Published Monday, March 5, 2018 10:22AM EST
Last Updated Monday, March 5, 2018 6:14PM EST

Windsor-Essex has become a busy stop as candidates seek votes for the Ontario PC leadership.

Doug Ford was in the region Sunday, where he heard from residents in Leamington before holding a rally at the Fogolar Furlan in Windsor.

“We're going to create jobs, lower taxes, cut hydro rates and these are some of the concerns that I'm hearing,” says Ford.

Some Progressive Conservative supporters believe Ford should be the next leader of the PC Party and go head to head with Premiere Kathleen Wynne.

“I've seen these people surrounding the other campaigns. They're the same people who have been part of our party for 30 years,” said one supporter. “The grassroots people don't have a voice. It’s about time the grassroots people have a voice and we'll be their voice.”

Ford’s visit followed a stop by leadership hopeful Caroline Mulroney in Windsor and Chatham on Saturday.

“The people of Windsor deserve so much better than the 15 years of Liberal failure that we have all endured,” said Mulroney, a mother of four and the daughter of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Mulroney’s plan includes lowering the cost of hydro, and a 20 per cent tax cut for the middle class. She also wants to increase access to affordable child care and address the more than 30,000 seniors waiting for long term care beds.

“The Liberals have doubled the size of our budget and they've doubled the size of our debt, and we do not get twice the amount of goods and services for that,” said Mulroney. “We need to do better with the money that we collect from people and that is what I intend to do.”

Another PC leadership hopeful Christine Elliott was in Leamington and Windsor at the end of last week, where she discussed making Ontario affordable again.

“There are things across the board from repealing the Green Energy Act to getting people's hydro bills down to bringing in tax relief because people are really struggling,” said Elliott.

Elliott finished second to Patrick Brown in the PC party leadership race in 2015. She highlighted her political experience during her stop.

“I could be ready to go March 11th to start the campaign,” said Elliott. “I've also taken Kathleen Wynne on in Question Period before, and I'm certainly very ready to do that again. I'm the only candidate that's in that position.”

Windsor-Tecumseh PC candidate Mohammad Latif has pledged his support for Elliott while Windsor-West PC Candidate Adam Ibrahim has decided to remain neutral.

Both candidates supported Brown before he stepped down as leader over sexual misconduct allegations.

The fourth PC leadership candidate, social conservative advocate Tanya Granic Allen, is scheduled to visit Windsor on Tuesday.

She will hold a meet and greet at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 594 on Howard Ave. at 7:30 p.m.

 

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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...-to-woo-social-conservatives/article38228795/

Ontario PC leadership candidates seek to woo social conservatives
Open this photo in gallery:
Ontario PC Party leadership candidate Christine Elliott participates in a question-and-answer session at the Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa on Feb. 10.

JUSTIN TANG/THE CANADIAN PRESS

JUSTIN GIOVANNETTI
TORONTO
PUBLISHED 15 HOURS AGOUPDATED MARCH 6, 2018
Some of the contenders for Ontario's Progressive Conservative leadership are looking to shift the party to the right as they embrace social-conservative issues in the final days of a bitter and closely fought campaign.

Two of the leading candidates in the race to succeed Patrick Brown as the leader of Ontario's Official Opposition have said they would rewrite the province's sexual-education curriculum and allow party MPPs to bring forward legislation restricting access to abortions if they form government. Striking the right balance between social conservatives and Tories focused on business-friendly policies has been an continuing struggle for the party during its nearly 15 years in opposition.

The promises by former Toronto councillor Doug Ford and former Tory legislator Christine Elliott come as both campaigns have sought to woo the party's socially conservative members in a race where both contenders are expected to be neck-and-neck to claim the leadership only months before a general election.


Mr. Ford entered the abortion debate earlier this week when he questioned why teenager girls need notes from their parents to go on field trips but not to terminate a pregnancy. In an interview with the pro-life group Right Now, Mr. Ford said he would "welcome" a debate in the legislature to require parental consent when a minor requests an abortion.

"I understand that this is an important issue for all Ontarians. I believe in the sanctity of life, but I value the right that all Canadians have to make this decision based on their own conscience and beliefs," Mr. Ford said in a statement sent by his campaign to The Globe and Mail.


He did not back away from his promise to allow MPPs to debate limiting access to abortion. "I will allow MPPs to draft, bring forward, and debate any legislation that is important to them," he continued, calling the debate over abortion not an issue of faith or ideology, but rather "an issue of liberty."

Ms. Elliott, who has previously made two unsuccessful runs for the party's leadership, said that although she is pro-choice, she would also allow MPPs to vote on restrictions to abortion access. "I understand that some people have views that are different than mine and I respect their right to express those views and to vote in the way that they feel is necessary," she said in a statement.

There are currently no provisions in Ontario that require parental notification, according to the medical regulator. Political newcomer Caroline Mulroney said she would not reopen the abortion debate if she won the leadership, while Tanya Granic Allen, a social-conservative activist, has said parents need to be consulted before their children receive any medical treatment.

Charles McVety, a Toronto-based evangelical leader, has endorsed Mr. Ford's run for the party leadership. "He's not our perfect candidate in every way, and he wouldn't be seen as a social conservative, but he is someone who I believe fights for the folks," Mr. McVety told The Globe. "You can't get a better contrast to Ms. Wynne. When the incumbent has low support, you don't want to be like her, you want contrast."

Mr. Brown, who resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct in January, had captured the party's leadership in 2015 with the support of social conservatives. However, he reversed his earlier positions once he was leader and moved to the political centre. His electoral platform for the party, now largely rejected by all four candidates in the race, made little mention of social issues.


The problem facing the leadership candidates is that they need to secure enough support to win the party's leadership, without adopting positions that might become a problem in the general election, according to pollster Greg Lyle. "Do you win the battle and then lose the war? That's a risk. Depending on how you count them, only about 20 per cent of Ontarians share social-conservative values," he said.

While support from social conservatives might help a candidate win the party's leadership, it opens the door to effective attack ads, Mr. Lyle said. "It's a very dangerous thing when you're playing the game Doug is playing. It's the exact kind of Hail Mary pass the Liberals want to play."

On Tuesday, Tory interim Leader Vic Fedeli held his last caucus meeting before the party's next leader is announced over the weekend. After cleaning out "rot" that he had found in the party, Mr. Fedeli said he was leaving the opposition in good shape for the next leader.

"I think everything the new leader needs on Saturday to go into an election will be in place," he told The Globe. After fixing the party's IT system, which was hacked last year, and dropping a lawsuit against a party activist, he said he was ready to turn over the keys. "It's been made incredibly robust."

 

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http://nationalpost.com/opinion/kel...g-ford-hits-christine-elliott-with-cheap-shot

Kelly McParland: PCs’ choice revealed when Doug Ford hits Christine Elliott with cheap shot
Every sounding indicates voters are eager to rid themselves of the Liberals. Choosing Ford is inviting a fifth straight disappointment

PC Ontario Leadership candidate Doug Ford scrums with journalists at the TVO studios in Toronto on Thursday, February 15, 2018.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Kelly McParland


March 5, 2018
11:37 AM EST

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Chris Selley: Ontario Tories flirt with creative self-destruction
Andrew Coyne weighs in on the Ontario PC leadership race: 'This isn't an entry-level position'
An illuminating moment took place during the second debate for Ontario’s Progressive Conservative leadership.

Christine Elliott and Doug Ford were positioned next to one another on the stage. Their families have been friends for years; Elliott’s husband, former federal finance minister Jim Flaherty, served with Ford’s father, Doug Ford Sr., in the government of former premier Mike Harris.

Though Elliott has consistently called for unity among candidates, arguing the focus should be on defeating Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, Ford unexpectedly unleashed an attack, accusing Elliott of flip-flopping on key issues and accepting a patronage appointment from the government.

Neither was true. The barrage, clearly pre-planned, was nasty and uncalled-for. It appeared to unsettle Elliott, who nonetheless responded without firing any of the retaliatory missiles she could have launched at Ford. Though Elliott says Ford later apologized, the moment served to delineate the difference between the two candidates, and — more importantly — the stark choice the PCs face as voting takes place this week.

Ontario PC leadership candidate Christine Elliott speaks during a debate in Ottawa on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
As one of the candidates noted, it’s been almost 20 years since the once-dominant Tories won an election. It’s not as if they’ve been up against a juggernaut in that time. Neither Wynne nor her predecessor Dalton McGuinty attracted much love from Ontarians. Four times, under three different leaders, the PCs fumbled away winnable elections, with bad ideas, poor campaigns or faulty leadership. They came very close to another nail-biter under the leadership of Patrick Brown, whose sudden fall revealed how little support he had within the party itself.

Now party members have a choice between two sorts of leader. Elliott and Caroline Mulroney have pledged a determined, professional conservatism aimed at ending the costly, intrusive and often ineffective ideological forays of the big-spending Liberals. Ford and social conservative candidate Tanya Granic Allen are loud, brash and angry, skilfully channelling the populist displeasure of voters infuriated at the Liberal legacy.

While Ford and Granic Allen may satisfy an urge for righteous vengeance, PC members have to decide what they want more: the fun of attacking Liberals over the past, or a calibrated plan to oust them and rule in their place. Elliott and Mulroney have shown themselves to be intelligent, skilled and promising as candidates. Elliott is the most experienced, an advantage that has been evident as she maintained her composure under duress and persistently kept her focus on the governing Liberals rather than fellow Conservatives. When the most recent debate threatened to plunge into name-calling, it was Elliott who reminded the others that Liberals were the opponent, not one another.

Caroline Mulroney, in Toronto on Thursday, February 15, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Mulroney has obvious political skills and potential, but her inexperience has been evident, and she has appeared rattled and frustrated at times. It takes time to get accustomed to the barefaced nastiness of politics. Her lack of familiarity with the inner workings of the legislature and the many hidden corners of Ontario’s bloated and bureaucratic superstructure could prove a serious liability against as skilled and ruthless a practitioner as Wynne. Should the Tories win in June, she might benefit from time in a PC cabinet before she’s ready for the top job.

Tanya Granic Allen at the TVO studios Toronto on Thursday, Feb.15, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Granic Allen is a one-note instrument who manages to turn every issue into a diatribe about the evils of Patrick Brown. She knows how to command a stage and has handled herself remarkably well for a first-time candidate, but other than her obsessive dislike of Brown and fury over the Liberals’ sex education curriculum she offers little outside the cathartic effect of a primal scream. Her remedy for the windmills erected across much of rural Ontario in the name of alternative energy is to “rip them out” regardless of legal contracts, costly reimbursements or the impact on farmers who have come to rely on the income the leases generate. Her relentless onslaughts on the ousted leader bring to mind a parrot trained to squawk “Patrick Brown! Patrick Brown!” at every cue.

Doug Ford in Toronto on Thursday, February 15, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Of the two populist candidates, Ford is the more experienced, though PC members will have to decide how eager they are to replicate the Ford family’s often chaotic reign at Toronto’s city hall. The Ford campaign is an unapologetic echo of Donald Trump and his one-man presidential extravaganza. Ford, a millionaire born into a privileged family who inherited his father’s business, tours the province denouncing “elites,” assailing critics and offering simple slogans in response to complex problems. His assault on Elliott showed his willingness to risk a longstanding friendship for the opportunity to score political points. He demonstrates a Trumpian belligerence in the face of opposition, and an obliviousness to his own inconsistencies: he was in the midst of questioning Mulroney’s “commitment” when she noted that, until a month ago, he wanted to be mayor of Toronto. His solution to Ontario’s many challenges is straightforward: make him premier and he’ll figure it out.

Ford unquestionably has a strong base of support in parts of Toronto, an advantage he tried to leverage by urging the party to abandon its online voting process in favour of an old-fashioned convention with paper ballots. The switch would have benefited him over the others, making it easy for his local enthusiasts to attend while members in more distant communities faced obstacles of cost and convenience.

Christine Elliott in Toronto on Thursday , February 15, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
It has been argued that Elliott is a “two-time loser,” having sought the leadership twice before. It could as easily be said that the party has twice made the same mistake, first choosing Tim Hudak and then Patrick Brown over Elliott. Hudak blew two elections that were his to win. His peremptory promise to fire 100,000 civil servants in the midst of the 2014 election handed Wynne a majority even she didn’t expect. Brown’s victory was a surprise many PCs have regretted ever since.

The Tories have spent two decades trying to recreate the successes of the Harris years, and there remains a wing of the party convinced that a return to red-blooded “real Conservatism” is the key to victory. But Harris was an anomaly; Ontario has its share of right-wingers, but overall is not a hardline province. It’s moderate, middle-of-the-road, a bit squishy and willing to go along to get along. The population is highly diverse: a fifth of the immigrants in Canada live in Toronto; almost half of the country’s new arrivals each year settle there. The party’s greatest years were those when it offered a big tent to all comers.

Every sounding indicates voters are eager to rid themselves of the Liberals, given a credible alternative. Mulroney and Elliott — but in particular Elliott — represent that opportunity. Choosing Ford is inviting a fifth straight disappointment, and any party that makes the same mistake five times doesn’t deserve to win.

Twitter.com/kellymcparland

 

[9981]

我读了大部分分析文章， 觉得Kelly McParland的评论比较客观有肉， 我可以再加上一条， 既然是conservative，那就更倾向与选择更小的不确定性。所以结论是， Christine Elliott会赢得党魁选举进而赢得省选。

 

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Candidates for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party have to contend with a lot of make-or-break factors outside their control — including the voting rules themselves.

And those rules — the preferential ballot and the equal weighting of the province's 124 ridings — could end up accounting for the gap between the winner and the losers. It wouldn't be the first time.

Though the rules of the Ontario PC leadership race give all members of the party the right to vote, all votes are not necessarily created equally.

The preferential ballot allows voters to rank the candidates. If no candidate earns a majority of first-choice electoral votes, the last place candidate is eliminated, along with any other candidate with fewer than 10 per cent of the votes.

The eliminated candidates' votes are then redistributed according to who was ranked next on their supporters' ballots. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of electoral votes.

Members do not need to give every candidate a ranking, however. If all of the candidates who were ranked on a member's ballot are eliminated, that member's vote is discarded.

In the federal Conservative Party's leadership vote in 2017, about 16 per cent of members did not rank either Maxime Bernier or Andrew Scheer on their ballots. Their votes were discarded by the final round.

The equal weighting of each riding also makes some votes count more than others.

Each of Ontario's 124 ridings will be worth up to 100 electoral votes. If a riding sees fewer than 100 ballots cast, each member's vote in that riding is worth one electoral vote. In a riding with more than 100 votes (that's the vast majority of them), each candidate is awarded electoral votes equal to the percentage of votes they received in the riding.

In other words, regardless of whether a riding has 100 or 1,000 members, a candidate who receives 40 per cent support from that riding gets 40 electoral votes.

This makes some party members worth more than others. Northern Ontario party members living in ridings with fewer than 100 voting members, for example, will find that their ballots weigh many times as much as those cast by people living in some ridings in the Greater Toronto Area, where there are 5,000 or more eligible voters.

So in the Ontario PC leadership race, where a candidate's supporters live could turn out to be more important than how many individual supporters the candidate has.

Winning on votes, losing on points
The goal of giving ridings equal weight is to ensure that winning candidates have support throughout Ontario and would be able to win in every part of the province — mimicking the first-past-the-post system that decides elections. But, as with first-past-the-post, this arrangement can distort the will of voters.

In the federal Conservative leadership vote last year, Scheer defeated Bernier by a thin margin. He won 50.95 per cent of points to 49.05 per cent for Bernier.

But on the raw popular vote, the margin was not so tight.

Andrew Scheer, right, defeated Maxime Bernier for the Conservative Party leadership by a wider margin in votes than points. (Canadian Press/Frank Gunn)

Scheer actually received 53 per cent of all active ballots by the final round, beating Bernier by six percentage points. That gave him an advantage of just over 7,000 votes.

But if just 66 party members in the right ridings had voted for Bernier instead, he would have won.

In this year's B.C. Liberal leadership race, Michael Lee had the most votes on the fourth ballot — 37 per cent, compared to 34 per cent for Dianne Watts and 29 per cent for Andrew Wilkinson.

But Lee's voters were concentrated too heavily in a handful of ridings. He was third in points, with 32.5 per cent to 33 per cent for Wilkinson and 35 per cent for Watts. Lee was eliminated. More of his supporters went to Wilkinson than went to Watts, allowing Wilkinson to beat Watts on the final ballot.

Coming from behind to win
The preferential ballot can result in a candidate who has more support than any other being overtaken by a consensus candidate who might have fewer supporters but is more acceptable to a broader swath of a party's membership.

Bernier was ahead of Scheer on 12 of 13 ballots before being overtaken on the final one. Wilkinson was in third place on the first three ballots and second on the fourth before winning on the fifth.

Ed Stelmach won the Alberta PC leadership in 2006 despite placing a distant third on the first ballot with half of the support of first-place finisher Jim Dinning (though another week of voting took place between the first and second ballots). Scott Moe won the Saskatchewan Party leadership earlier this year after finishing second on the first ballot.

Of course, there are many examples of leaders holding on to their front-runner status throughout the count, including Tom Mulcair (2012 NDP leadership), Andrea Horwath (2009 Ontario NDP) and two past Ontario PC leaders (John Tory in 2004 and Tim Hudak in 2009).

Tim Hudak won the Ontario PC leadership in 2009, leading on all three ballots.

Multiple rounds can be avoided entirely if a candidate wins a majority on the first ballot. Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh did it last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did it in 2013 and Jason Kenney did it twice in 2017, in the votes for the leadership of the Alberta PC and United Conservative parties.

But all signs point to multiple ballots being required to anoint a new Ontario PC leader on Saturday. That means second and third choices will be decisive.

In order to win, polling suggests Doug Ford needs a strong showing from Tanya Granic Allen, while Christine Elliott needs to pull a lot of Caroline Mulroney's support. Mulroney needs to ensure she doesn't get eliminated before Elliott to have a shot.

The candidates are making these calculations as they try to ensure that their supporters actually cast ballots, that enough of them do so in different parts of the province and that members who don't rank them first at least consider ranking them second.

If it's close, these are the calculations that could make all the difference.

 

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Ontario PC leadership candidates (L-R) Tanya Granic Allen, Caroline Mulroney, Christine Elliott, and Doug Ford pose for a photo following there debate in Ottawa. February 28,2018. Errol McGihon / Postmedia

There isn’t much good news for Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Doug Ford in the online poll conducted by Angus Reid Institute, which bills itself as a national, non-partisan polling organization.

Roughly half of the 807 Ontario adults surveyed March 6 and 7 have an unfavourable opinion of Ford, a businessman and former Toronto city councillor, while just 27 per cent said they viewed him favourably. In sharp contrast, the poll suggested more Ontario voters are favourably disposed toward both Ford’s main rivals — Caroline Mulroney and Christine Elliott — than disapprove of them.

“Ford is a polarizing figure,” the pollster concluded, “beloved by many in the party’s base but strongly disliked by many outside it.”

This could matter a lot in the June 7 provincial election. That’s because many of these respondents could change their minds about voting PC if Ford emerges as leader, the Angus Reid survey suggests.

For instance, the survey revealed three quarters of those sampled were open to voting PC — made up of core PC voters (23 per cent), those who could “certainly” consider voting PC (20 per cent) and a third group that said they would “maybe consider” casting a vote for the Conservatives (32 per cent).

Angus Reid calculates a lot of this support is potentially soft. For instance, the poll estimated that half of those who are in the “certainly consider” camp would be less likely to vote PC if Ford were leader.

By comparison, just 11 per cent of those in the “certainly consider” voting PC group would be less likely to vote for the party if Elliott were leader. The poll did not provide a comparable breakdown for Mulroney or the fourth PC leadership contender, Tanya Granic Allen.

In a separate part of the survey, Mulroney was the only one of the four PC leadership candidates to have a net favourable rating among younger people (ages 18 to 34).

Overall, Angus Reid estimated the PCs have the support of 50 per cent of decided and leaning voters compared with 24 per cent for the Liberals, 22 per cent for the New Democratic Party and 4 per cent for independents.

Among those aged 18 to 34, the race is actually fairly tight, with Liberals at 35 per cent support, PCs at 32 per cent and NDP at 28 per cent. However, for all other age categories, the Conservatives command more than 55 per cent support from those surveyed.

 

[向问天]

 

[冷笑9声]

浏览附件742724

上周末就是六万，现在还六万哪？ 已经延了一周了，估计还得延。

 

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浏览附件742724

哪里来的200,000党员，其实只有130,000多。

 

[冷笑9声]

哪里来的200,000党员，其实只有130,000多。

PB上回满处许愿，算是灌了第一次水。。。然后PB的支持者们觉得被骗了，这回都倒向福特了。。又灌了第二次。。20万差不多。
我猜老太太也就那六万的基本盘，要是想搞票。。。大环境下，还得是敢喊的白丁，让每个人都觉得是自己的梦中孙子。

 

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PB上回满处许愿，算是灌了第一次水。。。然后PB的支持者们觉得被骗了，这回都倒向福特了。。又灌了第二次。。20万差不多。
我猜老太太也就那六万的基本盘，要是想搞票。。。大环境下，还得是敢喊的白丁，让每个人都觉得是自己的梦中孙子。

看看吧。真TMD乱啊！

这是来个将来死不认输的节奏？