Tim Hudak Wins Leadership On Third Ballot

Congratulations to Tim, and all the other candidates on a well-fought campaign that helped to bring us beyond the uninspiring years of John Tory’s headship. Hopefully Tim will bring a new energy to the party and be able to bring all of the groups, including libertarians, family activists and red tories back to their rightful place in contributing to the Ontario PC Party’s, and ultimately Ontario’s, future.

Ontario PC 2009 Leadership Convention: B2 Results & Updated Scenario Breakdown

Here are the B2 results, which still has no candidate over 50%:

Hudak: 4128 (39.96%)
Klees: 3299 (31.94%)
Elliott: 2903 (28.10%) [dropped]

TOTAL: 10330

This is where it’ll get interesting folks! While Hudak leads Klees by a steady 8%, that number is presumed to rapidly shrink as the Elliott and Hudak camps fought this campaign as though the other side was the one to defeat. However, with Elliott off the ballot, a lot of her supporters are expected to move to Klees. To win, Hudak will need to get around 35.75% of Elliott’s points while Klees will have have to get around 64.25%. It’s not as easy for Hudak as the numbers suggest, and (again) I bet the Hudak team is really wishing they kept the contest against Elliott a little less polarized right now!

As an aside, 15 points were dropped between B1 and B2 (10345 to 10330); this is curious given the points system the OPC uses for it’s leadership system although there might be a perfectly good explanation for this in the details.

Suspender Update:

As expected, Hudak enjoyed most of the second-choice support from Hillier supporters, gaining just over 600 of the 1013 points avaliable in B2. What is surprising is that Klees and Elliott split the remainder (Klees received an additional 206 points; Elliott, 175). One little known fact in this race is that Hillier and the Landowners supported Klees in the 2004 race, but I guess without the open talk of health care choice from Klees and Elliott’s flat tax proposal, many of the libertarian-oriented Hillier fans were literally split as to what to do after Randy got dropped…

Pink Waffle Update: Courtesy of United & Strong, we now have the riding-by-riding breakdown of who won on B2. I did a quick comparison and here below are the changes for those ridings where the winner has flipped.

A few observations:

1) All three ridings Hillier won on B1 went to Hudak on B2.
2) Scarborough, Mississauga, Ottawa and Simcoe proved very hotly contested, with a lot of horse trading in all of those areas.
3) Elliott picked up three ridings (two Klees, one Hudak) this round, Klees took four (three from Hudak; broke the tie in Davenport) and Hudak 11 (five Klees, and three each from Elliott and Hillier)

Format: (Riding B1 Winner -> B2 Winner)
Carleton-Missippi Mills Hillier -> Hudak
Davenport 3-way tie (Hudak, Elliott, Klees)-> Klees wins
Etobicoke Centre Klees -> Elliott wins
Glengarry-Prescott-Russell Hillier wins -> Hudak wins
Lambton Kent Middlesex Klees wins Hudak wins
Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington Hillier -> Hudak wins
Mississauga Streetsville Hudak -> Klees wins
Mississauga-Brampton South Klees -> Hudak wins
Northumberland-Quinte West Elliott -> Hudak wins
Ottawa Vanier Elliott -> Hudak wins
Ottawa West Nepean Hudak -> Elliott wins
Scarborough Centre Klees -> Hudak wins
Scarborough Guildwood Klees -> Elliott wins
Scarborough Rouge River Klees -> Hudak wins
Simcoe-Grey Hudak -> Klees wins
Simcoe-North Hudak -> Klees wins
St Paul’s Elliott -> Hudak wins
Windsor West Elliott -> Hudak wins

Ontario PC 2009 Leadership Convention: Regional Strenth Breakdown

As part of our continued coverage of the Ontario PC Leadership convention today, here is a breakdown who won what ridings, with special attention to where each candidate had the most strength. Thanks to United & Strong for sharing these results.

Randy Hillier (4th Place)

Randy only won three ridings, all of them in eastern Ontario, all of them rural and including his own Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington.

Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington
Carleton-Missippi Mills
Glengarry-Prescott-Russell

Christine Elliott (3rd Place)

Like Hillier, Christine Elliott also took her home riding of Whitby-Oshawa, and much of the surrounding area with ridings like Ajax Pickering, Oshawa and Pickering-Scarborough East. Moving outside the eastern GTA, Elliott interestingly picked up some rural ridings like Essex, Wellington-Halton Hills and Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that former DraftALeader head Nick Kouvalis has strong ties in those areas. Elliott did well in the 416, taking some of the most desolate ridings (in terms of PC Ontario performance/organization), and was able to pick up a riding in each of Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Oakville and Kingston, giving her a win in a total of 24 ridings.

Ajax Pickering
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound
Dufferin-Caledon
Durham
Eglington Lawrence
Essex
Kingston and the Islands
Kitchener Waterloo
Northumberland-Quinte West
Oakville
Oshawa
Ottawa Vanier
Peterborough
Pickering-Scarborough East
St Paul’s
Sault Ste Marie
Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry
Toronto Centre
Toronto Danforth
Wellington-Halton Hills
Whitby-Oshawa
Windsor West
York South Weston
York West

Frank Klees (2nd Place)

Suspicions that the infamous “immigrant letter” from this week might have initiated in the Klees camp is lent credibility by the results here. Klees won in the GTA ridings with high immigrant political pariticpation and population numbers, including most of Peel and York regions (the latter being Klees’ home turf). Observers might find it curious then to see much of Waterloo region, and Lambton Kent Middlesex included here, however Klees also had Charles McVety and the Campaign Life Coalition working pretty heavily for him according to the buzz surrounding the last two months, which would explain those ridings falling under the Klees column. Klees won 33 ridings.

Beaches-East York
Bramalea-Gore-Malton
Brampton Springdale
Brampton West
Cambridge
Don Valley East
Elgin Middlesex London
Etobicoke Centre
Etobicoke Lakeshore
Huron Bruce
Kitchener Centre
Kitchener Conestoga
Lambton Kent Middlesex
Markham-Unionville
Mississauga-Brampton South
Mississauga East Cooksville
Mississauga Erindale
Mississauga South
Newmarket Aurora
Nickel Belt
Oak Ridges-Markham
Parkdale-High Park
Richmond Hill
Scarborough Centre
Scarborough Guildwood
Scarborough Rouge River
Scarborough Southwest
Sudbury
Thornhill
Thunder Bay-Atikokan
Willowdale
York Centre
York Simcoe

Tim Hudak (1st Place)

Hudak did very well in his home turf of southeastern Ontario, taking all of Hamilton, Burlington, and Niagara Region. He also won most of the seats in places like London, Oxford Region, Ottawa, and Guelph. Respectable results in the rural areas of northern Ontario (thanks to Mike Harris, no doubt) and southern Ontario (thanks to the HRC issue), as well as both Toronto proper and the GTA give Hudak a nice, well-spread 46 riding victory threshold going into B2!

Ajax Pickering
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound
Dufferin-Caledon
Durham
Eglington Lawrence
Essex
Kingston and the Islands
Kitchener Waterloo
Northumberland-Quinte West
Oakville
Oshawa
Ottawa Vanier
Peterborough
Pickering-Scarborough East
St Paul’s
Sault Ste Marie
Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry
Toronto Centre
Toronto Danforth
Wellington-Halton Hills
Whitby-Oshawa
Windsor West
York South Weston
York West
Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington
Carleton-Missippi Mills
Glengarry-Prescott-Russell
Algoma Manitoulin
Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale
Barrie
Brant
Burlington
Chatham Kent Essex
Don Valley West
Etobicoke North
Guelph
Haldimand-Norfolk
Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock
Halton
Hamilton Centre
Hamilton East-Stoney Creek
Hamilton Mountain
Kenora-Rainy River
Leeds-Grenville
London-Fanshawe
London North Centre
London West
Mississauga Streetsville
Nepean Carleton
Niagara Falls
Niagara West Glanbrook
Nipissing
Ottawa Centre
Ottawa-Orleans
Ottawa South
Ottawa West Nepean
Oxford
Parry Sound-Muskoka
Perth-Wellington
Prince Edward-Hastings
Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke
St Catharines
Sarnia-Lambton
Scarborough-Agincourt
Simcoe-Grey
Simcoe-North
Thunder Bay-Superior North
Timiskaming-Cochrane
Timmins-James Bay
Trinity Spadina
Vaughan
Welland
Windsor-Tecumseh

TIE

Likely due to being a small riding, organization-wise, Toronto riding Davenport was split between Hudak, Klees and Elliott!

Ontario PC Leadership 2009: The Scenario Breakdown For B2 and B3

Well it looks like the 2009 leadership race for the Ontario PC Party will be going to three ballots with Randy Hillier’s fourth place finish being too small to put any of the other three candidates over the top. The first ballot (B1) results are:

Hudak: 3511
Klees: 3093
Elliott: 2728
Hillier 1013

TOTAL: 10345

Now, for the second ballot (B2), Hillier’s supporters will have their second choices counted and the last two months indicate that most of those choices will be for Hudak. Under the best scenario for Tim Hudak’s team, all of Hillier’s ballots go to Hudak, which would put us at:

Hudak: 4524 (43.73%)
Klees: 3093 (29.90%)
Elliott: 2728 (26.37%)

This still keeps Hudak just over six percent away from victory, and in reality, some of Hillier’s supporters would rather see Klees or Elliott in the big chair first. While it is possible for Elliott to survive the second ballot, she would need 365 points or 36.03% of Hillier’s points to overtake Klees, presuming the rest of Hillier’s points are allocated to Hudak; in other words, we’re going to a third ballot (B3) between Hudak and Klees.

Under that scenario, the best Hudak could hope for is that he would only need 649 points from Elliott’s supporters, or 23.79% or her B1 points. I bet at this point the Hudak folks are wishing they weren’t so hard on the federal Finance Minister’s wife anymore since that is a reasonable number to overcome, but it is definately in murky territory given the nasty animosity the Hudak and Elliott campaigns had against each other over the past three months. It is also, again, an ideal for the Hudak campaign and they’ll likely require between 25-30% of Elliott’s points to put them over the top.

As much as Hudak’s team is probably a little worried with these numbers currently, Klees’ team should be only cautiously joyful as the best they could hope for on B2 is 4106 points (presuming all of Hillier’s points go to Klees), leaving him with 39.69% at the end of B2. In that scenario, he’d enter B3 requiring 1067 or a modest 39.11% of Elliott’s points from B1, but again, no one is expecting more than a quarter of Hillier’s points to be allocated to Klees at best.

Still, this one ain’t over yet folks, unless you’re Hillier or Elliott!

Breaking: John Tory To Announce Candidacy For Mayor In Weeks

Word was let loose last night during the opening hours of the 2009 Ontario PC Leadership Convention in Markham that failed Ontario PC leader John Tory will be announcing his intention to run for mayor of Toronto in next year’s municipal election. The source, a party operative from Etobicoke attending the Randy Hillier hospitality suite, indicated that all the pieces of Tory’s campaign are in place and that we should be seeing a formal announcement as July rolls in. Tory, who surprised many observers in 2003 when he came close to pulling off a come-from-behind victory against eventual winner and current incumbent David Miller spent most of the six years since that campaign running the Ontario PC Party and fought a ill-received campaign against Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in 2007. During that time, Tory’s success with the provincial PCs faltered and whispers about him returning to re-contest the municipal race in 2006 or 2010 hovered over the former Rogers CEO. No word yet on whether Liberal operative Warren Kinsella, who has had a weekly series on his blog this week titled “Toronto Needs A Mayor” will return to help Tory’s campaign as he did in 2003. More as it develops.

Update: Welcome Newswatch readers!

Toronto T Party? That’s “T” for “Trash”

In 1773, colonists in Boston Massachusetts chose to destroy 3 shiploads of taxed tea instead of returning it to Britain over the Tea Act. This became known as the Boston Tea Party; famous for starting the saying “No Taxation Without Representation”. This was just one of the precursors to the American Revolution.

Fast forward to 2009, Toronto, Ontario.

Toronto Mayor David Miller has through his own actions created a crisis whereby he has established a precedent for his own dealings with Organized Labour and has suddenly either seen the light, or experienced some sort of epiphany where he has realized that these sorts of “rollovers” can no longer go on. Did someone manage to prove to him that money doesn’t grow on trees? (Given that Canadian money is very colorful, his world must be in perpetual autumn.)

So now, during this disgusting crisis taking place arguably at the worst possible time for an already struggling city, Mayor David Miller is sending out the Toronto equivalent to the KGB with orders to track down and identify citizens who dispose of their trash in ways that the city doesn’t approve of (and admittedly any city wouldn’t). As if this wasn’t enough, he is encouraging citizens to snitch on their neighbors by reporting their activities to the proper “authorities”. Doesn’t that sound like the youth programs the Nazi’s established where children were brainwashed into betraying their parents and neighbors to the Gestapo? Now I’m not saying that this is what’s being emulated here, but it certainly sounds eerily similar in flavor.

Anyway, illegal dumping seems to be taking place because striking city workers have been causing some problems at approved dumping sites causing excessivly long waits (which presumably contribute to more traffic snarls in a city already famous for congestion). Now, I don’t condone illegal dumping, but what options are left to the tax-paying citizens who are not being provided with the services they have (and continue to be) paid for?

Mayor David Miller is asking people to store their garbage in their garages. Having lived in downtown Toronto for a time, I can tell you there’s not many personal garages around there. Striking city workers are asking people to submit to their ill-conceived (albeit legal) strike and all the harassment that goes with it.

Can you imagine though, if Torontonians chose the path of the Boston colonists? Imagine, if you will, if residents chose instead to destroy their own garbage instead of returning the already taxed trash to the city? I doubt Torontonians would tolerate dumping all their garbage into Toronto’s harbour, but there are other ways of disposing/destroying of trash that do not include illegal dumping.

We could very well see the Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer in Toronto. More “Hazy” than usual maybe.

Just a thought…

Can Frank Klees Be Trusted?

If there is one problem that Frank Klees has faced this year as he competes for a second time to be Ontario PC leader, it’s that many of us in the party grassroots just don’t know what to think of him. After all, he is currently the individual coming to the defense of the Ontario Human Rights Commissions despite their totalitarian agenda and conduct, whereas it only seemed like yesterday that he was lobbying for private healthcare innovation within our province. Many people were surprised (shocked might be a better word) when the numbers came out in May that suggested that Klees is within a whisker of winning this thing, but I wasn’t — having many friends and contacts within the pro-family movement, I know Klees has been spent years actively courting the membership of the movement and has quite effectively brought thousands of pro-life and pro-family Ontarians into the PC fold for this race. This post is to those individuals who think that they are getting a swell guy who will put some sanity back into our province’s social framework:

I haven’t personally been burdened by an instance wherein I loaned Frank Klees my trust when he promised me one thing and then did another, but over the years, I’ve grown to be unsurprised when I meet someone who says they have. I’ve chalked a lot of it up to the fact that the candidate calls himself a “progressive conservative” and has been associated with the social conservative, red tory and libertarian wings of the party at different points in the last decade — his voting record isn’t any more insightful into who the real Frank Klees is. I finally got to have a one-on-one with the man a couple of weeks ago and confess that he handles himself amazingly well in policy discussions. I had two specific questions for him though, and neither of the answers I got were very comforting. On the first, dealing with something he’d change that Dalton McGuinty gave us over the past six years, Klees refused to answer, saying that these discussions were best left up to the grassroots. That, in and of itself was actually a pretty good response in my books, except that when the second question on why he’s treating the HRCs like he is came up, he told me that “I will not be around” if the party fights the next election on a promise to scrap the thought police, either as leader or under another individual. I was seeing clearly after that conversation why so many peers don’t count on Klees to follow through on his words.

More important for pro-lifers, today this report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation was brought to my attention. I know Derek Filderbrandt quite well and he is both a hard-working individual who takes pride in getting his facts straight, and is also an individual of no small integrity. So if Derek is posting up on his blog a citation from Frank Klees that the candidate will not commit to remove unnecessary/elective health procedure funding from the provincial taxpayer’s burden, even as he’s telling pro-lifers that he’ll fight for him, I trust Filderbrandt’s word over Klees’.

So with two weeks left in this race, and only one before voting starts, we need Frank Klees to clearly come out on how exactly he will fight for the family without stopping the funding for one of the most horrific practices in the modern world. More importantly, he’ll have to explain how an alleged social conservative can even be effective when his reputation isn’t the cleanest to begin with!

Footnote: The full Frank Klees report can be downloaded here.

Ontarians Hoping For Coyote Migration Might Just Need To Think Twice!

Here we go again! Look for every local newspaper south of Peel Region to play to the romantic notions that one of Hamilton, Kitchener, Waterloo or Burlington will soon be the proud recipient of an NHL franchise, courtesy of RIM Co-Founder Jim Balsillie. If the story sounds as retreaded as those Hollywood blockbusters that currently populate our theaters, it’s because it is!

Now, for those of us who pass over hockey for the far-superior sports of football and baseball, this isn’t quite the passionate exercise that has come to replace what would normally be playoff season hype in Southern Ontario if only the Leafs could produce a decent product again, but even I can feel a bit of the frustration that comes over our fair region whenever the carrot is put out in front of us by one of the RIM boys. It’s hard to see how the New York offices of the NHL would ever find any problem with planting another team in the obsessively-dedicated hockey neighbourhood of southern Ontario, even if the ultimate goal is to make the NHL one of the big boys (the league is easily dwarfed by MLB, the NFL and NBA in the US market place since hockey is practically unknown beyond any state that Barack Obama didn’t carry last November). That is what the execs have done before, and will do again this time once the serious negotiations begin.

Now, before everyone gets into a fight over which area code deserves the team more (and it’s the 519 by the way; K-W is by far a more faithful and dedicated hockey town than Hamilton, which has seen numerous bankrupted AHL teams and frankly likes its CFL team more anyway), might I suggest folks confront the lurking dragon that magically grows quite every time this opportunity comes up: Toronto. Now christened Toronto’s official region, the Maple Leafs have huge capital invested in keeping themselves the only game in town, so much so that they have a veto over any team located within a certain vicinity of Hogtown (which’ll kill the Burlington and Hamilton bids on the spot). I’m frankly surprised that my hockey-loving neighbours haven’t noticed how much Maple Leaf Entertainment has worked against their dreams over the past number of years as the most financially successful team in the league likely holds quite a bit of sway with the NHL brass. The success of the Leafs (didn’t think you’d hear that phrase these days, did you?) to cash in big-time has also got to be on the NHL’s mind as they mull the excuse that they’ll email Jim on his BlackBerry this time.

Wouldn’t it be novel if the hockey fans in Ontario, say, stopped buying ridiculous sums of Leafs merchandise until they were shown a bit more love from the league? Look, I know that I’m asking for a bit of rationality from a group more rabidly insane in its element than the atheists and socialists we usually contend with here at The Politic, but at least with this group I’ve got to believe that with the best interests of the community in mind, a well-planned and popularly-supported backlash would make the cash-constrained NHL think a bit before red-inking another Balsillie deal! Gotta dream big, right Canada?

One Member, One Vote, Half a Country?

Much hubbub has been made about the Liberals planning to scrap their convention for a one member, one vote system, and nearly everyone agrees this is a good thing. No more Dions, no more smoke-filled back rooms, more power to the people, etc, etc. But if the Liberals ever want to become the powerhouse they once were, they need to avoid the 1M1V plan at all costs.

If each member in the Liberal Party were given an equal vote, guess which region would end up with all the say? Ding ding ding, we have a winner! And if Ontario gets to dictate party policy, the ratio of Western to Eastern in the party will become even more disproportionate, leading to a cruel cycle that can only end with the Liberals becoming a regional rump party.

So unless the Liberals want Canada to remain in minority territory from here into oblivion, they’d best trash the 1M1V plan, before it’s too late.

Corrective/One-off Spending vs. Regular Spending

First off, I’d like to thank Abattoir for reminding me of this topic that I wanted to post. These days with so many things going on and to be followed, it’s easy to forget some of the things on our own mental To-Do Lists.

There has been a LOT of criticism againt the current Conservative Government for their spending of late. And while as a Fiscal Conservative it makes the bile rise in my throat, my brain has me fighting to keep it down with a few considerations.

I want to throw it out there that there has been a LOT of Corrective spending happening.

Now, when I say corrective, I’m referring to PMSH having to spend in order to correct what we as Conservatives view as errors made by the previous Liberal government.  Errors such as the near-mothballing of our Military Forces. General Hillier referred to it as the Decade of Darkness, and Conservatives by and large agree. Conservatives, as I recall, were thrilled by such an endearment and viewed the rebuilding of our Military as a positive thing for our country.

But that doesn’t come free. Our troops needed updating, retraining, re-arming, and re-supplying. IF we were to be able to carry our own weight in international missions, we were going to need the wherewithal to do just that. Once there, they needed protection and security and the tools to do what was asked of them. Enter Corrective Spending. The large purchases made here (helicopters, Globemasters, tanks)  are not ongoing spending. Once purchased, they will need maintaining of course, but the big-ticket purchase will have already passed.

Moving on. We ARE participating in an international, UN sanctioned War. It’s not something that is frequently referred to, but we ARE a Nation at WAR. Again, that doesn’t come free. But also, it’s not going to go on forever.

This Conservative Government chose to make amends for the wrongs commited by previous governments. Things such as the Chinese Head Tax. The Residential Schools issue etc. Those apologies also came with renumeration. This has cost the Federal Government millions of dollars. But this too is Corrective Spending or One-off spending. Once resolved and restitution paid, it’s over.

This Conservative Government has also chosen first to acknowledge that there is a Fiscal Imbalance, and second, to try and tackle it. Something that no previous government has even considered. This has resulted in increased transfers to the provinces and the shouldering of additional responsibilities on the federal side. This likely will be a task that continues, but with co-operation from the provinces, a balance is likely to be found. (This is assuming that the Premiers can get past whining in order to try and squeeze as much as they can out of the Feds…)

I believe that if you were to remove examples such as these (and there are others), you’ll find that the Conservative Government under PMSH is spending at least the same, if not less, than other more so-called thrifty governments.

I also believe that once we are out of this recession which was beyond the control of anyone in Canada (Conservative, Liberal, NDP or BLOC), and once we are past the Corrective Spending and War Time spending, we will see the fruits of the changes being made by this current government. Unfortunately, what usually happens is that while the Conservatives take the heat and make the hard decisions, the public becomes unwilling to wait and elects a Liberal government who then reap the crop of Conservative seeding, unjustifiably propagating the myth that “Conservative times are hard times” when in fact, Conservatives shoulder the responsibility for laying the groundwork for the Good Times.

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