on John Tory and the Leadership Review (part 2)

As a Progressive Conservative, I am glad that my fellow party members have decided to keep John Tory as our leader. Yes, he lost the 2007 election to McGuinty’s Liberals and yes, he brought the faith-based school issue to the campaign, but we have to remember this: not everyone wins an election the first time.

Mike Harris didn’t. Stephen Harper didn’t. Jean Charest didn’t. Gordon Campbell didn’t. Bob Rae didn’t. Even Dalton McGuinty didn’t win an election the first time.

I realize that there are many of my fellow party members who are still against John Tory’s leadership, but the subject needs to be dropped, and the entire party needs to move on.

We need to present a united front in order to win in 2011 or else a divided party equals a third Liberal victory.

and we all know that is something we all don’t want.

on the TDSB’s decision to establish an Afro-centric school in Toronto

This was the dumbest idea the TDSB has ever came up with. (ok, ok, there are others but stay with me here…) I’m not saying that the trustees are stupid, it’s just I believe that they haven’t thought this through and they seem to have not realize the consequences that may occur from this decision.This issue, in my opinion, is somewhat related to an issue that had arisen during the 2007 Ontario general election: the question was “Should we or should we not provide public funding for faith based schools?”. Obviously the issue are different in the sense that the religious schools are already there and they are private. However, the underlying and overall consequences, and the possible solutions are very similar.What the TDSB is doing is they are essentially separating one group from the vast majority of people in Toronto.This brings up the question “what are the possible consequences of this decision made by the TDSB?“. Well I believe this might happen:

• This will create two “classes” of students in Toronto, in other words, segregation
• Other groups will begin to demand to have their own publicly funded school

This is one thing that, as Torontonians and Canadians, we should be ashamed of. The establishment of this school is against all we believe in:

• Multiculturalism
• Diversity

I understand that the African-Caribbean Canadian community is worried about the large number of their youth dropping out of school, but this is not the answer to the problem.The best solution is for the Government of Ontario to reform the system, put more resources into the public education system, revise the curriculum to include more courses and lessons on different languages, cultures and faiths, provide more money for more qualified teachers and teaching assistants, and provide more after school programs across this city and the province.I hope that the trustees and TDSB board reconsider their position and vote against establishing this school because a single culture focused school is not the way to go.

on the recent legislative victory for the KMT and the upcoming ROC presidential elections

The results of the 2008 Legislative Yuan elections were both surprising, yet predictable. From the beginning, it was already known that the Democratic Progressive party was it was in big political trouble. On January 12, 2007, it failed to capture its goal of 50 seat, instead it only won 27 seats in the LY; which is about 16.1% less than what it had before the election. In addition to that, it lost all its pan-green coalition partners in the legislature, leaving it as the sole pro-independence party left in the LY. This election was also a surprise to the Kuomintang. They had expected to win 71 of 113 seats, however, instead of wining just the 71 they hoped for, the KMT gain a total of 81 seat. Along with the KMT’s pan-blue coalition partners, it won a total of 85 seats or 75.2% of the 113 seats in LY; a supermajority. The DPP’s loss can be accounted for by two factors:

• the rising popularity of the Kuomintang’s presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou
• and the people’s dissatisfaction with ROC President Chen Shui-bian’s DPP administration due to the fact that Chen focused most of his time and the state’s resources on (1) pissing off the mainland with his independence policies, (2) trying to get UN to admit the state into membership as Taiwan, instead of trying to reviving the economy and strengthening it so that it could compete in the world market/economy.

The Kuomintang played well when it focused its campaign on the economy instead of the reunification question. This strategy can be shown in these advertisement:

Although the purpose of these advertisements were to promote the Ma-Siew Kuomintang presidential ticket, both of them were published and aired before and during the Legislative Yuan elections. The message given in these advertisements was that “The DPP has failed the people and has neglected the state’s economy. To survive, Taiwan must rebuilt its economy and compete in the world market. A vote for the Kuomintang is a vote for Taiwan”.

Looking at the results, it looks like the people of Taiwan have spoken and said that “we’ve had enough of this DPP inaction to fix our economy”. Although anything could happen, it looks like the recent victory has given a lot of momentum to Ma Ying-jeou’s bid to become the next president of the Republic of China. And my prediction is that he will indeed win and bring back stability to Taiwan’s economy and to the cross-Strait relations with the Mainland.

on the John Tory Leadership Question and the upcoming review

Well, it’s about two week til the leadership review at the Ontario PC Party convention in London. The question on every Progressive Conservative’s mind is “Should we keep John Tory as our leader or dump him for a new one?”.

This need for a review stems from the disappointing election results last October. The problems that I saw with the PC campaign was:

• the introduction of the religious school question — to implement them somehow into the public system — which the Liberal (crafty people they are) used it to say that John Tory and PC Party were looking out for private interests instead of public one
• People feared that a John Tory government was going to reintroduce the “Common Sense Revolution” ideals (which everyone knew it was a disaster for the province) and the fact that several party members (on live television and at public events) said that John Tory “was going to bring back ‘common sense’ back to government in Ontario, which although was said with good intention and was not meant to refer to the “revolution” but people took it as if they were mentioning the policies of the Harris Government of 1995-2002
• There were not enough positive ads: all people saw, or believed that all they saw, were negative attack ads

Although the Ontario PC Party lost the election, and there are many things (policies, campaign strategies, etc) that need to be changed to attain victory in 2011, dumping John Tory is not one of them. Removing John Tory from the leadership will hurt the party and decrease our chances to win the next election in 2011. Here are the reason why we should keep John Tory as leader:

• He helped to wipe out the party’s huge debt in less than 4 years
• He helped to increase the party membership
• He ran several very successful businesses over the years and was accountable for all his actions as the head of those companies.
• He helped to revitalize the Canadian Football League and brought stability and growth to the league
• He is a good leader as he listens to the opinions and concerns of each and every Ontarian and his own party members and takes them into account when making a decision
• As he has brought integrity and accountability to his roles as CEO of a company and as leader of the PC Party, he will bring those to the Premier’s Office

So instead of dumping John Tory and creating an costly leadership race, the party should concentrate and focus on the next election and how we are going to significantly increase our chances of victory in 2011. A few things that I believe will help us reach that goal:

• Run positive political campaign ads/PPBs
• Show what we can do, instead of what the Liberals didn’t do or did wrong
• Present our accomplishments as a party — our tract record of progress, moving the province forward, and improving the lives of Ontarians — and show them how we can build on those to revitalize our province and continue to move forward.

So I hope the party will support John Tory and vote to keep him as our leader. Because together with John Tory we can reach our goal of victory in 2011 and bring progress to Ontario.