Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Hudak's in charge: Ontario's Conservative leader must capitalize on Grits' misfortunes

While most folks in Ottawa will focus on the return of the House of Commons this coming Monday amidst the likelihood of a fall election, Sept. 14 also marks the return of MPPs to Queen’s Park in Toronto with Tim Hudak’s debut as Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leader on the opposition benches.

Although we don't expect an election in Ontario until the fall of 2011, the clock is ticking for Hudak if he wants to define himself and capitalize on some of the misfortunes that besiege the McGuinty government.

My partisan leanings and stripes of the blue hue are no secret. That being said, Hudak’s task is not an easy one.

I have watched with some admiration as Dalton McGuinty has grown from being a stiff and wooden sessional professor lecturing second-year commerce students on business law into a seasoned politician with a platform presence who can communicate effectively to the local chamber of commerce or to an audience of Global CEOs at events like the international BIO conference that draws 20,000 delegates each year.

Task one for Tim Hudak is to get out in front of as many groups and crowds as possible. From formal speeches to proverbial church basement gatherings, Tim needs to up his platform presence so that he can compete with McGuinty come 2011.

Next up is economic policy and with respect, continually hammering home on the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) that comes into effect on July 1, 2010 is not going to cut it.

By all means point out that consumers will be hit hard with a broadened HST base and that the $1,000 transition rebate from the Liberals is a one-time pittance. However, why not propose a reduction in the provincial sales tax rate from 8% to 5% so the HST rate is 10%, not 13% as presently envisaged?

The positional challenge for Hudak and his colleagues is to relentlessly paint the picture of the McGuinty government as out of touch and scandal-ridden with no respect for our hard-earned tax dollars. The contracting and expense fiascos at eHealth, the Lottery and Gaming Corp. and now apparently some issues with past MPAC — the property tax folks — practically play into this theme perfectly.

All governments — regardless of political colour — get lazy and believe that they are entitled to their entitlements; it just seems that the present provincial administration has arrived at this story state much faster than its predecessors. When stars like Deputy Premier George Smitherman are looking at other options, all is not well.

Finally, if the provincial Tories are looking for a sleeper issue, it is health care. More specifically the over-management, over-governance and bureaucratization of health care.

If you speak to experienced hospital administrators for example, they will tell you that over half their time seems to be occupied responding to surveys and/or reporting on everything from hand hygiene to ER wait times to revisits from post-discharge patients.

Sure we are spending billions more in health care now than in 2003, but how much of it is going to front-line care?

Tim Hudak’s Tories need to get to work next week in a big way or the McGuinty Liberals will be thinking three-peat in 2011.