Posted by Tory Story on 1/31/2004, 7:50 am, in reply to "Re: Joke" Logic seems to suggest that, if Ernie Eves wins the leadership of the Ontario PC Party, the current Finance Minister will be out of a job. But according to James Nicholson, Jim Flaherty just might be able to work the situation to his advantage - if he doesn't mind taking his government hostage in the process. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Jim Flaherty has grown increasingly aggressive in his campaign to beat Ernie Eves and capture the leadership of the Ontario PC Party, there has been considerable speculation that the provincial Finance Minister is talking himself right out of cabinet. The common perception is that, if Eves emerges with the Premiership in late March, then he'll quickly move to punish Flaherty - a hard-line right-winger - for the relentless and frequently personal attacks that he has leveled toward the frontrunner. But some of Flaherty's supporters, who represent their party's most conservative elements, beg to differ. On the contrary, they suggest, Flaherty stands to serve as a major force within the government, win or lose. Toward that end, they suggest that he has a strategic ace up his sleeve: the Tories' slender majority in the provincial legislature. If the battle between Eves and Flaherty gets ugly enough, and if enough of his caucus supporters are spurned, then Flaherty could pull a Winston Churchill and drive government policy from outside cabinet. In that scenario, what has been an ongoing cabinet battle between right-wingers like Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement and Red Tories such as Janet Ecker, Elizabeth Witmer and David Tsubouchi could turn into a full-scale war in caucus. When all of the facts are added up, it's a war that Jim Flaherty can win. But unfortunately, the nasty side-effect of his waging it could be that the PC Party would tear itself in two. Stage is set Always a shaky coalition between moderate supporters of the federal PC Party and ideological conservatives more at home in the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance, the cracks in Mike Harris' party became more visible after Flaherty replaced Eves as Finance Minister and Deputy Premier in January 2001. Without the more moderate Eves by his side, Harris began to listen more and more to the advice of staunch neo-conservatives - including his chief of staff, Guy Giorno, Health Minister Tony Clement and, in particular, his newly-appointed Finance Minister. Consequently, several measures strongly opposed by the Red Tory faction - most notably a controversial private school tax credit - became government policy. As a result, tensions ran so high that Janet Ecker, the Education Minister, reportedly prepared her resignation only to be talked out of it at the last minute. With Eves' return from retirement, the moderates have been able to mount a serious campaign to purge the neo-conservatives out of the party, or at least to significantly limit their influence. Meanwhile, the campaign of Elizabeth Witmer - who is likely to wind up throwing her support to Eves if the leadership vote goes to a second ballot - has been even more extreme in advocating that sort of purge. The party, however, is already too polarized for either candidate to be able to keep the right-wing members meek and docile after the leadership. Hard-liners already suspect Eves' values, and believe that he may attempt to govern as a Liberal. For many of them, Eves truly is, as Flaherty has labeled him, a "pale, pink imitation" of Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty. Insiders suggest that, if March 23 leads to a victory by Eves (or by Witmer) and the subsequent abandonment of Tory cornerstones like continuing tax relief, smaller government and choice in education, right-wing Conservatives will be prepared to take matters into their own hands. And thanks to the standings in the House, where two by-election losses and the abstention of Speaker Gary Carr has left the governing party with just a five-seat majority, the hard-liners are in perfect position to impose their will. In effect, if six Tory MPPs were to join together in a tight band of neo-conservative die-hards, they would hold a veto over any and all legislation. They wouldn't need to vote against the government, or even to make their actions public. All that would be required would be to let their demands be known to caucus, and then prove their solidarity by absenting themselves from a minor vote. And then, for a budget, Throne Speech or confidence vote, they could threaten to stay away unless their demands were met, forcing the new Premier to stick to the neo-conservative course or else risk allowing the government to fall. They could also be less dramatic and simply stay away from any votes on legislation that they didn't support, thereby preventing it from being passed. Because exposure of this voting block would weaken the image of the new leader, it's unlikely that the Premier's loyalists could even publicly confront the right-wingers. Rather, they'd be forced to compromise with the faction, striking negotiated deals to allow the government to remain publicly united. Precedents exist, at home and abroad There are a number of historical examples that Flaherty could follow, the most impressive being that of Winston Churchill. Churchill split from the British cabinet in the 1930s over government policy toward India and the issue of rearmament, and wound up leading a reactionary caucus faction known as the "die-hards" in a crusade to get Britain on a war footing and confront Hitler. And while he was excluded from government for almost a decade, history would justify Churchill's anti-appeasement strategy and vilify his opponent, Neville Chamberlain, as a weakling and a coward. (Churchill's policy toward India also proved to be the correct analysis, with Indian self-government and eventual independence leading to the end of the British Empire.) Equally instructive is the case of the Christian Coalition's hold over the Republican Party in the United States, which has been able to veto Republican Presidential candidates for the past twenty years. Powerful Attorneys General such as Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft have been installed, and abortion services curtailed, all to appease the powerful lobby.
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