As a guest columnist in the Toronto Sun, using demagogic rhetoric reminiscent of his mentor, former Premier Mike Harris, Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak amply demonstrates why he and his party are not ready to form the next government in Ontario. I have bolded certain parts of the following to underscore his inflammatory appeal to the extreme right wing of his party's supporters as he conveniently casts aside any consideration of Charter Rights, as if those rights should be available only to those with whom he agrees. Indeed, the perceptive reader will notice that not once does he address the violence perpetrated on peaceful protesters unjustly arrested and incarcerated, instead concentrating only on those who committed crimes, their actions somehow justifying everything the police did.
His final paragraph, you may notice, is rich in irony, likely unintentional.
Don’t blame cops for G20 mayhem
It wasn’t frontline police officers who smashed storefront windows and torched police cars
By Tim Hudak, Guest Columnist
The downtown core of Toronto was turned into a conflict zone by a group of lawless hooligans a little more than a week ago.
These reckless thugs were not in Toronto to protest a legitimate political cause. Instead they are part of a circuit of criminals who travel to international summits with one goal in mind — to destroy property, incite mayhem and terrorize law-abiding citizens.
Sadly, in the wake of the violence, a number of usual-suspect special interest groups are attempting to pin blame, not on the hooligans, but instead on our police services or the federal government.
But it wasn’t frontline police officers who spent a weekend smashing in storefront windows, and it wasn’t federal government officials who torched police cars.
Instead these were the acts of violent anarchists, with a long history of using “peaceful” protest marches at international summits as cover for reckless acts of extreme violence.
That is why I oppose the orchestrated attempt by these activists to demonize our police services in the wake of the G20 violence. I proudly stand behind the men and women of our police services that were faced with a daunting and difficult task of protecting the public against these professional vandals and hooligans.
After a week of silence on the G20, I hope Dalton McGuinty will join me in clearly supporting our men and women in uniform.
McGuinty should also have the courage to finally explain why his government passed a secret law to expand police powers during the G20 summit. I believe the public would have understood the necessity of these new powers to contain the violent thugs, but that does not mean McGuinty had the right to hide these new powers from the public.
We all know Ontario’s police officers have two fundamental responsibilities:
First, they are expected to preserve order and protect law-abiding families and businesses from criminal activity.
Second, they are expected to bring those responsible for criminal acts to justice.
It is on this second responsibility that we should now focus our attention.
We must make sure the thugs and hooligans who trashed downtown Toronto are held accountable for their crimes. The right to speak must never be confused with the right to vandalize property that tarnishes the reputation of our city and province.
The McGuinty government must do everything in its power to ensure the criminals behind this violence are caught, tried to the fullest extent of the law and held personally financially responsible for the cost of the damage they have caused.
In addition, the authorities should co-operate with any resident or business that wishes to pursue a civil action against the individuals and groups responsible for this violence.
In the meantime, the senior levels of government should establish a fund to compensate small business owners for property damages and the interruption of business caused by repairing the damages.
The hooligans behind the G20 violence gave our city a black eye on the world stage. We must not let special interest sideshows distract our attention from holding these criminals accountable for the harm they caused.
Now is the time for us to reclaim the reputation of our city and make it clear to the world that in Toronto, law-abiding citizens get protected, criminals get punished, and justice always gets done.
— Hudak is Ontario PC
Party Leader
Showing posts with label tim hudak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tim hudak. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Tim Hudak – The New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader
Tim Hudak, 41 and a former Ontario cabinet minister, was recently elected the new leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. Endorsed by former Premier Mike Harris, in my mind the most evil and divisive political leader in Canada’s history, Hudak seems intent on regaining power for the party by resurrecting the same tactics that so divided so many Ontarians during Harris’s rule. Spouting catch phrases such as ‘middle class values,’ and suggesting that he would cut up public sector contracts because they are too rich, Hudak, who has never held a job outside of politics, seems to assume that there is still an appetite amongst the electorate for the politics of disenfranchisement and division, politics that play to the worst of human nature.
In the leadup to the convention, the general wisdom was that centrists such as Christine Elliot could never lead the party back to power, being too closely allied in many ways with the policies of the existing Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty. And therein lies the problem with politicians today - if the only reason to choose Hudak is to increase the chance of returning to power, doesn’t that bespeak a moral vacuum? I would argue, of course, that this bald grasping for power for power’s sake is endemic in our system today, not limited to the Conservative Party by any means.
Margaret Wente, with who I rarely agree, has an interesting column in today’s Globe and Mail that examines the politics and strategy of Mr. Hudak. I have taken the liberty of reprinting it below:
Only a political junkie could care about the fate of Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party - a bunch of old white guys so lost in the woods they make Stephen Harper's crowd look enlightened.
To bring you up to date, they just had a leadership race. Not one of the candidates addressed the economic tsunami that will define the province for years to come. Instead, the front-runner chose to fan the culture wars by lustily attacking Ontario's Human Rights Commission. The small-town base applauded. Anyone else might ask: Who cares about the culture wars when the economic heartland of Canada is being disembowelled?
The election of Tim Hudak as leader of the Official Opposition is a rare piece of good news for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. Mr. Hudak has styled himself as the reincarnation of Mike Harris, a name that evokes fear and loathing among most of the province's voters. People remember Mr. Harris as a dose of Castor oil - necessary, but deeply unpleasant. It is not an experience they'd care to repeat.
Nonetheless, Mr. Hudak thinks that old-time medicine might go down well again. He stands for "hard-working Ontarians" and "middle-class families," while the McGuinty Liberals stand for "massive tax grab."
By narrowing their base, the Conservatives took exactly the wrong message from their previous leader's failure to make an impact. John Tory was a Red Tory with bad timing. He opposed a moderate premier in good times. Mr. McGuinty projects an image as a dull but honest guy, and his government has generally avoided major screw-ups. The economy was booming, and voters saw no reason to rock the boat. Mr. Tory's political failure was widely blamed on his nice-guyness, along with his unpopular support for private-school funding. But it was prosperity that did him in.
Mr. Tory has little love for his successor, who campaigned for his job the entire time he had it. Mr. Hudak, 41, is nothing if not ambitious. He's been a career politician since he was first elected at 27 - not necessarily a plus, in my view. At least Mr. Harris spent some time as a golf pro.
In public, Mr. Hudak is a bit robotic - bright, glib and highly scripted by his band of Harrisites. His wife, Deb Hutton, was chief of staff in the Harris government. He is not unpersonable, but he's not personable, either. He has a habit of baring his teeth in an alarmingly phony smile, as if he's about to devour Little Red Riding Hood. Whether he's capable of substance is not known.
I'm not a fan of Mr. McGuinty's wishy-washy nanny-statish liberalism. But he is geekily enthusiastic about ideas, even though a lot of them are half-baked. He thinks seriously about forging a prosperous postindustrial model for Ontario. He surely knows that, before the next election in 2011, the province will be grappling with an unemployment rate of at least 10 per cent and even more horrendous deficits than it has now. He'll have to raise taxes and cut spending. So will anyone else who winds up in the job.
The reason to bother with Mr. Hudak is that he may well be premier one day - if not next time, then the time after that. All governments get long in the tooth, and this one is well into its second term. It is also sailing into a perfect storm not of its own making. If people get mad enough, they'll vote for Donald Duck.
That alone may be enough to get Mr. Hudak elected. But if he's halfway smart, he'll realize that the 5,600 diehards who elected him as leader are the party's past. They are the province's past, too. Ontario's future won't be forged in the aging, fading, small white towns like the one he grew up in. It will be forged in the vibrant knowledge belt of Southern Ontario, and in multiethnic, creative, culturally liberal Toronto. My advice to Mr. Hudak is to work the next Pride parade. It might broaden his horizons. It might even loosen him up.
In the leadup to the convention, the general wisdom was that centrists such as Christine Elliot could never lead the party back to power, being too closely allied in many ways with the policies of the existing Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty. And therein lies the problem with politicians today - if the only reason to choose Hudak is to increase the chance of returning to power, doesn’t that bespeak a moral vacuum? I would argue, of course, that this bald grasping for power for power’s sake is endemic in our system today, not limited to the Conservative Party by any means.
Margaret Wente, with who I rarely agree, has an interesting column in today’s Globe and Mail that examines the politics and strategy of Mr. Hudak. I have taken the liberty of reprinting it below:
Only a political junkie could care about the fate of Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party - a bunch of old white guys so lost in the woods they make Stephen Harper's crowd look enlightened.
To bring you up to date, they just had a leadership race. Not one of the candidates addressed the economic tsunami that will define the province for years to come. Instead, the front-runner chose to fan the culture wars by lustily attacking Ontario's Human Rights Commission. The small-town base applauded. Anyone else might ask: Who cares about the culture wars when the economic heartland of Canada is being disembowelled?
The election of Tim Hudak as leader of the Official Opposition is a rare piece of good news for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. Mr. Hudak has styled himself as the reincarnation of Mike Harris, a name that evokes fear and loathing among most of the province's voters. People remember Mr. Harris as a dose of Castor oil - necessary, but deeply unpleasant. It is not an experience they'd care to repeat.
Nonetheless, Mr. Hudak thinks that old-time medicine might go down well again. He stands for "hard-working Ontarians" and "middle-class families," while the McGuinty Liberals stand for "massive tax grab."
By narrowing their base, the Conservatives took exactly the wrong message from their previous leader's failure to make an impact. John Tory was a Red Tory with bad timing. He opposed a moderate premier in good times. Mr. McGuinty projects an image as a dull but honest guy, and his government has generally avoided major screw-ups. The economy was booming, and voters saw no reason to rock the boat. Mr. Tory's political failure was widely blamed on his nice-guyness, along with his unpopular support for private-school funding. But it was prosperity that did him in.
Mr. Tory has little love for his successor, who campaigned for his job the entire time he had it. Mr. Hudak, 41, is nothing if not ambitious. He's been a career politician since he was first elected at 27 - not necessarily a plus, in my view. At least Mr. Harris spent some time as a golf pro.
In public, Mr. Hudak is a bit robotic - bright, glib and highly scripted by his band of Harrisites. His wife, Deb Hutton, was chief of staff in the Harris government. He is not unpersonable, but he's not personable, either. He has a habit of baring his teeth in an alarmingly phony smile, as if he's about to devour Little Red Riding Hood. Whether he's capable of substance is not known.
I'm not a fan of Mr. McGuinty's wishy-washy nanny-statish liberalism. But he is geekily enthusiastic about ideas, even though a lot of them are half-baked. He thinks seriously about forging a prosperous postindustrial model for Ontario. He surely knows that, before the next election in 2011, the province will be grappling with an unemployment rate of at least 10 per cent and even more horrendous deficits than it has now. He'll have to raise taxes and cut spending. So will anyone else who winds up in the job.
The reason to bother with Mr. Hudak is that he may well be premier one day - if not next time, then the time after that. All governments get long in the tooth, and this one is well into its second term. It is also sailing into a perfect storm not of its own making. If people get mad enough, they'll vote for Donald Duck.
That alone may be enough to get Mr. Hudak elected. But if he's halfway smart, he'll realize that the 5,600 diehards who elected him as leader are the party's past. They are the province's past, too. Ontario's future won't be forged in the aging, fading, small white towns like the one he grew up in. It will be forged in the vibrant knowledge belt of Southern Ontario, and in multiethnic, creative, culturally liberal Toronto. My advice to Mr. Hudak is to work the next Pride parade. It might broaden his horizons. It might even loosen him up.
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