SCOOP: Is this the next OLP president?
Also: Jones's bedside manner (or not), Plan B for schools, PMB tracker, happy birthday Mr. Premier, and more
ABOVE THE FOLD
Update: Here’s the latest on the race for OLP president.
First in Queen’s Park Observer — It could be a while before Ontario’s Liberals pick a new leader — but until then, politicos can quench their electoral thirst with another contest: the race for party president.
After another brutal election showing in June, not only did the Grits lose their leader STEVEN DEL DUCA — who stepped down to run (successfully) for Vaughan Mayor — but they were also down a party president, BRIAN JOHNS, who left to make the jump into the local arena and is now a councillor in East Gwillimbury.
Enter DAVID FARROW, the former candidate for Sudbury and a retired elementary school principal, who’s eyeing a bid for party president.
“I have been kicking the tires with this since about mid-September [but] haven’t made the full decision yet whether or not I’m going to throw my hat in the ring,” Farrow told me in a phone interview.
Card-carrying Grits will vote for the next president in early March at the party’s Annual General Meeting. That’s also when they’ll lay out details for the leadership race — including timelines and rules of entry — which insiders don’t expect will happen for another two years.
Among other things, Farrow says he wants the leadership convention to be “extremely well-run” so that the “new leader comes out of that with a really good bump.”
Compared to the NDP’s leadership race, which only has sole contender MARIT STILES so far, a hotly contested leadership would garner more buzz — and potentially fundraising cash, new members, and media coverage — for the Grits.
“Fundraising has to be a huge issue for the party moving forward,” Farrow adds. “The whole notion around party governance is something that’s also really important to me. And since it looks like the majority of the executive council is going to step down, we need some new and fresh ideas moving forward into the next four years.”
As for what he’s bringing to the table as the next potential president, Farrow says the party needs “steadfast leadership going through the next four years.”
He pointed to grassroots engagement on policy and fundraising as some of the brighter spots of the 2022 campaign, and wants to build on that.
Like most Liberals, Farrow didn’t perform so hot in the June election, placing a distant third behind two-term NDP MPP JAMIE WEST and the PCs MARC DESPATIE.
But Farrow insists the Grits are due for a comeback. He pointed to the party’s election post-mortem crew that’s gathering input from candidates and organizers in all corners of the province. A report will be released at the AGM next spring.
“It’s really incumbent upon the next executive council to operationalize those recommendations and really drill down deep and try to make those changes happen in the next couple of years before we get into the election cycle,” Farrow said.
MORE Qs THAN As — Health Minister SYLVIA JONES was cagey when pressed by reporters about overwhelmed children’s hospitals on Thursday.
Here’s what was asked — but not quite answered:
— Who scratched out a line in the Minister’s briefing binder that said “no, we are not privatizing health care” — and why? “I’m going to answer that question the same way I answered in Question Period, and that was no, no, no. We are making investments in our publicly-funded health care system.”
— How can you say the government expected and prepared for the surge in hospitals when it’s happening now? “We put a plan in place. We worked with our hospital partners and said where can you build the capacity…I will point very directly to CHEO in Ottawa, where they were able to change a ward area into pediatrics.”
— How far from home are kids being transferred for care? “We have some examples in Ottawa, where a couple of patients were moved to Kingston, because they have capacity.”
— Why is there no new money for hospitals or staffing today? “So again I will point to the most recent budget that was passed in August of this year, with a $5-billion investment in Ontario’s hospital and health care system.”
— How many kids are currently in ICU in the province? And why is that data not public? “It’s data that’s constantly being changed and updated.”
— Can you just give us an actual number — what’s the last figure you saw? “As I said, it is a number that continues to move back and forth, depending on the day and depending on the hospital.”
(Recent figures suggest there was 122 children in ICU — 10 more than the province is equipped to handle.)
— How bad do children’s hospitals have to get before mask mandates are back? “It’s really important to remember that many of the tools we have now we didn’t have at the beginning of the pandemic…We have sufficient COVID-19 vaccines…sufficient flu vaccines…There is great value [in masking].”
— How much worse is this respiratory illness wave than anticipated? “The influenza certainly started sooner, perhaps because of the weather. The RSV has certainly been more serious than previously.”
— Where do you expect this wave to go? “At the risk of making predictions from the podium, I would say that what we are seeing is a slowing down of the increase. I’m not going to presuppose that that means we are coming to a plateau, but we are seeing a slowing down of the percentage increase — which is a good sign.”
What’s your message to families languishing at SickKids? “I completely understand your distress, your concern — but you have a government who has your back. You have a government who is supporting investments in our hospital system.”
The actual announcement: Jones was (re)announcing $182 million for upgrades and repairs at hospitals and community health facilities.
PLAN B — Memo to schools: “implement contingency plans.”
With CUPE’s 55,000 support workers on another strike path, the Ministry of Education has asked school boards to “minimize disruptions” and ensure “continuity of learning…in the event that CUPE does not reach and agreement, and proceeds with its strike action.”
Several school boards are ahead of the game and have already said learning will go virtual should support staff hit the pavement.
Parents and students could be on tenterhooks all weekend. CUPE said its negotiators and the province agreed to a bargaining deadline of 5 p.m. on Sunday — meaning workers could walk off the job in a full-on strike Monday if there’s no agreement.
HAPPENING TODAY
DOUG FORD’S FRIDAY — The Premier is headed to Timmins for a funding announcement at Newmont’s Porcupine Mine. Also on hand: Mines Minister GEORGE PIRIE and DAWID PRETORIUS, general manager at Porcupine.
THE HOUSE IS OUT — MPPs get back at it on Monday. T-minus three weeks until the House is slated to rise for the winter recess.
PMB TRACKER
A bunch of private members’ bills hit the Clerk’s table this week:
— NDP KRISTYN WONG-TAM’s Bill 42, Gender Affirming Health Care Advisory Committee Act, to establish a committee to make recommendations on ways to improve access to gender affirming health care and transition-related procedures.
— Liberal LUCILLE COLLARD’s Bill 41, Protection from Coerced Debts Incurred in relation to Human Trafficking Act, which would compel financial institutions to forgive coerced debts and ban consumer reporting agencies from publishing unfavourable information. It’s been co-signed by all parties and — unlike most PMBs — has a real shot at making it into law.
— NDPers JOEL HARDEN, DOLY BEGUM, JESSICA BELL and BHUTILA KARPOCHE’s re-tabled Bill 40, Moving Ontarians Safely Act, which would beef up legal consequences of a collision that seriously injures or kills a pedestrian, cyclist, road worker, emergency responder or mobility device user.
— NDP JEFF BURCH’s Bill 38, Protecting Vulnerable Persons in Supportive Living Accommodation Act, which would require licences, inspections and a complaints system for supportive living operators.
— Collard’s Bill 37, Notwithstanding Clause Limitation Act, which would add checks and balances to the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause.
IN OTHER NEWS…
— BIG BUILD ON CAMPUS: Auditor General BONNIE LYSYK’s “full report into Laurentian University’s insolvency pulls back the curtain on the poor management and lack of transparency that propelled the school into new territory for publicly funded institutions.” More from the CBC: “Lysyk said while there were other contributing factors, she put the primary blame for the university’s financial collapse on a failed ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy that started with a poorly planned and costly capital expansion at a time in 2010 when the university was already facing financial difficulties.”
— DIGGING INTO DEVELOPERS: From the Narwhal and Star: “They recently bought Greenbelt land that was undevelopable. Now the Ford government is poised to remove protections — and these developers stand to profit.”
Meanwhile, from the Globe: “Amid the controversy over the Ontario government’s proposal to carve up chunks of the protected Greenbelt land for housing development, another raft of land carve outs is being criticized for rewarding specific landowners while doing little to deliver housing in the near term.”
— INFLUENCER STATUS: Queen’s Park kingpins nabbed a spot on Toronto Life’s annual 50 most influential list, including Premier DOUG FORD at #3, top doc KIERAN MOORE at #12, Tory strategist JENNI BYRNE at #21, Attorney General DOUG DOWNEY at #24 and NICK KOUVALIS at #34. Full list.
Meanwhile, ex-NDP MPP and social justice advocate CHERI DINOVO was awarded the Order of Canada. Read excerpts from DiNovo’s latest book, The Queer Evangelist, in our newsletter.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
STAFFING UP — Colleges and Universities Minister JILL DUNLOP has a new executive assistant: STEFANIE MOJSOVSKI.
A JOLT FOR ENERGY PLANNING — The province has filled the last two spots on its Electrification and Energy Transition Panel, which will help inform long-term planning on the reliability of energy supply. MONICA GATTINGER, professor at Ottawa U, and EMILY WHETUNG, former chief of Curve Lake First Nation, will now join panel chair DAVID COLLIE, former head of the Electrical Safety Authority.
Collie will earn up to $80,000, with a per diem of $1,000, while his fellow panelists will earn $57,840 each with a per diem of $723.
QUESTION PERIOD
THE HIGHLIGHTS: “When did the Premier decide that the children of Ontario were expendable” by not masking up? — “Instead of money for ECEs in every classroom or additional funds for EAs, the government passes the burden to parents to hunt down scarce private resources” — Ford is “turning local democracy into his own personal sandbox” — “Do you remember when the Premier promised up and down that he would never touch the greenbelt? I do, too” — “What wisdom can the Environment Minister share at the climate conference in Egypt when he’s enabling some of the worst attacks on the environment I’ve ever seen here in Ontario?” — “Put an offer to CUPE that increases the services to our students so that we can have peace in our public schools?” — Give Hearst Hospital its long-requested extra anesthesiologist — “Commit to an alternative funding plan to meet the needs of trans and gender-diverse people.” THE TRANSCRIPT.
LOBBYING DISPATCH
Here are the new, renewed and amended registrations over the past 24 hours:
— Ryan Cole, Policy Concept: Ontario Home Care Association, ProResp Inc.
— Rob Gilmour, Crestview Strategy: Blue Ant Media
— Aaron Scheewe, The Capital Hill Group: HP Inc.
— Benjamin Menka, The Capital Hill Group: Procore Canada
In-house organizations: Life Sciences Ontario — CAAT Pension Plan.
🥳 HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Seniors Affairs Minister RAYMOND CHO…ON SUNDAY: Premier DOUG FORD.
The PCs are indirectly fundraising off of Ford’s big day, with party president MICHAEL DIAMOND blasting an email to supporters asking them to sign a virtual birthday card — and to cough up cash for party coffers, if they like.
⏳ COUNTDOWN: 20 days until the House recesses…17 days until the NDP leadership candidate nomination deadline…24 days until the federal byelection in Mississauga—Lakeshore.