Why I Won't Vote for John Tory

Ontario Election 2007

Why I Won't Vote for John Tory

By Ben Bull
Published October 10, 2007

Coming into this provincial election I was pretty neutral in terms of my party allegiance.

The Liberals have put forward some pretty useful initiatives this past term, most impressive of which is the Places to Grow legislation which shows that they at least have a reasonable understanding of the importance and priority of checking urban sprawl. Less impressive is their back tracking on the dismantling of coal fired plants and their tax pledge reversal.

The platform for the NDP shows some reasonable commitment to cities (50% funding for the TTC is a good start) and a good starting point for tackling poverty ($10 an hour minimum wage).

I haven't paid much attention to the Greens, however I will, and I have yet to be unimpressed by any of their policy initiatives to date.

That just leaves the Tories. I have not looked much beyond the Faith based schools funding position, put forth by the Conservatives. In fact, I have virtually no idea what comprises the rest of their policies.

The reason for this is that I have resented, from the outset, the hijacking of this provincial campaign by this single, relatively unimportant issue. The NDP have recently observed that many of the most important issues facing our province - poverty, the economy, the environment - have been largely ignored by the media during the campaign.

They're right. But don't blame the media. The media, after all, is just looking for the best story. Where we have debate, conflict and the potential to incite a reaction we have a good story.

The person to blame is John Tory. By jumping out of the gate with a firm commitment to fund all faith based schools he set the tone, and the content, for this campaign.

Everybody knows that the current education system is unfair. Catholics have no more right to funding than any other faith - clearly this is a situation which at some point needs to be dealt with.

But this is not the issue of our time. The issues of our time are poverty - especially child poverty - the environment, with all its inter-related components such as clean energy, integrated transit, waste management and so on, and support for our cities - the engines of our economy.

It's a shame we couldn't find the time to chat about these issues. Alas, thanks to John Tory and the Conservatives, for this election at least, the opportunity has come and gone.

Ben Bull lives in downtown Toronto. He's been working on a book of short stories for about 10 years now and hopes to be finished tomorrow. He also has a movie blog.

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By Frank (registered) | Posted October 10, 2007 at 10:48:19

Hey Ben, Take a look at the interviews. The reason that the issue of faith funded schools was raised is because JT was questioned at every opportunity by DM about it. I believe that it was a Liberal strategist who pointed out the issue to DM after recognizing it as a weak spot in the PC platform. Surprisingly enough, if this legislation was brought into parliament during the current liberal mandate, it most likely would've passed by a sizable margin.

DM successfully hijacked the PC campaign by hamstringing them with the faith based school issue, changing the focus of the electoral race from the current mandate's lack of integrity to something relatively minor. I'd encourage you to base an opinion on reading party platforms as posted on their respective websites. I don't know if you watched the debate, but I found the respective body languages of the candidates rather interesting. Also, I'm not sure if you heard yesterday, DM was hosting a radio show yesterday where, like all the other party leaders including the Greens, party leaders have accepted calls from the general public regarding their party's policies. DM chose instead to have various supporters from Greg Sorbara to some nurse call in and build his ego. A complete disappointment and blatant disrespect to the public who still have many questions. Also, I'm not sure if you've noticed but DM has only hung out in a bubble during this campaign never allowing people with an opinion other than his receive any considerable amount of attention. Of course, this is smart because then people never seen anything negative about him but it's playing politics - something that if you look at his gov't's policy timing has characterized the last four years. Not to mention, sometimes I feel like slapping the smirk off of his face.

All this just reinforces my opinion that DM is disconnected from society as a whole...meaning he's not someone I want running my province.

Raise the Hammer

Ontario Election 2007