Ontario passes Wynne-Horwath budget

Minority government now business as usual at Queen's Park.

from Inside Queen's ParkVolume 26, Number 11

The NDP delivered last week on its promise to back a revised Budget 2013 “that will make people’s lives better and government more accountable”.  Forty-eight Liberals and 17 NDPers voted in favour, for a total of 65 "Ayes".  The Progressive Conservatives turned out en masse to cast 36 "Nays."  [48 + 17 + 36 = 101.]

With two seats vacant, 105 MPPs could have voted.  Speaker Dave Levac did not vote because he was the presiding officer;  Liberal minister Michael Gravelle is continuing to have previously announced medical treatment; the only absent NDPer was John Vanthof who was attending to serious family illness; and Liberal backbencher  Margarett Best continues her seeming boycott of Queen’s Park.

While overall poll standings for the NDP are softer, the May 24 Ipsos-Reid poll suggests that Horwath’s focus on holding the government to account over spending is a winner:  the NDP is rated the most effective opposition party, 56 percent against 35 percent for the PCs.

Minority government is now business as usual
The PCs were terribly dismayed by the rebuff they suffered in the 1975 Ontario election, in which the 78 seats won in Bill Davis’s 1971 landslide dwindled to just 51, a number too small to conduct committee business pass legislation or win votes. Having lost their majority, the PCs were obliged to remember what it had been like in 1943 when Premier George Drew had last formed a minority government at Queen’s Park. 

It is therefore quite remarkable that since the Liberals' 2011 win, all three parties have reconciled themselves quickly to operating in a minority situation — on essentially the same basis as in the previous majority parliament. Of course, the NDP had first to get over its glee at forming the official opposition by winning 38 seats cf. 36 for the third-party LIBs.  (It’s interesting that the NDP’s fractional edge in seats ran counter to the 1975 share of votes share: the PCs took 35.9 percent of the vote, the Liberals 33.9 percent and the NDP 28.8 percent.) 

And with the Liberals perceived as having come badly out of the election, the NDP pushed them hard by putting down for debate a number of bills and resolutions requiring the Liberals to "flip-flop" on key issues  or trigger an unwinnable election.  In 1975, the NDP was content to see itself as the real opposition to the Tories and to ease back into the comfortable ways of majority government.  And in fact it was the PCs who blew the whistle on that minority parliament when they sensed a political recovery and contrived their own defeat in 1977.  There was very little change from 1975 to 1977. The PCs gained 7 seats for a total of 58 — 10 seats short of a majority; the Liberals lost two seats but retrieved opposition status with 34; and the NDP lost 5 seats.
 
The energizer Premier
Kathleen Wynne has a reputation for working very hard. Determined to stay fit, she begins her mornings with a 5K run, and her working day routinely extends more than twelve hours. The premier has made time for a surprising number of evening events, staying late to shake hands and answer questions. The premier’s partner, Jane Rounthwaite, has brought some evenings to a close because “Kathleen has to get some sleep”.

Good call.  For sleep is a crucial source of the poise, energy and skill which the premier must husband carefully if she is to lead her government effectively over time. That means that she and her staff must shortly reduce her workload to a sustainable level.  There will be more than enough periods when she has to juggle a number of very important issues at once.

Any such crush of decisions will leave the premier unable to avoid both starting her day early and finishing it late. Most senior executives cannot escape doing that frequently, but if she operates routinely without adequate rest and sufficient down-time, Wynne’s political effectiveness and her personal health will be put at risk.  The time to address this danger is now, not in the run-up to the next election.

Circuitous practice ends
There are some important differences between the McGuinty and Wynne governments in regard to process as well as policy.  Take for example the end to "walk-arounds" — the practice of shopping an Order-in-Council out from Cabinet Office until it attracts the necessary ministerial signatures to enter into force.   This practice has allowed "the Centre" to avoid divulging intended action in cabinet meetings and to secure needed authorization from compliant ministers, early or late.  No more, IQP has learned. A small blow for accountability, currently the most popular nostrum in the debate over reforming  government.

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