Ontario Liberal MPP's were giving thanks to Premier Kathleen Wynnein the first week as the legislature returned at Queen's Park. The CBC'sOntario Political analyst says that was all part of theplan to spread some happy news as Wynne leads the party into the next election.
Fisher spoke with theCBC'sConrad Collacoabout the return to legislature work for MPP.Listen to the full interview by clicking the image at the top of the page or read an edited and abridged transcript below.
Veteran political analyst Robert Fisher delivers his insights into Ontario politics every two weeks. (CBC)
Why were Liberal MP's thanking the Premier in the legislature this week?
My political radar tells me that this is kind of part of a strategy, I think it's pretty clear if you follow provincial politics or politics anywhere that things never happen by accident so I think this was all planned.
You had the Premier being lauded for her support of the Mars project in Toronto. You had the Premier being lauded for her protection of water in the Guelph,Kitchener [and] Waterloo area, but water generally in the province. You had the Premier lauded for taking her effort to protect trade relations with the United States to the U.S. but nevertheless, you have these cabinet ministers and MPP's all thanking the Premier.
I suppose it shows, or they want to show, that it's a unified caucus and people support the Premier. It's kind of akin to, on the other side of the house, you have the opposition throwing as much mud, and they certainly did that this week, as they possibly can hoping that some will stick. For the liberals, all of these thank you's and commendations for their leader are something that they hope will stick with the Premier and be picked up by the public.
Now it will be interesting to see if that strategy develops outside of the legislature where people who don't follow Queen's park on a daily basis like I do are actually paying attention to this kind of stuff.
If the poll are any indication Kathleen Wynneis a very unpopular Premier. Is that part of why the backbenchers and ministers have been so quick to thank the Premier?
I think that's an excellent question and it truly reflects where the Premier is and where the government is at this point as a new session begins just 17 months before an election campaign. Obviously things have to change in terms of the public perception of Kathleen Wynne and so you have this kind of strategy that is out there and again, if it stretches beyond the legislature then I think it becomes part and parcel of where the liberals are going to be as they try to rekindle the kind of support the Kathleen Wynne had when she became the Liberal leader and eventually in 2014, the Liberal Premier.
Her numbers are so low now that there are even liberals who would worry that the best thing she could do in June 2018 is to hang on to a minority government.
Perhaps the biggest piece of news this week out of the legislature has been the decision to prevent power companies from cutting power in the middle of winter to people who aren't paying their bills. Why has it taken so long for the Liberals to take action on this?
Well that's the key question and I think its critically important. There was legislation that talked about stopping these winter disconnections and if I recall correctly there was something like sixty thousand disconnections in 2016 in this province and goodness knows how many during the winter of 2017.
Nevertheless, it was part of an ominous bill. The problem is that you can't, as a member of the opposition, vote for one section of a bill and against another. So when it came up for a vote it never got anywhere even though, quite frankly, this issue with the disconnects was well known and the government could have acted.
As you say, the biggest thing coming out of the legislature in terms of substantive legislation was this law that prohibits distributors from cutting off people's power when they can't pay their bills in the middle of winter, but it took a huge upset among people in the public and certainly at Queen's park this week to refocus the government's attention. It's kind of like the issues we've talked about in past weeks about hydro rates. The government seemed to be unable to understand that rates were going so high and that's why people were angry.
Now they get that part of the equation and this week in a matter of 48 hours this legislation came to the legislature from Glenn Thibeault the energy minister, was introduced, was passed, and was given royal ascent all in the space of a few hours. So it can be done and if you have a majority government, it should have been done a long time ago.
It seems from the last election quite a few observers had said that it was Tim Hudak's election to lose, and he lost it. The Premier turned it around in time for the election. What are her chances of doing the same for June 2018?
Well it's a big job there's no doubt about it. If you talk privately with the Liberals they will concede that this is a huge mountain for the Premier to climb. It's not that it's impossible to do but it's made more difficult by the fact that in 2018 as opposed to 2014, the Premier carries all of her own baggage. In 2014, it was mostly the baggage left over from Dalton McGuinty and people were prepared to acceptthat she was new and different and forgive her for past problems created by the Liberal government. This time it's all happening on her watch and so that's what makes it difficult. All that said, the Premier is an extraordinarily good campaigner and I think it's important to say that campaigns do matter, so what happens on the campaign trail when it starts is going to be critically important.
Andrea Horwath and Patrick Brown aregoing to have to earn this victory. It's not simply going to be handed to them by the electorate. They are both going to have to prove between now and 2018 that they are ready to be premier and that they have a caucus that is ready to serve as a cabinet in Ontario. So there's a lot of things at play here but Kathleen Wynne has a big job to pull off, and if she does it, I think it will go down in the annals of Ontario political history as the miracle on Queen's Park Crescent.
Do you think that Horwath and Brown have been too quick to hammer the Premier this week at Queen's Park? Are they relying too much on the Premier's current unpopularity?
Robert- I think they have been quick but I thinkthere's angst in the province that goes from the big cities to the small towns from people who are really having difficulty paying their hydro bills and want the government to do something about it. [The government] has promised over and over again, it's become their mantra actually, that help is coming, but for the opposition parties it's now a situation where they must earn the trust of the electorate and must show the electorate that they are ready to govern. It's time now to start bringing out some policies about what this government is all about.
I think Patrick Brown has shown that he's been very hard for the Liberals to hit and the best example of that happened just yesterday in the legislature when he supported, much to the surprise of the Liberals, the anti-Islamophobia resolution tabled by the Liberals. I think the government thought there was a fight coming here but Mr. Brown said, 'no this is the right thing to do and lets do it,' and that resolution was passed. It's symbolic, but I think important to show that Patrick Brown has a very flexible ideology compared to his past in Ottawa and what's going on in Parliament Hill right now on this very same issue.
The same goes for Andrea Horwath, it's a bigger climb for her because she's in third place but again it's all to show the electorate that she is ready to govern and often people have said they believe she's the best person to be Premier of Ontario but it never translates to the caucus. That's where the NDP have to mind the gap.
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Liberals thank Kathleen Wynne at Queen's Park but will voters? - Robert Fisher - CBC.ca