Steve Paikin

Jimmy Carter: The Presidential Library

Steve Paikin — Fri, 14 Jun 13 05:45:00 GMT

A pictorial, behind-the-scenes look at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

The bucolic exterior of the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Carter Center opened on October 1, 1986.

President Carter's office at the Carter Center.

Carter's vice-president, Walter Mondale, autographed this picture. It says:

"To My President -- From the first Vice-President in history who came to love the President he served. I shall be forever grateful."

Andy Warhol's take on President Carter.

President Carter's "cheat sheet" of the presidential oath of office, complete with forward slashes advising where the president should take a breath.

The Bible that President Carter used at his inauguration.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter welcome the outgoing first couple, Gerald and Betty Ford. The two couples would go on to become great friends despite facing off in the 1976 election.

A replica of the Oval Office during Carter's presidency.

Carter kept a bust of Harry S. Truman in his office.

The Ex-Presidents' Club: George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter meeting in the Oval Office with his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

The 39th and 37th presidents: Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.

Signing the SALT II Nuclear Weapons Treaty: Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Carter is all smiles as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin shake hands during the Camp David negotiations.

The signatures of the Camp David Accords leaders. Despite a tumultuous Middle East, this treaty has stood the test of time.

The event that may have doomed Carter's possible re-election: the Iran hostages finally come home after 444 days in captivity.

Another Ex-Presidents' Club: Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon.

The dynamic duo that Bill Clinton once described as having done more good for more people than any other couple on the face of the earth.

Related Posts:

The Health Care Money Crunch Continues

Steve Paikin — Thu, 13 Jun 13 09:55:00 GMT

There used to be a time in Ontario's health care system when the people who ran the system could spend almost as much as they wanted. Spending went up between 6 to 8 per cent a year, even when inflation was only tracking at 2 to 3 per cent.

"We funded all manner of things," said Saad Rafi, the deputy minister of health, at a conference in Stratford, mounted by the South West Local Health Integration Network last week. "Every idea didn't even have to be good. But we can't sustain that level of growth anymore."

Ontario's health budget is at $49 billion annually. It represents between 42 and 46 per cent of every tax dollar spent by the Ontario government.

"That'll be 70 cents of every dollar within 12 years if we don't do something about this," Rafi said.

Saad Rafi has been deputy minister of health and long-term care since February 2010.

Health experts everywhere say demographic challenges make the status quo unsustainable. The pressure to transform how we deliver health care is omnipresent. And not only that, independent surveys show we're not number one in the world -- another argument for dramatic change.

Ontario has responded with what it calls its Excellent Care for All Act, which the Ontario legislature unanimously passed three years ago. It requires every hospital to develop a "quality improvement plan." The salaries of the hospitals' senior executives depend on better outcomes. The quality improvement approach is now moving to primary care.

Rafi told 500 delegates from every sector in southwestern Ontario that evidence-based decision making will help save money. He pointed to $100 million of annual testing on vitamin D deficiency that Ontario used to do, but no longer does because there's no evidence those tests help.

The province is also urging more services be moved from hospitals to community clinics (e.g. cataract surgery) because it's less costly. And it's creating so-called "Health Links," in which health care providers (primary care, community care access centres, and long-term care facilities) come together to serve patients better. There are currently 26 of these Health Links. Rafi says they're growing monthly.

Saad Rafi at the South West LHIN Conference in Stratford last week.

"If we could gain even 10 per cent more efficiency, that gets us $2 to $3 billion of savings, which we can put back into other things," Rafi said.

Health care isn't necessarily a partisan issue, but through their Paths to Prosperity discussion papers, the PCs have stirred up a healthy debate about how to manage the transformation of health care. They've suggested eliminating both the LHINs and the CCACs, and using 30 to 40 hospitals as "hubs" from which to operate the health care system.

PC Leader Tim Hudak, flanked by MPP Bill Walker, introducing their health care reform discussion paper in September 2012.

At the Stratford conference, I asked Rafi which system he preferred: the LHINs, which the Liberals set up, or the elimination of the LHINs, which the Conservatives are pushing.

"My deputy minister's manual says don't respond to journalists' questions about political choices," he said.

Regardless, the transformation is happening -- CCACs under the Liberals have seen their funding increase 2 to 3 per cent annually, while hospitals have been flatlined.

"We have to rebalance the shift in services," Rafi says.

Related:

For The Agenda's latest coverage of the policies affecting the province, visit our Ontario Politics feature page.

Jimmy Carter: His First Lady

Steve Paikin — Thu, 13 Jun 13 05:45:00 GMT

Rosalynn Carter's portrait as the First Lady of Georgia hangs in the Georgia State House in Atlanta.

One day, when he was running to become the governor of Georgia back in 1970, Jimmy Carter was shaking hands with a long line of women at a campaign event. Unbeknownst to him, one woman waiting at the end of the line was his wife, Rosalynn Carter. In front of the entire crowd, Mrs. Carter surprised her husband by asking him in front of everyone whether he was truly committed to improving mental health services in the "peach state."

Mrs. Carter had heard horror stories about how hard it was to access mental health services all those years ago, and had thus become a champion of those people. Her husband promised then and there to make progress on mental health issues. He won the election, became governor, and, sure enough, appointed his wife to head up a commission whose mandate was to do just that.

The portrait of Governor Jimmy Carter in the Georgia State House.

And ever since, Rosalynn Carter has been traveling the world, continuing her efforts in that regard. Jimmy Carter once said "The accomplishments of Rosalynn's mental health program, in themselves, have made the work of The Carter Center worthwhile."

Testifying about mental health issues before Congress.

The Carters have been one of America's great political couples ever since they started dating in 1945, when Jimmy was in the Naval Academy. On July 7, 2013, the couple will celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary.

James Earl Carter and Eleanor Rosalynn Smith in 1945.

The Carters' Presidential Medals of Freedom, the highest civilian honour America can bestow. They received their medals from President Bill Clinton, who said the Carters "had done more good things for more people than any other couple on the face of the earth."

Waving to the crowds in Oslo, Norway in 2002 after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

And the Nobel Peace Prize.

Still talking about making improvements in mental health: April 27, 2013.

Related Posts:

Jimmy Carter: Castro and Kennedy

Steve Paikin — Wed, 12 Jun 13 08:30:00 GMT

While there were plenty of people during Jimmy Carter's four years in the White House who ran afoul of the 39th president, surely two people near the top of the list must have been the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and the senior senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy.

During our dinner with President and Mrs. Carter in a Plains, Georgia diner back in April, Carter revealed one of his regrets at not getting a second term was that his plans to normalize relations with Cuba never came to pass. He says he moved the yardsticks forward in that regard, removing the travel ban on Cuba for Americans, but just when he wanted to push ahead with talks on normalizing relations, Castro sent troops to Somalia and that ended that.

Carter continues to think the American embargo of Cuba, now more than five decades long, is a useless anachronism that hurts both countries. He called it "stupid" during our dinner.

As for Teddy Kennedy, the one-time misanthropic playboy from America's most famous political family may have successfully transformed his reputation into the Lion of the Senate for most Americans. But not for Jimmy Carter.

President Carter with Andrew Lockhart, part of our Canadian contingent.

During our dinner, Carter referred to Kennedy as a "pain in the neck," who tried to "sabotage" everything Carter did. Carter is apparently still stinging from Kennedy's challenging him for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination. (It was actually the current vice-president, Joe Biden, who broke the news to Carter that Kennedy would be mounting a challenge against him.)

Challenging a sitting president from your own party is a rare phenomenon, although it did happen four years earlier when Ronald Reagan challenged the sitting Republican president, Gerald Ford. The result was a weakened Ford coming out of the Republican convention in 1976, perhaps giving Jimmy Carter the edge he needed to win that election.

Similarly, a weakened Carter coming out of the Democratic convention in 1980 made things that much easier for Ronald Reagan to win that year's presidential election.

Carter has also told me on previous occasions that his 1980 bid for re-election could have been more successful had Kennedy not blocked Carter's bid to pass a comprehensive Obamacare-style health care package through Congress. Kennedy, Carter alleges, didn't want Carter to have any legislative achievements of significance heading into 1980, knowing he was going to challenge the president for their party's nomination.

Those wounds clearly have not healed, regardless of Kennedy's virtual sainthood.

Jimmy Carter, on the "stupid" Cuban embargo now more than 50 years old.

Jimmy Carter on Senator Ted Kennedy, his chief nemesis in the Democratic Party.

Related Posts:

Ontario Politics: Is This REALLY How Transitions Are Supposed To Work?

Steve Paikin — Wed, 12 Jun 13 00:10:52 GMT

Sometimes, when the old, outgoing leader leaves and the new, incoming leader arrives, the transition is seamless.

This isn't one of those times.

Can you recall a leadership transition that has been more poorly executed than the one currently underway at Queen's Park? And the biggest question is, why is this happening? There are talented, well-intentioned players on both the old team and the new team. And yet, it feels like amateur hour inside the Liberal Party of Ontario these days.

Let's set the scene. Like many outgoing first ministers (think Brian Mulroney, Mike Harris, David Peterson, or Paul Martin), Dalton McGuinty was --- how can I say this charitably --- ready for a new challenge in life by the time he resigned from politics in October, 2012. Mulroney and Harris would have faced certain defeat had they hung around for another election. Peterson and Martin did face defeat. And McGuinty certainly would have joined them had he run again, having already contested elections in 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011. McGuinty knew it, which is one of the reasons he left when he did.

And there's no question that, like those other first ministers listed above, McGuinty left a partially poisoned chalice for his successor. But I can remember Mulroney once telling me that the job description of the successor is to continue doing what made the party successful, and turn the page on what wasn't working.

In Kathleen Wynne's case, she seemed to be doing that rather well. McGuinty handed her three political turkeys:

1. A widely criticized prorogation of the legislature last fall (many would say, to avoid contempt hearings aimed at the energy minister);

2. The cancellation of the Mississauga gas plant in the dying days of the 2011 election campaign for what were quite obviously political reasons, at a cost of $585 million to taxpayers and ratepayers; and

3. Botched negotiations with the teacher unions, which essentially resulted in 120,000 teachers being told by their union leadership not to provide extra-curricular activities to their students.

Conversely, what has Wynne done since taking over for McGuinty in January, 2013?

1. She brought the legislature back as soon as possible after her election at Maple Leaf Gardens in January;

2. She appeared before a legislative committee and pledged to put in place a new process, so these capricious, political decisions on huge infrastructure projects won't be repeated; and

3. She used her good relationships with the teacher unions to get them back onside and providing extra-curriculars again.

And yet at every turn, it seems every time Wynne makes some progress, her predecessor and his minions set off another stink bomb.

For example, when McGuinty appeared at the legislative committee to answer questions about the gas plant cancellation, he acknowledged the decision-making process wasn't "stellar," but he declined to apologize for his role in the fiasco. It was left to Wynne to offer an apology even though she didn't make the decision.

And just when Wynne thought she might be leaving the gas plant story in the rear view mirror, the ghost of her predecessor struck again. The Information and Privacy Commissioner reported that a few high-ranking McGuinty government staffers tried to erase emails, which presumably would have shed an even worse light on the former premier. McGuinty issued a rare statement insisting he didn't order the email erasures, but again, it was left to Wynne to step up to the microphones and promise that kind of thing would never happen again under her watch.

Finally, just when Team Wynne might have been able to bask, if only for 24 hours, in a good news story --- the passage of the Liberals' budget, thanks to support from the NDP --- the McGuintyites once again carpet bombed the news cycle by somehow leaking the fact that the former premier intended to resign his seat and quit politics altogether the day after the budget vote (despite a previous pledge to serve out his term until the next election).

What's going on here?

There must be days when you just want to close your eyes and imagine better times.

It's actually fairly typical as these things go. Despite opposition criticism that this is the same old corrupt Liberal government, it's actually a completely new team that's running things in the premier's office. It's Kathleen Wynne's team. Dalton McGuinty's team, like Elvis, has left the building. And the sad truth is, the two teams are plenty ticked off at each other right now.

Again, this is not atypical. During the last intra-party transition, Ernie Eves succeeded Mike Harris in 2002 and proceeded to repudiate enough of the Common Sense Revolution to thoroughly tick off the Harrisites. And in that case, Harris and Eves were great friends.

McGuinty and Wynne were never personally as close as Harris and Eves, and the former premier and current premier have had virtually no contact since power passed from one to the other. The former team may feel the new team isn't doing enough to protect the former premier's legacy, or isn't being respectful enough by declining to ask for advice. Similarly, the new team is no doubt convinced the new leader is spending far too much time cleaning up big messes left behind by the old leader, and aren't so sure the older leader's advice is worth much right now.

Amazingly, through it all, Kathleen Wynne hasn't once thrown Dalton McGuinty under the bus. She could have blamed him for numerous problems left behind, but hasn't, I'm guessing for two reasons: first, she's in charge now and the reality is, the buck stops with her; but second, she served in McGuinty's cabinet for eight years, respects him, and would find it personally difficult to speak ill of him.

"I didn't run for this job thinking there'd be no frustrations," Wynne said to reporters at a news conference Tuesday afternoon in the Government Caucus Room. "I won't lose my cool over it."

And she hasn't. But she and her team must be wondering when these unwanted surprises are going to stop. Even the most fair-minded journalists such as the Toronto Star's Jim Coyle and The Globe and Mail's Adam Radwanski are tweeting their astonishment at why McGuinty seems to be making one of the least elegant exits from public life ever seen, particularly since McGuinty is widely seen as a decent guy who was pleased to have Wynne as his successor.

Anybody for an intervention?

More by Steve Paikin:

For The Agenda's latest coverage of the policies affecting the province, visit our Ontario Politics feature page.

Image credit: Tara Walton/Toronto Star.

Jimmy Carter: The Bush Presidencies

Steve Paikin — Tue, 11 Jun 13 10:30:00 GMT

It's a rare occasion when all of America's living presidents get together in the same location for a significant occasion.

But it happened during the last week of April when President Barack Obama and his four living predecessors -- George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter -- gathered in Dallas, Texas to mark the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Two days after that event, I found myself in a diner in Plains, Georgia sitting across the table from America's 39th president. The timing was fortuitous. Some friends and I, who've become acquainted with the Carters over the years, had a longstanding date to have dinner together in the president and first lady's hometown. So, naturally, I asked about the ex-presidents club.

I expected Carter to have a hard time coming up with something nice to say about George W. Bush, when Carter was required to say a few words at the dedication of Bush's presidential library. But apparently it wasn't the case. I learned the two men had a more cordial relationship than people might think, based largely on Bush 43's willingness to endorse Carter's approach on several significant African issues.

I also learned that Carter likes and respects George Bush, the father, very much, calling him "my favourite president," in large part because Bush 41 treated Carter with respect after his presidency was over. For example, Bush provided Carter with national security briefings, which ex-presidents are entitled to (Ronald Reagan, apparently, rarely did that for Carter).

Carter and Bush 41 are just six months apart in age, but Carter clearly is in much better shape. It was a frail Bush 41 who attended his son's ceremony, managed to get just a few words of greetings out, then asked "was that okay?" after he was done. It was sweet, but difficult to watch at the same time. Rumours out of Texas suggested Bush 41 nearly died several months ago; his health has been that precarious.

In any event, here are two clips from our dinner with Jimmy Carter. And, yes, you'll have to listen carefully because we weren't the only ones in the diner and there were several conversations going on at the same time.

Jimmy Carter explains why George H.W. Bush was his favourite president, and why Margaret Thatcher wasn't his favourite British prime minister.

Jimmy Carter on George W. Bush, and why he opposes drone strikes.

Related:

Jimmy Carter: Reconsidering the Legacy

Paul Martin and Shawn Atleo: Still At It

Steve Paikin — Tue, 11 Jun 13 05:45:00 GMT

Paul Martin, Canada's 21st prime minister, at a recent lecture at the University of Toronto.

When governments change, much of the policy that made them distinctive goes with them.

In the case of Paul Martin's Liberal government, which ended after the 2006 federal election, I suspect the policy change that broke his heart the most was the Conservative government's decision to cancel the Kelowna Accord.

Yes, the accord was expensive. But it was also a far-reaching attempt, negotiated by the Martin and British Columbia governments, and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), to sit down at a table like equals, and make progress on a host of issues like health care, education, and accountability. It was 15 months in the making -- the first time ever that a prime minister met with national and regional indigenous leaders.

Paul Martin with Julia O'Sullivan, dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Recently, I saw a lecture given at Hart House by the two principals of that accord: Paul Martin and Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, now the national chief of the AFN, but then, the AFN's point man for British Columbia and its 200 First Nations. To see these two men share a stage is to understand how they managed to get an agreement. The mutual respect is obvious. So is the depth of concern of the state of indigenous Canada today.

"Today in Canada, we have a crazy, paternalistic, and counterproductive system. Aboriginal Canadians should be running their own education system."

That quote, interestingly enough, didn't come out of Atleo's mouth. It came out of the mouth of Paul Martin, Canada's 21st prime minister, who has made improving Aboroginal education standards across Canada the cause of his post-political life.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo.

"Aboriginal Canadians are 4 per cent of the population today and growing fast," Martin says. "We have to keep this front and centre. They need an education, and a house, and clean water to drink. And if you want to develop $650 billion worth of resources in this country, we need them to be full participants."

"There is a dire human rights crisis in Canada today," adds Atleo. "Youth suicide rates are a state of emergency. We must keep asking how this can happen?"

We've done programs tackling this subject on The Agenda and the causes are complicated; everything from the legacy of residential schools to poverty to a lack of opportunity. The suicide rate among indigenous youth is five to six times the national average.

"It's life or death for us," adds Atleo. "We're imploring Canadians to end this. This is the moment we have to grasp to end this despair and bring about the change that's required."

To watch the former prime minister and the current chief on that stage is to imagine that they could actually do it. The goodwill is there. The respect is there. The desire is there. Can the rest of the country pick up this ball and run with it?

Related:

Jimmy Carter: Reconsidering the Legacy

Steve Paikin — Mon, 10 Jun 13 05:46:52 GMT

Where Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign all began in Plains, Georgia.

If there's one thing we know about Americans, it's that they love a winner. By extension, they can be very tough on those who don't win.

I've often wondered whether that's why so many people seem unwilling to give Jimmy Carter his due. Yes, Carter was president of the United States during four tumultuous years, from 1977 to 1981. He had his share of crises to deal with: 52 Americans held hostage in Iran; the Soviets invading Afghanistan; stagflation; lineups for gasoline around the block thanks to a squeeze by the OPEC nations; Three Mile Island; plus the petty scandals that chip away at any administration.

A monument to the Carter presidency in downtown Plains.

But perhaps Carter's biggest fault was that he didn't win re-election. Somehow, the shortcomings of the first term can be justified by historians if you get a second term. Just ask Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush, all of whose personal and presidential popularity rose significantly after their second terms had expired.

But for some reason, Jimmy Carter seems unable to get Americans to reconsider his time in office. And I'm convinced it's because he didn't win a second term.

A few years ago, I had the chance to be part of a small group of Canadians that had dinner with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in the Plains Historic Inn in the couple's hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Jimmy Carter, now 88 years old, still has that big smile.

The Carters and our group have subsequently gotten together three more times, most recently during the last weekend of April 2013, just two days after all the living presidents gathered in Dallas, Texas to attend the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

The Carters are an astonishing couple. Next month, on July 7, they'll celebrate their 67th wedding anniversary. When they each received America's highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Bill Clinton said of the Carters: "They have done more good things for more people than any other couple on the face of the earth.” In October, Carter will celebrate his 89th birthday. In August, Rosalynn Carter will turn 86. And they have barely slowed down their globetrotting adventures together. Their next big trip: fishing in Mongolia.

The former first lady, Rosalynn Carter.

The book on Jimmy Carter is that he's indisputably the best ex-president America has ever had. He recently passed Herbert Hoover as the man to have that title longer than anyone else ever. Carter has now been a former president for almost 12,000 days. What's that like, I wondered?

"Most of the presidents were a lot older than I was when they finished living at the White House," he said over a good, old-fashioned steak and potatoes meal at Lee's Corner restaurant in Plains, Georgia. "I was just 56 years old when I finished my duties, so I had a good chance to be the longest-living."

Still a man of the people, Carter talks fishing with the owner of "Lee's Corner" restaurant.

Carter's post-presidential achievements are astonishing: his Nobel Peace Prize, his work for Habitat for Humanity, his efforts to mediate peace agreements in war-torn countries, his Carter Center’s oversight of controversial elections, his eradicating some of the world's most awful diseases in Africa, and his prolific authorship (he's written more than two dozen books) have all brought him international plaudits.

But none of this has apparently influenced the prevailing sentiments about the Carter presidency itself. Every ex-president has his legacy re-evaluated by historians. Shouldn't Jimmy Carter?

"I really don’t work on it," Carter says, wearing a plaid lumberjack shirt and blue jeans. "I don’t try to do that. I’m not trying to be coy about it. I don’t wake up every morning and ask 'What can I do to make people think I was a good president?'"

Finding that answer not completely satisfactory, I follow up.

"But you would like history to re-evaluate your presidency more positively, wouldn’t you? Every ex-president wants that."

"I think that’s almost inevitable," Carter says. "A lot of people still comment that we normalized diplomatic relations with China. We had the Panama Canal Treaty, the most unpopular thing we ever did. It’s turned out to be good for our country and Panama. And of course the peace treaty with Israel and Egypt."

We always bring a bottle of Canadian ice wine for the Carters, who love it and apparently can't get it in Georgia.

Interesting that the Carter presidency, which many feel was so inconsequential, begat the most consequential peace treaty in Middle East history, and one that has stood the test of time. In fact, Carter knew Mohamed Morsi when he was dean of an engineering school, before he had any notion of getting into politics. After Morsi was elected president of Egypt, Carter asked him what his intentions were on the Camp David Accords.

"He said, 'If we change it, it'll be with the full agreement of Israel,'" Carter recalls Morsi saying, and he told that to officials in the Obama administration.

One year into his presidency in 1977, the numbers looked promising for Carter. Unemployment was down 1.5 per cent. Economic growth was up 5 to 6 per cent. Corporate profits were up 11 per cent. Inflation was running at a manageable 4 per cent. The deficit was $25 billion. The debt to GDP ratio was 32 per cent (compared to 53 per cent for Reagan and 84 per cent for W. Bush). Carter enjoyed a 60 per cent favourability rating. People forget that.

Republican administrations have been trying to get rid of the Departments of Energy and Education ever since Carter created them 35 years ago. They're still there. More than any other president, Carter tried to get Americans to think about conserving energy, and he had a national energy policy. He successfully negotiated a second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), although the Senate declined to ratify it. And immediately following his presidency, he did go to West Germany to welcome American hostages home from Iran after 444 days in captivity, and they all came home safely. There were no casualties. He bailed out Chrysler when it went through its first brush with death. He put human rights on the international agenda as perhaps no president ever had before or since.

And yes, it's true: Carter wasn't re-elected in 1980. Maybe it's time to consider more of the Jimmy Carter narrative than just that.

The Carters and our group from Canada:

From left to right: Arthur Milnes, yours truly, Andrew Lockhart, David Lockhart, Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, and Thomas Harrison.

Ontario's Liberals and the Punishment Dilemma

Steve Paikin — Thu, 06 Jun 13 17:04:53 GMT

Ontarians are facing a punishment dilemma.

Ever since she took office, Kathleen Wynne, the new premier, has had to deal with a steady stream of transgressions committed by her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty.

There was still a lot we didn't know when Dalton McGuinty resigned last October, but we're learning more now.

First, it was the announcement in the dying days of the 2011 election to cancel the Mississauga gas plant, for what turned out to be blatantly political reasons: to save four Liberal seats in Peel Region.

Second, it was McGuinty's premature prorogation of the legislature last fall, his critics say, to avoid contempt hearings against his minister of energy.

Third, McGuinty appeared before the legislative committee examining the gas plant issue and would only say his handling of the affair wasn't "stellar." He offered no apologies, and in fact, his successor then came forward to apologize for the government's handling of things, even though the decisions everyone's so upset about were made by her predecessor.

Dalton and his wife Terri McGuinty walk the gauntlet of media after announcing his retirement from politics last October.

But the shoes continue to drop. Earlier this week, Ontario's privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, blasted the Liberal government for erasing emails related to the gas plant fiasco. Once again, it was McGuinty's people for whom the commissioner saved her harshest criticism. Cavoukian didn't have a smoking gun that confirmed emails were erased to avoid bad optics. But she did say it was pretty hard not to come to that conclusion.

In addition, it appears there is a law prohibiting the McGuinty staffers from doing what they did, but no penalties under the law for doing it. The attorney general has offered to look at that.

Meantime, it's left to Premier Wynne to clean up yet another steaming pile of you-know-what left behind by her predecessor.

It was a happier Kathleen Wynne back in January, the day after winning her party's leadership at Maple Leaf Gardens.

An editorial in the Toronto Star makes clear that whatever misdeeds were done here weren't done by Premier Wynne's team. The newspaper admonishes the government to make sure it never happens again. But it all leaves voters with a terrible conundrum: how do we punish the team responsible for these transgressions when they've all left? And why should we punish Premier Wynne's team when they had not much if anything at all to do with these matters?

Voters have been here before. Back in 1993, an extremely unpopular Brian Mulroney left the prime ministership after nine extraordinarily controversial years. Progressive Conservative Party delegates chose Kim Campbell to replace Mulroney and, almost instantly, Canadians liked what they saw in the new leader. By the summer of 1993, Campbell had the PCs tied with the Liberals as opposed to being 25 points behind them.

But a few missteps by Campbell, skillfully exploited by her opponents, reminded voters of all the things they didn't like about the previous Tory administration, and, boom, you remember the result. The PCs went from 160-plus seats to two in the 1993 election, just a few months after Campbell had managed to get her party back in the game.

Former PM Kim Campbell a couple of years ago on The Agenda.

A similar story happened a decade ago in Ontario. A thoroughly unpopular Mike Harris retired from politics, and was replaced by his former finance minister Ernie Eves. The Eves honeymoon got the provincial Tories back into contention. But again, a few missteps, particularly during the 2003 election campaign, and voters abandoned the party to whom they'd previously given two consecutive majorities.

Ontario's 23rd premier, Ernie Eves, at Queen's Park.

Both examples from our history offer plenty of "cautionary tale" evidence for Kathleen Wynne. Yes, Wynne has got the previously unpopular Ontario Liberals back into first place. Her own personal popularity seems beyond dispute. And like Campbell and Eves, it feels as if the electorate, in the spirit of fairness, is giving her a chance to see what she can do. However, the drumbeat of bad news from the McGuinty days has been unrelenting. If Wynne doesn't fix these problems to the electorate's satisfaction, or makes a few missteps of her own, we've seen how unforgiving the public can be, the premier's personal popularity notwithstanding.

The federal Tories fell to two seats and essentially disappeared as a political force. The Ontario Tories haven't won a single seat in Toronto since 1999. As Senator Hugh Segal once quipped, "The voters are never wrong. Occasionally, however, they are a bit excessive."

So, how do Ontarians punish someone most essentially like and want to see succeed? And how do they get back at her predecessor who is now beyond their grasp?

As with all things in politics, we'll await the outcome of the next election for answers.

The Leadership Convention That Changed History

Steve Paikin — Tue, 04 Jun 13 05:40:00 GMT

Thirty years ago this month, the old Progressive Conservative Party tossed out as leader a former prime minister, in favour of a man who'd never been elected to anything. Strange but true.

In fact, that the leadership convention happened at all was bizarre. Back in January 1983, PC Party delegates gathered in Winnipeg to render their judgement on Joe Clark's leadership. Clark had a mixed legacy. On the one hand, he won a shocking victory at the 1976 PC leadership convention, coming from third place to defeat Claude Wagner and Brian Mulroney. Then he defeated three-time election winner Pierre Trudeau in the 1979 general election campaign, despite garnering half a million fewer votes, and became the country's youngest ever prime minister. He was 39 years old.

But the triumph didn't last long. Clark won a minority government, acted like he'd had a majority, and quickly discovered he really didn't. The Clark government fell on a confidence vote over the budget, and nine months later, Pierre Trudeau led the Liberals back into power with his "Welcome to the 1980s" speech.

Things got worse. A caucus revolt was brewing. There was a strong movement to dump Clark, now leader of the opposition, which culminated in a showdown at that January 1983 party convention. Fully 66.9 per cent of delegates endorsed Clark's leadership, and yet inexplicably, the leader thought that level of support wasn't good enough. He resigned, called for another leadership convention to put the issue of who should lead the party to rest once and for all.

That convention, held in Ottawa on June 11, 1983, was one of the most thrilling in Canadian history. It lasted four ballots and Clark led on every one, except the one that mattered.

It was also the first leadership convention I ever covered. I was a 23-year-old cub reporter for CHFI Radio in Toronto. I looked around the Ottawa Civic Centre, just dazzled by the array of delegates and media who had convened either to confirm Clark's leadership, or find someone else to do the job. Even though I was doing radio and had no need to take pictures, I kept my trusty point-and-shoot with me to record the historic moments.

So here comes the story of that 1983 PC leadership convention, in pictures:

There seemed little doubt that Joe Clark would have the largest chunk of delegates on the first ballot. Here he is with his wife Maureen McTeer.

And in fact, after the first ballot results were announced, Clark had the lead with 1,091 votes, or 36.5 per cent of the votes.

But the lead wasn't as big as many Clark supporters had hoped. Brian Mulroney, whom Clark defeated in 1976, was close behind in second place with 874 votes, or 29 per cent of the delegates.

John Crosbie, whose budget prompted the non-confidence vote and the 1980 election, placed third on the first ballot and hoped to repeat Clark's 1976 strategy of winning from third place. He had 639 votes, or 21 per cent support.

Michael Wilson, a minister in the short-lived Clark government, placed fourth with just 144 votes or 5 per cent of the delegates. Future Ontario Premier Frank Miller is at the left of the shot.

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie, the MP for Rosedale, came fifth on the first ballot with 116 votes or 4 per cent of the delegates. His inability to speak French well prompted Mulroney to joke, "We're going to be a great government with me as prime minister, and David Crombie as my minister for francophone affairs."

Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington thought Conservatives were looking for a successful businessman as leader. He offered himself as a candidate, pitching a "flat tax" as his signature campaign plank. Delegates weren't interested, putting Pocklington sixth with just 102 votes, or 3 per cent of the delegates.

John Gamble, the MP for Markham, was the "Tea Party" candidate. But he only attracted half a per cent support (17 votes), placing seventh.

And civil servant Neil Fraser, who came to prominence by fighting the metric system, came last with just five votes (0.2 per cent of the delegates).

After the first ballot, several candidates made their moves. Pocklington, Wilson, Gamble, and Fraser all moved to Mulroney.

This shot shows (from left to right): Mila Mulroney, Peter Pocklington, Rita Pocklington, Brian Mulroney, and Michael Wilson.

Clark maintained his lead on the second ballot, but his numbers barely budged. He moved from 36.5 per cent to 36.7 per cent.

The momentum was all with Mulroney who jumped from 29 per cent to 34.6 per cent on the second ballot.

But John Crosbie wasn't giving up. His numbers moved up from 21.4 per cent to 26.4 per cent so he stayed on to fight a third ballot.

Mulroney was all smiles after that third ballot. Even though he still trailed Clark, he had closed the gap substantially. Clark registered 35.8 per cent (actually, a drop from his second ballot number), while Mulroney jumped to 35.1 per cent.

After the third ballot results were announced, Joe Clark started to walk across the floor of the hall towards Mulroney's box. He did it so surreptitiously; at first none of the major networks saw him move.

Fortunately, I did. At one moment, I found myself face-to-face with Clark in the middle of a huge crowd of his supporters with no other media around. The numbers all but said Clark would lose his leadership on the next ballot, so I stuck my microphone in his face and asked, "Sir, are you going to Mr. Mulroney to concede?"

He answered, "No, I just wanted to tell him that regardless of what happens on the next ballot, this party must be united going forward. I've come to tell him that."

And there was my little exclusive for the day. For about a minute. Then all the other networks found him and Clark repeated the statement.

As expected, Mulroney captured the crown that eluded him in 1976 by winning the convention on the fourth ballot: 54.5 per cent to Clark's 45.6 per cent. It was a 259-vote spread -- a solid victory.

Brian and Mila Mulroney danced into the night. Mulroney was 44 years old, and faced his old adversary Pierre Trudeau for only eight more months when Trudeau then retired.

As crushing as Clark's defeat was to his supporters, it's worth noting that 15 months after this convention, Brian Mulroney went on to do exactly what he'd promised delegates he could do. He won the biggest majority government in Canadian history, capturing 211 seats on September 4, 1984 over the Liberals, led by John Turner, and the NDP, led by Ed Broadbent. Mulroney always said the Tories couldn't win if they couldn't penetrate Fortress Quebec. In 1980, the Liberals won 74 of Quebec's 75 seats. In 1984, Mulroney took 58 of the 75 Quebec seats.

Despite their competitive and problematic relationship since they were both young PCs, Mulroney and Clark proved to be a good team in government. Mulroney led the Tories to a second consecutive majority government in 1988, the first Conservative leader to do that since John A. Macdonald. And Clark made a forceful contribution as both secretary of state for external affairs (now known as minister of foreign affairs) and the minister for constitutional affairs in negotiating the Charlottetown Accord.

The Munk Debate: Should the Rich Pay More Tax?

Steve Paikin — Fri, 31 May 13 17:34:37 GMT

Should the rich pay more taxes?

You'd think in a massive concert hall where more than 2,500 people -- mostly made up of the "1 per cent" -- gathered to hear a debate on this issue, you'd get an overwhelming no.

Guess again.

At the beginning of the latest edition of the Munk Debates at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto Thursday night, moderator Rudyard Griffiths announced fully 58 per cent of those who voted said yes, tax the rich more. Just 28 per cent said no, while 14 per cent were undecided.

Having said that, nearly 80 per cent of the crowd said they were open to changing their minds based on what they'd hear over the course of the evening.

Game on.

Former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and who also spent part of his youth in Toronto, argued for more taxes on the rich.

He was joined by Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist from Princeton University, often seen on ABC's "This Week," and who has a regular column and blog in The New York Times.

Arguing against further tax increases, even on the rich, were the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich ...

... and former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, Arthur Laffer.

"Could you collect more taxes by raising taxes?" asked Paul Krugman. "Absolutely yes. In fact, you could raise the top rate to as high as 70 per cent without any difficulty at all. The U.S. economy added 600,000 jobs per month in the first two months after Bill Clinton became president. And despite high tax rates, the economy boomed."

"If you're so successful, we deserve the right to rip you off?" countered Newt Gingrich. "No, we can't send that signal. It's immoral." Gingrich added it's irrelevant to raise the top income tax rate on wealthy Americans because they don't pay it anyway. Either they have so many deductions that they can legally avoid paying that rate of tax, or their income is all through investments, and therefore they can avoid paying higher taxes that way.

"Bill Gates doesn't care what the tax rate is because he doesn't pay it," Gingrich said.

Arthur Laffer added, "President John F. Kennedy cut tax rates from 70 per cent to 29 per cent and the economy took off. Ronald Reagan cut taxes on everything that moved and look what happened."

Former Prime Minister Papandreou, who will be a guest on The Agenda on Tuesday, June 4, raised another fear: "I have seen as prime minister huge concentrations of wealth that make us captive to their interests. That's a new threat to our democracy."

And Krugman added, as a wealthier American, "Yes, I'll be affected by the policies I'm advocating. But we need the money to pay for programs people need." Then, looking directly at Gingrich, he said, "Saying this punishes the rich demonstrates intellectual bankruptcy." Krugman went on to admit Gingrich was "pissing me off" with his position.

But Gingrich wasn't having any of it. He suggested lower income Americans were poor not because capitalism was failing them, but because their government was. The education system was inadequate, government programs weren't doing the job, and so on. "It's not the absence of money, it's the absence of competence," he said.

"Furthermore," Gingrich continued, "I believe you could cut the defense department by 20 per cent, still be secure, and be more agile at the same time, and that would save billions. So don't ask me to raise anyone's taxes until we do that."

It was a good, vigorous, entertaining exchange of views, after which the audience voted again.

The new numbers revealed 70 per cent wanting to raise taxes on the rich, while 30 per cent said no. The Krugman-Papandreou side moved more votes their way and claimed victory.

And, yes, there was a Rob Ford joke during the proceedings. Paul Krugman opened the night by saying, "I had no idea your mayor was so interesting."

Fortunately, not as interesting as this debate was.

Tweet #AgendaTVO

Can We Improve Election Debates?

Steve Paikin — Thu, 30 May 13 12:22:28 GMT

Stephen Harper, Jack Layton, Michael Ignatieff, and Gilles Duceppe at the 2011 leaders' debate.

Debates often decide elections in this country.

They're a big deal and the Canadian voter knows it. The leaders' debate is, in some respects, the unofficial beginning of the election campaign. Citizens who may not have paid much attention to the campaign seem to think, "I guess I should pay attention to this event tonight because I'm going to have to vote soon." And so, Canadians tune into leaders' debates in huge numbers.

And yet for some reason, we have no permanent institution that organizes the debates, makes the rules for the debates, or determines who gets to participate in the debates.

Every time an election is called, an ad-hoc group called the "media consortium" reassembles, negotiates with (some) party representatives, decides who can participate and who can't (despite the lack of any written, established criteria), and, somehow, an agreement to host one English and one French debate emerges.

The pre-debate "photo op."

There's a new movement forming that finds this situation increasingly intolerable. They represent civil society and some of Canada's largest universities and have a completely different vision for how debates -- yes, debates plural -- might roll out in advance of the next federal election in 2015. That's why they have been meeting informally to kick-start a national discussion on how to improve things, starting with the place where the election debates happen. Right now, the leaders' debate happens in a TV studio.

"American debates take place on university campuses," says David Naylor, the soon-to-be former president of the University of Toronto. "It sends a signal about this being an important place for discourse, that truth matters, that the university is facilitating the democratic process in seeking the viewpoints of the candidates. It's the felicitous connection of civil discourse and a national exchange."

The concept is being pushed by Rudyard Griffiths, who moderates and organizes the Munk Debates at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall, thinks there's a great opportunity being missed during Canadian elections.

"Debates are the key piece of the election campaign these days," says Griffiths. "And there's an incredible amount of media coverage driven by the debate."

Think of how many election outcomes were influenced by a leaders' debate: Brian Mulroney over John Turner in 1984; Jack Layton over Michael Ignatieff in 2011; Mike Harris over Lyn McLeod in Ontario in 1995; Christy Clark over Adrian Dix in British Columbia in 2013. With campaigns so utterly scripted nowadays, the leaders' debate may offer the one spontaneous moment in the entire campaign.

The 2008 leaders' debate with a different format:

Stephen Harper, Elizabeth May, StÃ©phane Dion, Jack Layton, and Gilles Duceppe.

"Can candidates explain their own program? Can they think on their feet? Are they likeable? It's theatre, but politics is always theatre," says National Post columnist Andrew Coyne, who recently shared some ideas at a kick-off meeting in Toronto, for proponents of reforming the debates.

The so far informal group is tossing around several new ideas. For example, would it be possible to have more than one leaders' debate (in each language) during the campaign? While more debates might fragment the audience, it also could reduce the pressure on the leaders, since a candidate could overcome a bad first debate with a better performance next time out. That exact scenario happened in the American election in 2012. Barack Obama's first debate performance was terrible. But he was much improved in the two ensuing debates, and they might have saved his presidency.

Failing multiple leaders' debates, what about having the finance minister debate the finance critics, or the foreign minister debate the foreign affairs critics, and so on? Again, the U-15 (the nickname of the informal debate study group) thinks more opportunities for more Canadians to further engage in the political process can be beneficial, and who knows, it could increase voter turnout, which is dangerously low.

The 2011 Ontario leaders' debate: Dalton McGuinty, Andrea Horwath, and Tim Hudak.

In the U.S., the debates used to be run by the League of Women Voters. Now, a bipartisan election commission runs the debates, makes the rules, and invites the participants. Given that there is no permanent organization in Canada, could a truly independent commission in partnership with universities serve this function? Could it create some rules, which don't now exist? Could we stage debates before an audience, rather than the empty studio, which is now the case? If the debates were held on university campuses as they are in the U.S., how could the U-15 ensure that students didn't use the occasion to disrupt the proceedings? Could a private foundation help defray the costs of moving the event outside a TV studio and onto a campus?

There are still a ton of questions, but the people and organizations forming up behind this idea think it's important to, at least, get some discussion going, so we don't find ourselves in the thick of the next campaign, and, by default, using the same old process.

The group would also like to start changing public expectations around debates. At the moment, the public only expects one leaders' debate in each official language. How do we get the public to expect more? In 1975, Ontario had its first leaders' debate and it was a brutal affair between then PC premier Bill Davis, Liberal leader Robert Nixon, and the NDP's Stephen Lewis. The debate was so tempestuous that there wasn't one for the 1977 or 1981 elections, and the electorate didn't seem to miss them.

The opening script on the teleprompter at the 2008 leaders' debate.

But by 1985, the public's expectations had changed. They expected a debate. And when Davis' successor Frank Miller refused to participate in a single televised debate before the 1985 election, he was clobbered for it, starting a precipitous fall in Tory fortunes.

Do Canadians despise politics so much that one debate is all they can stomach? Or will they start to demand more?

Let's begin the debate.

Tweet #AgendaTVO

Memorial Day in the USA: Remembering Andersonville, Georgia

Steve Paikin — Mon, 27 May 13 12:51:06 GMT

During the U.S. Civil War, the Confederate States of America established a prison camp for Union soldiers at Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia.

It was one of the most God-forsaken places in America. Around 45,000 prisoners were held there, and 13,000 died of starvation and disease -- all of that in the little over a year that the camp was established.

After the war's end in 1865, authorities were able to call upon different sources to learn most of the names of those who perished here. A few Union soldiers kept diaries or records of their comrades who died. In other cases, southern officials did the job. There are more than 13,700 headstones marking the final resting places of Civil War-era soldiers, in what is now a national historic site, which I visited a few weeks ago. There are 921 more unmarked graves.

During the worst of times, as many as 130 prisoners died every day at Camp Sumter.

There are a few Canadians among the fallen, and a Mexican too. Some of the soldiers are buried three-deep.

Because most of the record-keeping here was done by Confederate soldiers, there are many spelling mistakes on the headstones. Essentially, they took their "best guess" on identities.

Many individual states have erected their own monuments to remember the fallen.

The idea of "dog tags" for every soldier emerged from this experience, given the difficulty in officially identifying the deceased. They came into use during World War I.

There are 20,000 headstones in total here, because this is an active cemetery for American soldiers. And some of the fallen, such as this soldier, fought in more than one war.

Camp Sumter was liberated by Union forces in May 1865 -- 148 years ago this month. Henry Wirz, the man for whom the monument above was erected in the town of Andersonville, made notorious history. He was a commandant in the prison camp. After the war's end, he was tried by a military tribunal (headed by a Union general) and found guilty of cruelty, conspiracy, and murder. To this day, townspeople here think he was persecuted on trumped up charges.

Wirz is thought to be the only southern soldier tried, convicted, and put to death for war crimes after the war's end. He was hanged, despite evidence that he tried in vain to bring more supplies into the camp.

The inscription on his monument attempts to resuscitate his name.

The liberation of Camp Sumter may have happened a century and a half ago, and yet, Georgians still observe a memorial day service for the "Sons of Confederate Veterans."

How Can Politicians This Good Be This Bad?

Steve Paikin — Mon, 27 May 13 11:28:32 GMT

The past few weeks have offered three very different case studies on how to manage a political crisis. One was done very well. The second poorly but improving. And the third abysmally. Let's take a chapter from Clint Eastwood and call them The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good

When former premier Dalton McGuinty cancelled the Mississauga gas plant in the dying days of the 2011 election campaign, he did two things: first, he made a controversial decision that had saving Liberal seats rather than the public interest written all over it; and, second, he handed a major political crisis to his successor.

Even though this boondoggle, which will cost taxpayers nearly $600 million, wasn't of new premier Kathleen Wynne's making, she took ownership of it. She appeared before a legislative committee (an extremely rare happening for a premier), went on television (The Agenda) to acknowledge that the decision was made for political reasons (which everyone knew, so why not fess up?), then to apologize for the fiasco, and, finally, to promise to put in place a new process to ensure this kind of thing never happens again.

Textbook crisis management: apologize, take responsibility, and fix the problem.

To be sure, the opposition will continue to hound the government on this issue, which is their job. And they may very well find out new, egregious details surrounding this story. And voters have the option of taking all that into account during the next election campaign.

But Wynne and her advisors are getting kudos from impartial observers on their handling of the matter.

The Bad

How did Stephen Harper become the only prime minister in Canadian history to win a majority government after being held to a minority for two consecutive elections? The reasons are many, but one of them no doubt is that enough Canadians became comfortable with who Harper is. He's never been a warm and fuzzy kind of politician. But from his first election win in 2006, he slowly but surely gained the trust of enough Canadians to put him over the top in the 2011 election. Yes, Harper was connecting with Mr. and Mrs. Everyday Canada.

But the current senate scandal threatens to undo that connection. Yes, like every other prime minister, Harper has had his share of mini-scandals. But when he discovered former cabinet minister Bev Oda was switching from average to luxury hotels and charging taxpayers for her $16 glass of orange juice, he dumped her. Because Harper gets that it's not the multi-billion dollar scandal that necessarily does you in. It's the smaller number that Canadians can get their head around that truly offends.

Enter Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, and Nigel Wright. Questions abound about whether some senators are inappropriately milking the system in hopes of extracting every possible dime for their bottom lines. The PM's chief of staff writes a $90,000 cheque to bail out Duffy. And what does the PM do? He invites the media into a caucus meeting, expresses anger at the situation, then utterly fails to address any of the public's concerns. The reviews are universal: a terrible job at damage control.

At least in this case, Harper appears to have listened and learned from his mistake. A few days later at a news conference in Peru, he takes a few questions from reporters, fesses up to being "sorry," and hopes to get to the bottom of the scandal. The suspicion is, he can't do more than that right now because he just doesn't know how deep the Duffy dissembling goes.

The Ugly

I've seen hundreds of news conferences by politicians over the years, many of them having to do with managing one particular political crisis or another. I truly cannot think of a more botched example of how not to do things than what the team surrounding Toronto's mayor has demonstrated.

This one should be easy! The mayor of North America's fourth-largest city is allegedly caught on video tape with drug dealers, smoking crack cocaine. How does the mayor respond? First, he sends his brother, Toronto Councillor Doug Ford, out to do his dirty work. Doug barely addresses the video, then spends 90 per cent of his press conference extolling the virtues of the Ford administration. Rarely has such a tone-deaf press conference been held.

Second, Mayor Rob Ford spends a week virtually in hiding. On those occasions when he's in public, he ignores questions about the video, and carries on as if nothing has happened. If anyone needed any evidence about how this mayor has lost all influence at city hall, just check the vote on whether to site a casino in Toronto. Ford lost it 40-4.

Finally, the mayor broke his silence on Friday, insisting he is not a drug addict and doesn't smoke crack cocaine. He used the present tense. He spoke for four minutes. Then he left without taking any questions. Once again, his brother Doug marched to the podium to answer questions, and basically didn't.

Do these guys really think that kind of performance will make this story go away?

There is only one way to make a political crisis go away and that is to deal with it in a transparent and honest fashion. Hillary Clinton wrote the book on how to do this. At the height of the so-called Whitewater scandal during her husband's administration, the Clintons were dying the death of a thousand cuts as day after day, new allegations about a land deal in Arkansas from many years ago came out.

Eventually, Mrs. Clinton (then the first lady) called a press conference, put no time limit on it, stayed for 70 minutes, and answered every question until the media were done. Yes, the Clintons' enemies continued to beat Whitewater like a drum, but the issue as a political weapon for them essentially went away and Bill Clinton won re-election two years later.

Contrast that with Bill Clinton's interview with PBS' Jim Lehrer, in which he insisted "there is no inappropriate sexual relationship" with Monica Lewinsky. Again, present tense. The immediate inference we draw is, okay, there may not be an inappropriate relationship today, but obviously there was one in the past. I suspect people are making the same conclusions with Rob Ford. He may not be a drug user today, but he invites people to conclude that he was in the past.

Do the Fords believe they can continue to ride this out? Do they really think the media will simply go away and accept their dissembling? If they do, they're either getting terrible advice from their staff, or they are truly living in an alternative universe.

This is not complicated stuff, people. If this entire fiasco really isn't true, the mayor must demonstrate so. If, however, the mayor has a drug problem, his popularity would shoot through the roof if he came forward, confessed, promised to get treatment, and pledged to be the mayor Torontonians deserve.

Toronto City Hall has become a freak show. All Torontonians deserve better.

Being Andrea Horwath

Steve Paikin — Fri, 17 May 13 11:18:13 GMT

Nineteen months ago, the happiest person in Ontario politics should have been NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

Dalton McGuinty was still premier but he'd lost his majority government. Tim Hudak increased his seat count and came within two percentage points of the Liberals' total vote count. But he was still just leader of the opposition.

But Andrea Horwath? She held the balance of power in a minority parliament, which theoretically put her in the driver's seat. With only 17 MPPs in a house of 107, she had an opportunity if not to wield power, then at least to influence it significantly.

But so much has changed since that night. The Liberals have replaced an unpopular leader with one who has got them very much back in the game.

Ontario Liberal Leader and Premier Kathleen Wynne on The Agenda Tuesday, May 14. Watch the interview.

The Tories have simply opposed everything which no doubt delights the party's true-believing base, and has kept them competitive as well.

But things have become very complicated for Ontario's New Democrats.

Having spoken to dozens of politicians and observers about this moment in our history, I think it's safe to say things have gotten incredibly complicated for the NDP. Here's how the scorecard looks:

Last year at this time, Dwight Duncan, then finance minister, unveiled his final budget. But it was only the beginning of a morality play in which no one looked particularly good. The NDP tried to keep bargaining for more and more of its policy planks. The Liberals got increasingly frustrated. Even after McGuinty and Horwath completed a private, face-to-face meeting in which a budget deal was apparently agreed to, the deal fell apart with both sides charging the other with acting in bad faith. Horwath's reputation took a pounding. Duncan recently took to Twitter to tell Premier Kathleen Wynne, if you shake hands on a deal with Horwath, make sure you count your fingers after.

Eventually, a budget deal got done after the Liberals agreed to an income surtax on those making north of $500,000 a year. But then, the NDP abstained from voting for the budget they'd helped craft.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak's decision to oppose the budget last year and this year has forced the Liberals and NDP to try and work together.

This year, it's dÃ©jÃ vu all over again, with one notable exception. Horwath pointedly refused to meet with Premier Wynne until she'd unveiled the results of her "consultation with the public," and then when the two leaders did meet, there were staffers in the room so there'd be no repeat of last year's misunderstanding.

But Horwath is being criticized again for dragging out a budget process, negotiating on the fly, leading some to suggest that it's impossible for the Liberals to give the NDP what they want because it's impossible to hit a moving target. Eventually, even the preternaturally patient premier said enough; no more negotiating in the media. Let's have a conversation, which they did.

Before everyone jumps down Horwath's throat on how she's handled things, let's remember a few things:

While she may be in the driver's seat in terms of keeping the minority Liberal government alive, she's got a plethora of backseat drivers telling her where to go and what to do. That can't be easy.
While Hudak has marginalized his party by consistently saying no to any Liberal proposal, that's put added pressure on Horwath to be extra responsible. Parliament rises or falls on her say-so. She doesn't have the luxury of being a typical opposition politician. And no leader wants to be tagged with being responsible for a $92 million election, which two-thirds of Ontarians tell pollsters is unnecessary.
She is constantly being squeezed by those who want her to bring down the Wynne government on the grounds that the Liberals have lost the moral authority to govern (read: eHealth, Ornge, gas plant cancellations, etc.) and those that want her to use her influence to get some progressive legislation passed.
She no longer has the "female leader" advantage to herself. Horwath has always polled extremely well when it comes to likeability. She always bested McGuinty and Hudak. But now comes Kathleen Wynne, who's proving not only to be as likeable as Horwath, but is also poaching some of Horwath's leftish support. The Innovative Research Group found 85 per cent of Ontarians think it's kind of cool to have a female premier. That "cool" quotient used to be Horwath's alone. Not anymore.
Some argue Horwath should have come out on budget day and simply said, "We're going to support the budget. It's not perfect, but it's got enough of our ideas in there to be worthy of support." They think by doing that, Horwath would have had an easier time showing Ontarians that she really does want to make this parliament work in a constructive fashion. She could declare victory and maintain her sunny disposition, rather than being seen as the constant roadblock to a budget agreement.

Of course, the trouble with that approach: the public tends to reward the government, not the helpful opposition, at the next election.

In 1985, David Peterson and Bob Rae (then the NDP leader) teamed up on an "Accord" to help govern Ontario. The Liberals were a minority government, but kept the confidence of the house thanks to the NDP. At the time, the Liberals had 48 seats, the NDP 25. The Accord worked so well that in 1987 when Ontarians went back to the polls, they gave Peterson 95 seats and cut the NDP back to 19.

Bottom line: Being Andrea Horwath isn't as easy as you may think.

For The Agenda's latest coverage of happenings at Queen's Park, visit our Ontario Politics feature page.

The Story Behind Kathleen Wynne's Apology

Steve Paikin — Wed, 15 May 13 11:25:00 GMT

Our interview Tuesday, where Premier Kathleen Wynne apologized for the way two gas plants were cancelled.

John Tory should be happy.

For weeks, he has been using the platform that is his excellent daily radio program on NewsTalk 1010 to urge Premier Kathleen Wynne to apologize for the gas plant debacle. And for weeks, Wynne has steadfastly declined to do that.

The premier has often expressed "regret" for a terrible process, that saw gas plants sited in Oakville and Mississauga, then cancelled for political reasons at a cost of nearly $600 million (so far).

But Tory, among others, has been urging the premier to go further -- to come out with a clear and sincere apology, and a further promise that this fiasco will never happen again.

John Tory reviews his notes at a recent CivicAction conference.

Wynne and Tory have an unusual relationship in politics. In 2007, she defeated the former PC Party leader in Don Valley West, helping strike what would eventually turn out to be a fatal blow for Tory's political prospects. And yet today, the two of them have an extremely cordial, respectful relationship. Tory, in his capacity as chairman of CivicAction, has been an asset to Wynne in her efforts to move public opinion towards accepting new "revenue tools" to get transit built. She is a frequent guest on his radio show and is the first politician to go way out on a limb in championing further fees to promote the transit infrastructure he also believes in.

I'm only speculating here, but it wouldn't surprise me if the people in Wynne's office finally came to the conclusion that, as Mr. Sinatra used to sing, "Regrets, I've had a few," just wasn't cutting it, and that a genuine mea culpa was needed to get this gas plant issue out of the headlines, so the premier can get people focused on other issues she's passionate about, such as passing the budget and getting transit built.

For our part at TVO, we had the premier on our program a couple of weeks ago. But it was to participate in a discussion about gender politics, and whether women govern differently than men. I clarified on that occasion that asking about gas plants during that program just didn't seem to fit, so the premier committed to returning soon to discuss more current matters. Tuesday's visit fulfilled that commitment, and yes, I was surprised that the visit turned out to be so newsworthy.

Did I know Premier Wynne was going to offer an apology during the interview? Actually, no. And in case we missed it the first time, Wynne went on to repeat her mea culpa 11 times during our conversation. (You can watch that interview in the video player above.)

What I actually found more interesting was what Wynne declined to say. Four times I asked her, shouldn't the apology really have come from her predecessor? After all, it was Dalton McGuinty who made the politically craven decision in the dying days of the 2011 election campaign to kill the Mississauga plant to save Liberal seats, having no clue as to the potential costs involved.

Wynne offers an apology to the people of Ontario.

The easiest thing for Wynne to say at that moment was, yes, McGuinty should have apologized during his appearance at the legislative committee hearings two weeks ago.

But she didn't.

And the reason she didn't is the reason why so many Ontarians like Kathleen Wynne, despite not liking many of the policies of the Liberal government over the past 10 years. Wynne didn't try to disassociate herself from McGuinty. She didn't blame him and him alone for the albatross that is now around her neck. She took responsibility for it and now hopes to move on. Why McGuinty didn't offer an apology, if only to help out his new premier, baffles me, and I hope I have a chance to ask him why some day.

PC Leader Tim Hudak faces the legislative committee investigating the gas plant cancellations.

No one knows whether this apology will finally put the gas plant issue to bed for the Liberals. That's out of their hands. The Progressive Conservatives certainly give no indication they're letting go of this issue. Their leader, Tim Hudak, testified before the legislative committee yesterday, and in calling for a judicial inquiry into the situation, did his best to give the story more legs.

Hudak says only "the threat of the sound of a jail door closing behind them" will get officials to be more honest about how this gas plant debacle happened.

Finally, this whole story is a good lesson in the realities of governing. Kathleen Wynne is meeting with NDP leader Andrea Horwath today to see whether they can come to an agreement on the budget. There are at least a dozen other major issues Wynne needs to make progress on, including social assistance reform, building transit infrastructure, creating the revenue tools needed to build that infrastructure, holding the line on program spending to 1 per cent or less, cutting auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent, implementing improvements to our home care system, figuring out how to improve the Liberals' renewable energy policy, signing a collective agreement with the public service employees union to keep the LCBO open as the holiday weekend approaches, improving relations with rural Ontario, and on and on and on.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has added three more items to her wish list in advance of her meeting with Kathleen Wynne on Wednesday.

And yet, a disproportionate amount of her time is being spent on the issue she hates the most and ironically wasn't even of her making.

As they say in baseball, welcome to "The Bigs."

An Epic Collapse

Steve Paikin — Tue, 14 May 13 12:39:50 GMT

Larry, Jeff, and Steve Paikin at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1966.

I've been following the travails of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club for almost 50 years. Don't ask me why, but for some reason, I still care what happens to this team. As the above picture indicates, my parents took my brother and me to Leafs games as kids (tickets cost a few bucks a seat back then). And ever since, my mood seems to rise and fall with the team's fortunes.

Centre ice at the old Maple Leaf Gardens in the 1970s.

The entrance to the Air Canada Centre Mother's Day night.

Two nights ago, "Leafs Nation" was treated to one of the great spectacles in team history. Massive underdogs going into their series with the Boston Bruins and down three games to one, the Leafs eked out a victory in game five in Boston, then came home to take a thrilling game six victory on Mother's Day.

As I left the Air Canada Centre that night, people were chanting: "Leafs in Sev-en! Leafs in Sev-en!"

Then, when the boys in blue took a 4-1 lead in Monday night's deciding game seven back in Boston, they did the thing that makes us keep coming back for more, no matter how many years of unrequited love we suffer: they made us believe again.

You know the rest. The Bruins came back. They found a way. The Leafs lost in overtime, in one of the most epic collapses in club -- and NHL -- history. And it's a long history.

I remember in the 1970s going to the old Maple Leaf Gardens to watch a particularly brutal series between the Leafs and Philadelphia Flyers. The Leafs went into Philadelphia and stole the first two games -- unheard of, since they were huge underdogs. But the Flyers stormed back, winning four in a row, including coming back from down 5-2 at the Gardens in the third period (any of this sounding familiar?).

It hasn't been uniformly awful since then. In 1978, the team made it to the final four after upsetting the New York Islanders in Game seven overtime on Long Island. Lanny McDonald got the goal and I'm not sure I've ever experienced a more euphoric joy in my life (maybe Paul Henderson's 1972 goal). We watched on TV at my home in Hamilton and jumped into each other's arms when Lanny worked his magic. But the team then lost four straight to the Montreal Canadiens.

The Leafs raise their sticks to acknowledge the fans' cheers after their surprise game six victory on Mother's Day.

The team got back to the final four again with Dougie Gilmour leading the way a couple of decades ago. But then Wayne Gretzky got away with a high stick, the Kings won, #99 went to the finals, and Leafs fans were denied a Stanley Cup final against the Habs, which would have been wonderful.

So we've seen this movie before, Leafs fans. To love the Leafs is to learn what it means to suffer.

Your humble correspondent, once asking former Leafs' owner Harold Ballard for an autograph.

A collapse such as last night's in Boston can presumably lead the team in two different directions: their young players will learn from this and show some resiliency next year, or the loss will be so crushing, it'll take years to recover from it. I don't know which.

But I take heart. My favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, went 86 years without winning a World Series. In 2003, they were on their way to playoff nirvana when the Yankees' Aaron Boone hit a home run to eliminate them yet again. But in 2004, they won the World Series. And they did it again in 2007.

Dare we ask the baseball gods to have a few words with the hockey gods and show some of that love to us and the Maple Leafs?

Remembering Robert Elgie

Steve Paikin — Mon, 13 May 13 14:54:47 GMT

Two legendary Red Tories: William Davis, Ontario's 18th premier, and cabinet minister Robert Elgie

Bob Rae remembers getting the phone call on a Sunday afternoon. It was extremely odd for the then leader of the Ontario NDP to get a call from any Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, to come to a private briefing the next morning. But then again, the call didn't come from just any minister in William Davis' government. The call came from Robert Elgie.

When Rae showed up, he was met by both Premier Davis and Elgie, then the minister of consumer and commercial relations.

"Bob, we've got a serious problem," Elgie began. "There are criminal elements that want to take over a trust company in Ontario. It's just not good at all, but legally, there's nothing we can do about it. So what we need is to do is pass a law preventing it and we have to do it in a single day. We need the opposition to help us pass this bill or the consequences could be dire. Can you help us out?"

As a member of the opposition, Rae's job at the time was to oppose. Or at the very least, make life more difficult for the government in hopes of making them look incompetent.

But Rae considered the sources of this request: Bill Davis and Bob Elgie.

"Is this really what we have to do?" Rae asked them.

"Yes, it truly is," they responded.

"Well, if it's good enough for you two, it's good enough for me," Rae replied. And with that, Ontarians avoided another trust company scandal that could have brought the public's confidence in the entire sector into question. The three parties presented the bill as some kind of minor technical housekeeping measure, and it skated through the provincial parliament in a day.

Toronto Centre MP Bob Rae was leader of the Ontario NDP when Bob Elgie served at Queen's Park.

I like this story for two reasons. First, it shows that there was a time in our public life, when the chips were down, that honourable members would act as the adjective suggests; they put their partisan interests aside and acted in the public interest. It required a level of mutual trust and respect that clearly existed 30 years ago in that legislature, but that seems all but gone today.

And second, the story reflects just how admired and respected Robert Elgie was by everyone who had dealings with him, because he was one of the finest public servants ever to sit at Queen's Park.

"It says something about how we used to do politics," said Rae, the Liberal MP for Toronto Centre since 2008.

Robert Elgie died last month at the age of 84. I wrote about his life in a blog post published at the time.

On Saturday, May 4 (exactly one month after his death), hundreds of friends and family gathered at the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in midtown Toronto to remember one of the last great Red Tories.

"He was one of the smartest people I knew," said Rae to a gathering in the church basement after the funeral service. "He had an intellectual brilliance you don't often see in public life. And he was a truly kind person and a gentleman."

Elgie was both a lawyer and a brain surgeon. Yet he put both of those careers on hold, no doubt foregoing millions in income, to serve in the Davis Government from 1977 to 1986.

Nancy Elgie eulogizes her late husband.

For 56 years, he was married to his best friend and confidante Nancy, who shared his love of public life. She's currently a school trustee for the York Region District School Board. Elgie was blessed with five children and 13 grandchildren, which included two sets of twins at either end of the age spectrum: one set that's 22 years old, and another set that's 10 months old.

"He suffered for the last few months with great dignity," Nancy said in her eulogy. "But his body was ready to leave this world."

Stewart Elgie called the eulogy for his father "the hardest talk I've ever had to give."

Stewart Elgie, associate director of the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment, and the Elgies' oldest son, remembers asking his father as a child: "What is the meaning of life?" Elgie, the father, told his son he'd get back to him the next day with an answer, as he wanted to give it some thought. The next day, the answer came:

"Make the world a better place for those around us," was the reply. "Those words exemplified his own life," Stewart Elgie said.

Despite having an ultra-serious side, Robert Elgie had his funny moments. During one election campaign in a particularly tough part of the riding where few Conservative supporters could be found, Elgie knocked on one constituent's door, and when a woman answered, said in his deep sonorous voice and with a straight face: "I'm Roger Ramjet. Danger's the game. Ramjet's the name."

On another occasion, Elgie had NDP MPP Floyd Laughren over to his home in Keswick. As Laughren tried to pat Elgie's dog Jenny, the dog snarled and nipped at him.

"Good Tory dog," was all Elgie said to laughs from everyone present.

"I'm not sure he believed in God," Stewart Elgie admitted in his eulogy, "but he was one of the most moral men I knew."

"He also had a crush on Olivia Newton-John, who was on his shortlist of second wives. And he saw every James Bond movie twice."

Perhaps one of the reasons Robert Elgie was such a fine man stems from the family he came from. "He loved his father, but he didn't follow his father's example," said Stewart. Elgie's father was also an MPP. His name was Goldwin Elgie, and he represented Toronto's Woodbine riding in the 1930s and 40s. The family's dirty secret was that Goldwin was an alcoholic and wife-abuser.

"My dad's greatest accomplishment was taking on the best parts of his father's character but not the crap," said Stewart.

Elgie had friends on all sides of the legislature, including former MPP Elie Martel from Sudbury.

One of Robert Elgie's best pals was NDP MPP Elie Martel, whose daughter Shelley was also an MPP, and whose son-in-law Howard Hampton is a former Ontario NDP leader.

"Look at what his dad stood for in the 1945 election," Martel said in his eulogy. "A 40-hour work week. One-hundred per cent compensation for the disabled. Hospitalization and surgery regardless of one's ability to pay. Welfare. Housing. You wonder why Bob became a Red Tory?"

Bill Fatsis was the first immigrant to be hired in a cabinet minister's office at Queen's Park.

Bill Fatsis, now a citizenship court judge, but once a former Tory candidate and assistant in Elgie's office, once saw the side of Elgie that resembled Mount Vesuvius. Fatsis thought he was doing Elgie a good turn by trying to get a summer job for one of Elgie's daughters, in another cabinet minister's office.

"When Bob found out, he was enraged," Fatsis recalls. "Do you think I got into public life so my kids could jump the queue ahead of all those other poor bastards out there? You've learned nothing in your three years with me. Now fix this and get out!" Elgie screamed at Fatsis. It's hard to imagine any minister today reacting the same way. Maybe they would, but it's still hard to imagine.

Roy McMurtry was one of Elgie's best friends in cabinet. Elgie supported McMurtry's bid for the PC leadership after Bill Davis retired.

Lawyer Gina Brannan succeeded Elgie as the Tory candidate in York East in 1986. By then, Ontario had changed and the formerly safe PC seat went to the Liberals. She's speaking here with Nancy Elgie.

Ab Campion helped run Bob Elgie's campaign for the PC nomination York East in 1976.

A tripartisan blast from the past, from left to right: former Liberal MPP Sean Conway, former PC MPP Roy McMurtry, and former NDP MPP Elie Martel.

Bob Rae shares one of the lessons he learned from Robert Elgie.

A Very Odd Budget Lockup

Steve Paikin — Fri, 03 May 13 15:20:56 GMT

Finance Minister Charles Sousa kicks off Budget Lockup 2013

Every year at the Macdonald Block at Queen's Park, hundreds of journalists are "locked up" in a briefing room to study the budget. It's called a "lockup" because security is tight and no one is permitted out of that room until 4:00 p.m., when the finance minister rises in the house to read the budget. To get in, journalists have to sign an oath promising not to divulge any contents of the budget until the finance minister does.

Meantime, journalists spend the day poring over the budget, and have numerous experts from the Ministry of Finance available to answer their technical questions.

Then the politicians come in. First the minister of finance, Charles Sousa, then the leader of the official opposition, Tim Hudak (with his finance critic Peter Shurman alongside), and finally the leader of the third party, Andrea Horwath, with her finance critic Michael Prue.

The politicians make their speeches, the journalists ask their questions, and then when 4:00 p.m. arrives, the journalists dash out to get their stories on the air or into print.

The tradition for the opposition leaders is to dominate their Q&A with journalists, but also have their critics say a few things, because it looks ridiculous to have the critic standing up on the podium, looking admiringly at the leader, without ever saying a peep.

Once we knew what was in the budget, the big question quickly became: will the NDP support it? Horwath made clear from the outset that she was not going to have an answer to that until the NDP could embark on a "consultation process" with Ontarians.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath will await a consultation with the people before voting on the budget.

For me, the next question then became: once the consultation process was over, how would the NDP caucus itself decide how to interpret the public's feedback?

Some leaders make that decision themselves. George W. Bush famously described himself as "The Decider." My impression over the years has been that the NDP takes a more collegial approach. Did that mean their 18-member caucus would take a vote and the majority would prevail? Did that mean the leader would listen to caucus, try to see if a consensus existed, then present that view?

I wasn't sure.

Michael Prue, NDP finance critic, stands quietly beside his leader.

So I attempted to ask Michael Prue, the veteran NDP MPP from Beaches-East York and the party's finance critic, to address that. I asked Prue rather than Horwath herself for a few reasons. First, Prue's institutional memory around Queen's Park is a little deeper than Horwath's, having been elected to the legislature a few years before her. Second, Horwath was in full "message track" mode and I frankly wanted an answer that was more thoughtful than what a "talking points" answer would have allowed. And third, I have to confess that I felt bad for the guy. He'd been standing beside Horwath, saying nothing, for the previous 15 minutes, and I felt he might want a chance to do something other than be a potted plant up there.

Peter Shurman, PC finance critic, with PC Leader Tim Hudak

Half an hour earlier, Tim Hudak frequently yielded the floor to his finance critic Peter Shurman, and the two made an effective tag team in criticizing the budget and the Liberal government.

But back to the NDP. As soon as I'd finished my question, Horwath pulled rank. I'm the leader, she said. I'll answer the questions. Prue looked surprised and embarrassed and had every right to feel that way.

"We'll talk about it on TV tonight!" Prue said, referring to the fact he'd be a guest on our budget special in a few hours. (He had to shout his answer at me since he was nowhere near the microphone.)

"The decision is on my shoulders," Horwath then said, ultimately clarifying the issue somewhat.

It was an odd and uncomfortable moment. I certainly wasn't trying to embarrass Horwath by asking her critic the question. I started to wonder what went into the dynamics of that moment. True, Andrea Horwath and Michael Prue haven't had the closest relationship since she defeated him for the party leadership in March 2009. And it's also true that she would not have seen the PCs' news conference, where Hudak seemed happy to share the spotlight with his critic.

But perhaps the best explanation could be found on TVO last night. I did ask Prue the question again: how will your caucus decide whether to support the budget? Prue gave one of the most honest, straightforward answers I've ever heard a politician give. He acknowledged the caucus was split on whether to support the budget. He spoke candidly about why New Democrats were wrestling with this important decision. Some wanted to work with the Liberals if it meant passing some progressive legislation. Others think the Liberals have lost the moral right to govern. If you didn't see the interview, it's worth watching only to see a rare example of a decent politician answering a direct question with a direct answer. You can watch Prue's responses at the 13:43 mark of the video, below.

Maybe that's why Andrea Horwath tried to muzzle her finance critic?

For The Agenda's latest coverage of happenings at Queen's Park, visit our Ontario Politics feature page.

Rosalynn Carter: Still Championing Mental Health

Steve Paikin — Thu, 02 May 13 14:24:05 GMT

Rosalynn Carter, holding a bottle of maple syrup, a gift from some Canadian friends.

Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady of the United States, tells a great story about when her husband Jimmy was running for governor of Georgia four decades ago.

Mrs. Carter had happened upon the story of a Georgia woman who was facing all sorts of difficulties in her life because she suffered from mental illness and couldn't get any services to help her. So, one day, when her husband was campaigning, she stood at the back of a long line and waited her turn to talk to the candidate.

Rosalynn Carter was first lady of the United States from 1977-81.

When she got to the front of the line, she asked the candidate, her husband, whether he was really serious about improving the plight of those suffering from mental illness. He assured her he was. She assured him she'd hold him to that commitment. She did, and when candidate Carter became Governor Carter in 1970, he did improve things immeasurably, thanks in no small measure to his wife, who kept an eagle eye on the issue.

Rosalynn Carter has testified before numerous political bodies, championing the cause of the mentally ill.

Seen here at the White House with her husband (the president), and the outgoing first couple, Gerald and Betty Ford. Mrs. Carter was 49 years old when she became first lady.

More than four decades later, Rosalynn Carter is still championing mental health causes, through the Carter Center in Atlanta, and with an international traveling schedule that would frighten off people half her age. She'll turn 86 years young in August.

With her husband Jimmy in Oslo, Norway in December 2002, on the occasion of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs. Carter a couple of years ago on The Agenda. Then, during the last weekend of April 2013, I visited the Carters' hometown of Plains, Georgia, where the couple still lives, to get a mental health update over fried chicken at one of the local restaurants.

A sign in the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.

The audio is a little tough because Mrs. Carter is very soft spoken. And you can hear other conversations happening in the background. But what truly comes through is the former first lady's unswerving commitment to help those whom too many others have discarded -- and she's done so for four decades.

A New Addition in Toronto to All That Jazz

Steve Paikin — Wed, 24 Apr 13 09:27:17 GMT

The new Jazz Bistro on Victoria St. in Toronto is up and running.

Much of the news about the jazz scene in Toronto lately hasn't been good. Three of the best-known venues have all closed their doors over the past few years: the Montreal Bistro, the Top o' the Senator, and the Courthouse.

So it's with particular delight that we can report that a new place has opened. In fact, it's picking right up from one of those old places.

A jazz fan named Colin Hunter has put $7 million of his own money into completely redesigning the old Top o' the Senator on Victoria Street, right near the Ed Mirvish Theatre and Massey Hall.

Marcus Nance was the headliner last Sunday. He'll be there again this weekend.

The old Top o' the Senator featured the best jazz talent from everywhere, but truth be told, the layout wasn't good. The performing space on the second floor was too vertical, meaning few seats at the front and most people sitting too far back.

The Mantini Sisters from the Niagara Peninsula also delighted the crowd.

The newly christened Jazz Bistro has been completely redesigned. Gone is the main floor restaurant. Instead, that's where the performances take place in a space that's now very horizontal, meaning everyone is in close proximity to the stage. And the ceiling to the second floor has been blasted open, meaning an overflow crowd can look down on the stage from a second floor mezzanine.

The Jazz Bistro now features a second-floor mezzanine to overlook the stage.

The new owners have put a ton of money into Jazz Bistro, and it shows.

I went for brunch last Sunday and thought the new layout, performances, and look were all terrific. Toronto is such a great jazz city. And, back in the day, we did our bit on Studio 2 to feature as many performers as we could. So it's always been a bit of an oddity that Ontario's capital city hasn't had too many thriving jazz locations.

The Jazz Bistro is trying to change that.

Marcus Nance's deep, mellifluous voice belted out "Ol' Man River" as beautifully as I've ever heard it.

A new floor design means everyone sits in closer proximity to the stage

Sybil Walker, who booked the acts at the Top o' the Senator, is back to reprise that role at Jazz Bistro.

Marcus Nance with Michael Hughes.

Here Comes the Budget

Steve Paikin — Mon, 22 Apr 13 14:45:15 GMT

Finance Minister Charles Sousa reveals some budget details at the Economic Club of Canada on Monday.

When I started in this business of journalism, any information surrounding an upcoming budget was locked up airtight. Security was intense. I can recall former Ontario treasurer (as the job was then called) Larry Grossman getting all the way to his office only to realize he'd forgotten his identification badge. Rather than trying to talk his way in -- he was the minister after all -- he went back home, retrieved it, then tried again. That's how tight security was.

Frank Miller was both premier of Ontario and minister of the treasury and economics, as the job was then called.

I can also remember another former treasurer, Frank Miller, considered resigning, because a couple of reporters rifled through the garbage behind the Frost Building, found some preliminary budget drafts, and made them public.

Yes, they were serious about not letting out information prematurely in those days.

The tradition around budget secrecy has clearly changed. Now, ministers of finance seem to want to release bits and bites of the budget to the public well before budget day.

Such was the case on Monday. The current occupant of the Frost Building (named after Ontario's longest-serving treasurer, Leslie Frost, who was also premier at the same time) revealed quite a bit of pertinent information in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada. For example:

Budget Day this year will be May 2. For the history nerds, that was a great day in Ontario Liberal history. In 1985, Liberal leader David Peterson led his crew to its strongest showing in four decades, and eventually ended the Tory dynasty several weeks later. (However, it's also worth noting that May 2 is also the worst day ever for the federal Liberals, who in 2011 came third for the first time ever and watched Stephen Harper get his majority government after two previously failed attempts.)

Antonio Sousa, the 87-year-old father of the current Ontario finance minister, takes a bow and blows kisses to the audience during his son's speech.

One minister tweeted, "Now we know why the son is such a ham."

The deficit for fiscal year 2012-13 clocks in much lower than expected. Once upon a time, Liberals were musing the deficit might hit $14 billion. Then it was adjusted down to $11.9 billion. Charles Sousa announced today it was "only" $9.8 billion.
That's the fourth consecutive year in which the Ontario Liberals have bettered their deficit projection targets.

Sousa also says the government is on track to implement 60 per cent of Don Drummond's cost-savings recommendations.
Sousa says 16 of 25 ministries have underspent their budgets. Furthermore, program spending across the government is being held to 1 per cent.
The minister adds the Liberals are on track to balance the books, as promised, by 2017-18. Of the 14 jurisdictions in Canada (10 provinces, 3 territories, and the federal government), that's the latest date for bringing the books back into balance of any of them. But as former finance minister Dwight Duncan accurately reminded us on Twitter today, "... the others keep missing their targets." Ontario has not.

Opposition finance critic Peter Shurman (PC - Thornhill) follows the text of Sousa's speech.

In a scrum later, Shurman said, "We will vote against this budget because we don't believe a single thing this McGuinty-Wynne government says."

In a scrum after his speech, Sousa seemed to go out of his way to be non-responsive to many of the reporters' questions. During the speech, he promised to continue to reduce the deficit without raising taxes. I asked him whether eliminating corporate tax loopholes (as the NDP have demanded) constituted a tax increase. He obfuscated.

He was asked by others to clarify the trial balloons he launched during the speech on the subject of deficit reduction; for example, means testing the Clean Energy Benefit. No clarification was forthcoming. Sousa simply said, "These are some of the ideas I'm hearing from others on how to balance the books."

Another thing we don't know is whether this budget will, in fact, pass. Unlike last year at this time, when former premier Dalton McGuinty and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath personally negotiated details of the budget to ensure its passage, there are no talks ongoing between Kathleen Wynne and Horwath, at Horwath's request. The Liberals have asked. The NDP have declined the invitation, perhaps feeling they came out on the short end of the public relations war last year.

Yes, back channel negotiations are always a possibility, and it's a certainty that some Liberal officials will keep some NDP officials informed about what's in the budget to ensure the NDP votes for it and the government survives. But the state of play at Queen's Park is changing rapidly. Two weeks ago, most people you talked to said not only would the budget pass, but they also doubted there would be any election at all in 2013.

Now, I'm hearing some confident Liberal backbenchers want an election now, feeling Wynne will never be more popular, and less dragged down by future problems. Similarly, New Democrats who are being pressured by public sector unions to make common cause with the Liberals in hopes of getting some progressive legislation out of them are concerned that the longer Wynne stays in office, the more likely it is that she'll poach NDP support.

Add it all up, and it means the political tides swirling around this upcoming budget will be far choppier than anyone had anticipated. The survival of this parliament beyond May 2 is anything but a done deal.

Justin's Juggernaut: A Day in Pictures

Steve Paikin — Wed, 17 Apr 13 15:45:01 GMT

It was non-stop grip and grin all day for Justin Trudeau and Sophie GrÃ©goire on Sunday, at the Liberal leadership convention.

Liberal Party president Mike Crawley and former interim leader Bill Graham.

Leadership candidate Martin Cauchon and his family.

Cauchon and fellow leadership candidate Martha Hall Findlay share a smile and a hug before the vote is announced.

Cauchon and Senator Jim Munson.

Jean ChrÃ©tien, Canada's 20th prime minister, got numerous standing ovations during his speech. Still, he irritated some by pointing out the accomplishments of the Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, and ChrÃ©tien governments, but said nothing about Paul Martin, who was sitting 10 metres away from him.

The candidates take the stage to get the results.

Candidates Joyce Murray, Karen McCrimmon, and Deborah Coyne.

Toronto Centre MP Bob Rae gave his last speech as interim leader.

The Trudeau clan awaits the results.

Quebec MP Marc Garneau was a candidate but dropped out when the math was overwhelmingly against him.

Xavier Trudeau makes it clear he approves of the results.

The victorious candidate and his family take the stage.

The victory address.

Trudeau got one of his biggest ovations when he told his fellow Liberals ...

... that the days of ChrÃ©tien-Liberals ...

... or Martin-Liberals ...

... are over. There are no more hyphenated Liberals.

A final wave from all the leadership candidates.

Trudeau wades into the crowd, about to receive plaudits from Bob Rae.

Former Liberal leader StÃ©phane Dion

And off to the post-convention interviews. Trudeau seen here with Global TV's Tom Clark.

At the after party, no one seemed particularly interested in talking to the victorious candidate ...

... but they all wanted their picture taken with him.

A Trudeau campaign team official shows the final count. In the end, it was a blowout.

Mea Culpa

Steve Paikin — Wed, 17 Apr 13 10:34:06 GMT

I just checked.

In the four and a half years I've been tweeting, I've managed to punch out 8,873 tweets. I try my best to make sure they're accurate, and useful to the 36,000 or so people that follow me.

But every now and then, I blow it. And, thankfully, I have a quality control system known as you that lets me know.

So let me take this opportunity to offer a mea culpa. After doing journalism for 30 years, I shouldn't make as many mistakes as I do. And it bothers me enormously when I do make mistakes. But one of the good things about Twitter is that you're there to correct the record.

A victorious Justin Trudeau heads to the stage to give his victory speech.

For example, I attended the Liberal leadership convention in Ottawa over the weekend to watch (and tweet about) Justin Trudeau's overwhelming first-ballot victory. As the Liberals unveiled the vote totals, two party officials mentioned this leadership race featured the most participation of any in Canadian history: more than 105,000 Liberal members and "supporters" voted.

The six candidates await the results of the federal Liberal leadership.

My inside voice said to me: "That doesn't sound right." Didn't the Canadian Alliance have more people vote in one of their contests? I thought so. But I just as quickly concluded that the Liberals wouldn't put false information out there, and something like that would be easy to check. So I tweeted it.

The Liberals were wrong. And so was I in disseminating that information. A cursory check would have revealed that in 2000, the party that eventually morphed into today's Conservative Party of Canada did indeed have a leadership contest won by Stockwell Day in which more than 120,000 people voted. Why I didn't check that before tweeting, I'll never know. But I should have.

Former Premier Dalton McGuinty cancelled the Mississauga gas plant and claimed it would cost taxpayers $195 million.

It happened again just the other day. Ontario's Auditor General Jim McCarter released his findings on the actual cost to taxpayers of the cancellation of the Mississauga gas plant in the dying days of the 2011 election. The Liberals claimed it would cost less than $200 million. In fact, the number the auditor said was $275 million. But having heard frequent accusations by the opposition that the total cost of the cancellations would be $1 billion, I tweeted that the Liberals looked closer on their prediction than the opposition.

I was wrong. And you helped set me straight. Many of you pointed out the $1-billion price tag includes the Oakville gas plant, whose price tag hadn't been factored into the auditor general's findings.

"You should probably retract this tweet. Billion dollar figure touted by opposition parties was for Oakville and Mississauga," said one Twitter user.

"You skewed that fact by associating the opposition numbers of both plants for just one. Misrepresenting information," said another.

Even the former Speaker of the legislature, Chris Stockwell, chimed in: "To be fair Steve I think they were talking about cumulative cost of [Oakville] and [Mississauga] that number is going to be around 1B."

Mississuaga Mayor Hazel McCallion testified at Queen's Park about the gas plant cancellation.

You were all right. I was wrong.

Twitter is fantastic. It's allowed me to serve an audience in a different way from the way I do on television every night, and through my blog posts. But one of the best things about it is that you're there to set me straight when I screw up ... which sadly happens far more than I wish it did.

So, thank you.

Fifty Years Ago This Week, Lester Pearson Became Prime Minister: Part II

Steve Paikin — Thu, 11 Apr 13 11:38:20 GMT

A campaign shot from 1962: two future prime ministers in John Turner and Lester Pearson.

At first blush, Lester Bowles Pearson and John Napier Turner didn't appear to have much in common, besides the fact that they were both Liberal MPs.

Pearson was an odd-looking, bookish, former diplomat who spoke with a lisp. Turner was a dazzling, handsome, athletic Rhodes Scholar who loved a stiff drink and a good time.

And yet, during their respective leaderships of the Liberal Party of Canada, they both faced the same dark circumstances. When Pearson took the Liberals into the 1958 election, the results were the worst ever: a debacle for the Grits and a massive majority for John Diefenbaker's Tories. The same thing happened to Turner in 1984, as he led the Liberals to an even worse showing: 211 PC seats for Brian Mulroney, and just 40 for Turner's Liberals.

But Pearson managed to hang in there. True, he lost his second election as Liberal leader in 1962 as well, but narrowed the gap so substantially (PCs 116, Liberals 99) that the party let him stay on to fight another contest. And that's the one he won in 1963, 50 years ago this week, that ushered in huge and historic changes for Canada.

"He had the advantage of having an opponent he didn't like and had the joy of defeating," said Bob Rae, interim leader of the Liberals, at a University of Toronto conference examining the Pearson years. "It's a scenario we can all relate to today."

Bob Rae's father Saul was a diplomat for Canada during the Pearson years.

John Turner also fought a second consecutive losing election, more than doubling the Liberal seat count in the process. But Mulroney still won a second consecutive (albeit reduced) majority in 1988 with 169 seats, and therefore, Turner's time as leader was on life support from that moment on. He left the post in 1990.

But when John Turner arrived on the national political stage, seeking a seat in Montreal in 1962, he turned a lot of heads, including Lester Pearson's. The two knew each other well. Their cottages were in close proximity to one another. And Pearson had hired Turner's mother, who eventually became the highest-ranking female civil servant of her day.

Former PM John Turner holds the picture taken during the 1962 campaign of Pearson and himself.

Why does Canada have a department of consumer and commercial affairs? Because John Turner recommended it to Pearson back in the day, and Pearson took his advice.

"He was a great Canadian and a great prime minister," Turner recalled during a luncheon speech in the Great Hall of Hart House, part of the 50th anniversary retrospective on the Pearson years.

"He was one of the most amazing guys I ever knew."

John Turner is the grand old man of the Liberal Party today. He'll turn 84 in June.

One day, Pearson needed a partner for a doubles tournament at the Rockcliffe Tennis Club in Ottawa. He tapped Turner for the job, and the pair won the club championship.

"Whatever else you might do," Pearson told Turner, "that'll be the best thing you ever accomplish in your life!"

"I always thought Lester B. Pearson was more complex than that sunny exterior led you to believe," Bob Rae said. "No success is accidental. Before he was prime minister, he was leader of a decimated party that had to regain the capacity to believe in itself." Those conditions were true in Pearson's day, as they were in Turner's, and as they are today.

As Pearson was getting ready to retire in 1968, Turner grabbed a bottle of champagne and showed up at 24 Sussex Drive along with fellow MPs Joe Greene and Larry Pennell.

"What are you guys doing here?" Mrs. Pearson said to them.

"We've come to celebrate Mr. Pearson's career in public life," Turner told her.

"That's fine, John," she said, "but you can't stay for lunch. I married Mr. Pearson for better or worse but not for lunch."

"That's okay, Mrs. Pearson, we're going to take him out to lunch."

And so they did. A long liquid lunch until 4:00 p.m.

His legs may be giving way on him, but John Turner still has a million great war stories from politics.

He's flanked here by Bob Rae on the left and John English, a conference organizer and former Liberal MP, on the right.

It was a memorable conference for those that attended, including Florence Yaffe, who worked on Parliament Hill decades ago and is a lifelong Liberal. She's a 23-year-old Liberal newbie in these photos.

And Florence Yaffe today at age 75.

Read: Fifty Years Ago This Week, Lester B. Pearson Became Prime Minister, Part I

Fifty Years Ago This Week, Lester Pearson Became Prime Minister: Part I

Steve Paikin — Wed, 10 Apr 13 15:43:31 GMT

One of the most iconic pictures ever taken in Canadian political history:

Four prime ministers together: Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, Jean ChrÃ©tien, and Lester Pearson.

It's ironic that the man considered one of Canada's best-ever prime ministers started his career as Liberal Party leader with the worst electoral showing in Canadian history.

Many Liberals were excited to have Lester B. Pearson as their new leader, taking over for Louis St. Laurent. Pearson had been a highly successful minister of state for external affairs, Canadian ambassador to the United States, president of the United Nations General Assembly, and the man who put peacekeeping on the map of Canadian achievements.

Lester Bowles Pearson: 14th prime minister of Canada and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

But Pearson had the misfortune of taking over the Liberal Party in 1958 when the party was basically out of gas. It had ruled under William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent from 1935 to 1957, but lost that '57 election to the Tories' John Diefenbaker. When the Liberals changed leaders and put "Mike" Pearson in for the 1958 campaign, the result was a debacle of historic proportions. Diefenbaker won 208 seats, the Liberals under Pearson just 48, and it looked as if the so-called natural governing party would be in the wilderness forever.

Forever turned out to be five years.

Fifty years ago this week, Lester Pearson helped bring the Liberals back to power with a minority government. One of the rookies in that class of 1963 was a 29-year-old unilingual francophone who managed to get himself elected in a rural Quebec riding that the Social Credit party had won by 10,000 votes less than a year earlier, in the 1962 election.

His name was Jean ChrÃ©tien.

The young MP from Saint-Maurice-Lafleche: Jean ChrÃ©tien, with Prime Minister Pearson.

Strangely enough, even though they had nothing in common other than being Liberal MPs, ChrÃ©tien and Pearson got on extremely well. But the relationship almost turned disastrous at the beginning.

"I got elected 50 years ago last night and at the beginning, I was in trouble!" ChrÃ©tien said Tuesday, at a special conference on the Pearson government's 50th anniversary, organized by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Trinity College.

The issue was the Bomarc missiles that the United States wanted to station in Canada. ChrÃ©tien was against that idea, but Pearson said if the previous government had committed to doing it, then he was onside for allowing it.

ChrÃ©tien insisted he would vote against the new Liberal government unless it could prove that the previous Diefenbaker government had, in fact, promised to allow the missiles into Canada.

Jean ChrÃ©tien in the George Ignatieff Theatre at Trinity College, University of Toronto.

"I didn't want my first vote to be against my party," ChrÃ©tien recalled. "But I had committed during the campaign to vote against [the missile installation] unless there was proof we'd agreed to it."

Fifty years later, ChrÃ©tien fesses up on how he ended up voting with the Liberal government.

"They showed me some secret cabinet documents," he told the conference. "I couldn't speak much English and couldn't understand what I was reading, but they told me, 'Here's the commitment in writing.' So I voted with the government."

Trinity College Chancellor Bill Graham, a former ChrÃ©tien cabinet minister, chaired the event.

Helping him make his decision was a chance encounter in the Parliament Hill bathroom. ChrÃ©tien found himself standing beside Doug Harkness, Diefenbaker's defence minister, who resigned on a point of principle over the missile issue.

"He convinced me we had made the commitment and I should vote with my party," ChrÃ©tien said.

ChrÃ©tien, who was prime minister from 1993 to 2003, enjoyed reminiscing about the Pearson days. How many of you know that Air Canada has that name because of a private members' bill proposed by ChrÃ©tien? The airline was called Trans-Canada Airlines at the time. But there was also Trans-Caribbean Airlines, and Trans-Continental Airlines. ChretiÃ©n thought that was two TCAs too many, thus the name change.

He also remembered the notorious flag debate, "where I saw members having fistfights in the corridors. John Diefenbaker cried when we changed the flag."

ChrÃ©tien worked his way up to parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Pearson. But how did he get into cabinet?

"Lester Pearson's great ambition in life was to be a professional baseball player," ChrÃ©tien recalls. "In those days, we had an annual softball game between the MPs and the Parliamentary Press Gallery. I pitched for the MPs' team. Pearson was the manager. We won the game. And that was the day I earned my seat in the cabinet."

Those were heady years for young MPs. Canada brought in Medicare, the new flag, and saw its first violence in Quebec over the issue of separatism. Pearson told ChrÃ©tien to keep his head down, work hard, and "You never know. Some day you may become the first French-Canadian minister of finance."

And that's exactly what happened.

ChrÃ©tien also related a story of a former college professor of his who once threw him out of class. "When I became finance minister, he wrote me a beautiful note saying, 'Never did I imagine that a French Canadian would become minister of finance, let alone that it would be you."

Is ChrÃ©tien still a partisan? You bet he is.

"Mike Pearson was a well-educated diplomat and he wanted to make Canada a better country," ChrÃ©tien said, referring to Pearson by his nickname. "And he made a helluva difference. Stephen Harper is also making a helluva difference, but not for the good."

And in the inimitable ChrÃ©tien style, he left 'em all laughing.

"My name is Jean ChrÃ©tien. In English, that's John Christian. My mother's name was Mary. I have the same initials as Jesus Christ. I'm six-feet tall like Jesus. I started my career at age 30 and by 33, they crucified me."

Tomorrow, part two of The Pearson Years, through the eyes of another young MP of the time who also became prime minister: John Napier Turner.

From 1962: rookie candidate John Turner and Opposition Leader Lester Pearson.

Read: Fifty Years Ago This Week, Lester B. Pearson Became Prime Minister, Part II

Bob Rae's Next Crusade

Steve Paikin — Mon, 08 Apr 13 09:20:52 GMT

Outgoing federal Liberal leader Bob Rae, with wife Arlene, and former PM John Turner at this weekend's Leadership Showcase.

Ever since Bob Rae decided not to pursue the permanent leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, I've been thinking about what his next move would be.

Of course, Rae still has a job: the MP for Toronto Centre, a job whose mandate doesn't expire until October 2015, when the next federal election takes place.

A long time ago: Bob Rae, right, with former Ontario Liberal leader Robert Nixon.

I've been watching Bob Rae's political career since it began with a byelection victory for the NDP in 1978 that took him to the House of Commons the first time. He won the Ontario NDP leadership in 1982, became opposition leader at Queen's Park in 1987, then shocked the country by becoming the first and so far only NDP premier in Ontario history in 1990.

Premier Bob Rae being scrummed by, among others, yours truly in the top right corner.

Rae wasn't done shocking us. He left provincial politics and his party (although he'd probably argue the party left him more than vice versa), and eventually ran for the leadership of the federal Liberals. That was the convention where both he and Michael Ignatieff lost to StÃ©phane Dion in December 2006.

But Rae hung in there and eventually became the interim leader of the federal Grits, a job that will end with the crowning of a new leader next weekend in Ottawa.

Rae's official portrait, hanging outside the premier's office at Queen's Park

Here's my conclusion: after watching this man for 35 years, I find it hard to believe that he is now finished with public life. I also find it hard to believe that cooling his heels on the back benches of the House of Commons for the third place party is the way Rae wants to end his political career.

Wondering what might come next, I bounced the following idea off Rae several months ago. Did he have any interest in being the mayor of Toronto?

His answer was fascinating: "it's never been on my radar screen," he said.

Of course it hasn't. Rae has always worked in the federal and provincial spheres. But where I come from, that's not a "No."

However, that conversation of several months ago popped back into my head yesterday while attending the Liberals' "showcase" at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where the candidates to replace Rae all spoke. Someone tweeted from a bar after the festivities had ended that the "Rae for Mayor of Toronto Campaign" was now officially on. Then someone else tweeted "Rae for Triple Crown of Politics: federal leader, provicial leader, and Mayor of Toronto." At least some folks were now pushing the idea.

Here's what I pointed out to Rae several months ago, when the idea first popped into my head:

He is a young 64 years old. Lotta gas left in that tank.
Moderates in Toronto will be looking for a candidate who can defeat the current mayor, and be competitive with NDP MP Olivia Chow, who is widely believed to be ready to quit Parliament for a municipal run. (Chow was a Toronto City councillor before becoming an MP).

Running for a municipal position after you've served at so-called "senior" levels of government is hardly unprecedented, not even for an Ontario premier. Frank Miller, Ontario's 19th premier, became the chairman of the district of Muskoka council after he left provincial politics in 1986 and by all accounts had a marvelous "third act" in public life. John Rodriguez (Sudbury), Joe Fontana (London), Maurizio Bevilacqua (Vaughan), Gary Carr (Halton Region), and Mike Savage (Halifax) were all former MPs who became mayors/regional chairs after leaving Parliament Hill.
Those that can't stand the job Rob Ford is doing in Toronto, but are concerned about handing the keys to City Hall over to a New Democrat who's never run anything before (Chow), would have another option in Rae, and a much more competitive option (one could argue) than any other moderate member of city council today, none of whom has half of Rae's profile or experience.
Rae wouldn't need any time at all getting up to speed on the issues. The biggest issue is transit and infrastructure, and he was the premier who 20 years ago tried to get subways built in Toronto, started the process, only to see Mike Harris' government cancel the projects citing lack of money to complete them. If Rae did become mayor, he could actually finish what he started.

However...

No list of compelling reasons to run is ever complete without looking at the other side of the ledger, which may include:

Rae may have had enough of public life. Although I'm convinced there's no other private sector job out there that could hold his interest in a way a chief executive's job has and could in politics, he may simply want to slow down, scale back, join some boards, play some golf, and do other things.
A Rae candidacy would make the NDP in Toronto go bananas. He is still a lightning rod for many New Democrats who think he abandoned the party for the Liberals strictly for reasons of personal political expediency. The campaign would be nasty.
The biggest obstacle: the love of Rae's life, his wife Arlene Perley Rae, who almost ripped my head off when I put the suggestion to her several months ago.

So there it is: the pros and cons of a Bob Rae mayoral candidacy. The next election isn't until October 2014, so Rae has plenty of time to float some trial balloons and see whether they'll fly.

I have no idea what Rae will do. But I do know this: the next Toronto mayor's race will have less to do with left vs. right and more to do with competence versus incompetence. Rae is coming off of a particularly well-respected run as interim Liberal leader. In addition, the city's moderate forces will be looking for a champion to avoid the more polarizing choice of Ford vs. Chow.

Bob Rae: are you that candidate?

One of the Great Red Tories Passes On

Steve Paikin — Thu, 04 Apr 13 08:23:37 GMT

Update: In the span of a week, several notable Canadian politicians have passed away. In addition to the obituary of former provincial cabinet minister Robert Elgie below, Steve Paikin has written about an interview he did with the late Alberta premier Ralph Klein and his memories of late NDP MPP Peter Kormos.

It's hard to become a lawyer. It's even harder to become a brain surgeon.

Robert Elgie was both.

Had he stayed in either one of those fields, he'd have made a fortune and lived a very nice life. Instead, he gave it all up to run for provincial parliament in 1977 because he believed in public service and had a heart as big and booming as his voice.

Robert Goldwin Elgie has died at age 84. He'd been battling declining health over the past few years and passed away in his sleep around midnight today, April 4, 2013.

He was one of the most brilliant and compassionate MPPs Queen's Park has ever known.

Elgie, whose father was an MPP before him, was decidedly on the "progressive" side of the Progressive Conservative Party. As minister of labour in the William Davis government, he had excellent relationships with the union leaders of the day and saw himself as labour's advocate at the cabinet table. Some of his best friends in the legislature were in the NDP, members such as Eli Martel (father of former MPP Shelley, father-in-law to former NDP leader Howard Hampton).

One day, Premier Davis told Elgie he needed to shuffle the cabinet and wanted to move Elgie into consumer and commercial affairs. Elgie begged to be left in labour.

"Premier, there's just one more big thing I really want to get done. Can't you leave me in Labour?" Elgie pleaded.

"Robert," Davis responded, "I think we've tested the Tory core just about enough."

Great Red Tory pals Roy McMurtry and Bob Elgie

Elgie moved to commercial affairs just in time to be smacked with one of the biggest trust company scandals in Ontario history. Books have been written about the scheme which saw some wheeler-dealers buy some of Ontario's longest-lasting, most stable trust companies, then run them like ponzi schemes. The government intervened, seizing the assets of Greymac, Crown, and Seaway Trust companies, some went to jail, and through it all, Elgie was on his feet in the legislature every day answering questions about a financial scandal few understood but knew what was happening wasn't good.

When Davis retired from politics in 1985, Elgie supported Roy McMurtry to replace him. The two remained long-time close friends. In fact, McMurtry, the former attorney-general and chief justice of Ontario, paid what he suspected would be a final visit to Elgie at his home in Keswick just a couple of weeks ago. The picture below captures the last moment the two men ever had. "I love you old friend," were McMurtry's last words to Elgie.

In their last moment together, Roy McMurtry comforts his old friend Robert Elgie.

After the 1985 election which saw the 42-year-old Tory dynasty end and the David Peterson Liberals take over, Elgie resigned his York East seat and became head of the Workers' Compensation Board, as it was then called.

Later, he moved down east and became the first director of Dalhousie University's Health Law Institute from 1991 until 1996. He was also chair of the Patent Medicine Prices Review Board from 1995 to 2005. And he chaired the Ontario Press Council right up to his death. He just loved being involved in public policy, which animated him far more than making millions ever could.

Elgie was a stark opponent of the PC Party's rightward turn in 1995 when Mike Harris took over. He had no time for the Reform Party or its successor, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. He saw these parties dividing people along ideological lines. He thought they only represented their core vote and didn't adequately care about bringing everyone into the tent.

Bob Elgie goes back to a time when politics was more cordial, on all sides of the house. Here he is with former Ontario Premier David Peterson.

His disaffection for more small "c" conservative politics extended to his children. He and his wife Nancy had five children. Peter was a former Green Party candidate. Stuart has long been courted by the Liberals to run. And Nancy continues to be a trustee on the York Region District School Board to this day.

Nancy Elgie, right, with Ria McMurtry

Bob Elgie lived a great life. He saw it as his duty to give back. Luckily for the rest of us, he did in spades

Bob Elgie with one of his neighbors in Keswick, former Ontario PC leader John Tory, in 2010.

Elgie loved to golf. Here he is with John Tory in 2009.

The Most Competitive Race in Generations

Steve Paikin — Wed, 03 Apr 13 14:09:33 GMT

They say in politics that Job One of every new leader is to make people forget all the things they didn't like about the old leader.

Fresh polling data suggests Ontario's 25th premier is doing a pretty formidable job of making people forget what they didn't like about their 24th premier.

Wednesday night on The Agenda, at 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. EDT on TVO, Greg Lyle joins us. Lyle is one of the nation's leading market research firm owners (Innovative Research Group) and sharpened his chops while trying to get Mike Harris elected almost two decades ago.

His most recent surveys show a competitive landscape at Queen's Park the likes of which we haven't seen in generations. And it's mostly because Ontarians so far seem to like what they're seeing from their new premier.

Dig below the surface of those numbers and here's what else you'll find: Kathleen Wynne's leadership has taken the Liberals from being a party many people would never consider voting for again to one that's back in the game.

Part of the reason may be: people seem to fancy having a female premier for the first time ever.

Another reason may be: Wynne appears to be fixing the problem that voters identified as their number-one irritant:

Lyle has other numbers that show the public's anger with the Liberals seems to have gone out the door with Dalton McGuinty. Their ire over the Mississauga gas plant cancellation to save Liberal seats, or the proroguing of the legislature, apparently to avoid contempt hearings against the energy minister, has dissipated with Wynne's ascension.

But, lest the Liberals get too cocky too soon, this last chart shows a potentially lurking concern.

While Tim Hudak appears to have sealed the deal with the 32 per cent of voters who call themselves "conservatives," and Andrea Horwath has done likewise with the 22 per cent who self-identify as "core left," the Liberals are still fishing in at least three different ponds, and there's no guarantee they're securing those "business liberals," "left liberals," or "moderate levelers."

All three groups are still open to being persuaded, whereas the core of the PCs and NDP are firmly with that party, and are more likely to show up on election day, whenever that is.

So, yes, Wynne has done everything you'd want a new leader to do: changed the channel on the old leader's perceived sins, cleaned up the extracurriculars mess also provoked by her predecessor, and got the Liberals back in contention, all in just three months.

But now she needs her supporters to be just as determined to get the Liberals re-elected as the PCs and NDP have convinced their supporters to get rid of the Liberals.

And that sale hasn't been made yet.

Update: You can watch Steve's interview with Greg Lyle of Innovative Research Group below.

Our One Interview with Ralph Klein

Steve Paikin — Tue, 02 Apr 13 11:02:42 GMT

Our one interview with Ralph Klein, the late former Alberta premier, took place in 1997. Klein discussed a variety of issues, including whether he was the man to "unite the right," and whether Alberta's success at balancing its books could last.

The Peter Kormos I Knew

Steve Paikin — Tue, 02 Apr 13 06:32:40 GMT

More than two decades ago, when I was working in the parliamentary bureau of CBC-TV, I got my first taste of something called the Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner. The idea was for journalists to invite a politician as their "date," and for one night, everyone would sheathe their swords and just enjoy some good fellowship. But since I'd only just arrived in Ottawa and knew no one on The Hill, I pulled a bit of an audible.

I decided to invite not a national politician, but a provincial one I knew, from covering Queen's Park.

That politician was Peter Kormos, the NDP member for the riding that was then called Welland-Thorold. Kormos had just been dumped from cabinet for, among other things, posing as a Sunshine Boy in the Toronto Sun, and basically giving then-premier Bob Rae a hard time at every turn. He never could make the transition from hard-charging opposition rabble-rouser to cabinet member and player on the Bob Rae team. And once in October 1991, on the first anniversary of their election victory, when Rae announced he was cancelling the government's plans to bring in public auto insurance -- a policy terribly near and dear to Kormos' heart -- the gloves were off. Rae's and Kormos' personal and professional relationship was toast.

But I felt bad for Kormos because just five months after getting into cabinet, Rae fired him. So I invited him as my guest to the dinner, figuring he needed a bit of a lifeline.

He wasn't the only politician at that dinner who needed a lifeline. As we walked into the Parliament Buildings for the event, who should we bump into but Jean Charest. The previous year, Charest had been fired from Brian Mulroney's cabinet for approaching a judge about a case on which the judge was ruling. Charest was one of the youngest cabinet ministers ever appointed, and he was only 30 years old when he made this mistake.

As we all checked in, I looked at Kormos and Charest standing side-by-side and couldn't help myself.

"I don't know if you two have ever met, but you should meet," I said. "You seem to have something in common."

I think they laughed. And Kormos went on to have a good night with many people chatting him up and commiserating with him. Kormos had that effect on people. You knew when he was in the room. His unpredictability made him the kind of guy you couldn't help but watch. What fascinating (or crazy) thing will Peter Kormos do next, people often wondered?

You've no doubt read many good things about Peter Kormos since the news of his tragically premature death at age 60, and I wouldn't take a single one of those stories off of his official record. My friend Jim Coyle did a superb piece in the Toronto Star, if you missed it.

But I'd add a few other observations to that record that reflect both positively, and not so positively, on Kormos' life.

First, he could be the most loyal of friends. When his fellow MPP Shelley Martel was in the crosshairs of a stupid scandal, sadly of her own making, she had no more loyal friend in caucus than Peter Kormos. Martel was a young minister. She made a dumb mistake, then compounded it by offering to take a lie detector test to prove not that she was telling the truth, but rather, that she was lying. Critics and journalists had a field day with her, but Kormos was like her big brother and stuck with her, constantly defending her.

And, in fact, when the Rae government was defeated and they were both back on the opposition side of the house again, Kormos and Martel went on to do good opposition work exposing the shortcomings of the Family Responsibility Office, complete with hidden cameras and other sleuthing techniques.

That loyalty not only made Kormos an invaluable friend to Martel, but also to her husband, who happened to be Howard Hampton, the Ontario NDP leader. Hampton would show his gratitude by making Kormos the NDP's house leader.

And even after Kormos' provincial political career was over in 2011, many people found it wonderful that he got himself elected a few months later to his local municipal council because he still felt he had a contribution to make. The relatively new member for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, Paul Miller, was grateful that Kormos showed him the ropes over the years.

Yes, Kormos could be a real pal.

However ...

What hasn't shown up in the commentary of the past few days since Kormos' death -- and it's understandable: who wants to speak ill of the dead? -- was the other side of Kormos' personality. During his time as house leader, MPPs from all sides of the house frequently complained to me that Kormos was plain and simply impossible to work with. I had more than one MPP tell me, "Steve, the guy is crazy. And I don't mean funny crazy. He's a lunatic."

They complained he took his maverick status too far. You'd think you had a deal with him to proceed on a certain bill and then, poof, he'd take it back and you were back to square one.

Peter Kormos was always a very tightly wound-up guy. You could see that every time he was on TV. Part of that was that he truly did burn when he saw injustice and wanted to right it.

Peter Kormos on The Agenda, May 16, 2011.

But in the interests of a more complete picture, it needs to be said: in addition to being loyal to his friends, out there for the little guy, and having a great talent for bringing attention to an issue he cared about, Peter Kormos was also capable of being just incredibly strange. Sometimes it looked like the devil was inside him. And I guess that's another part of what made him so interesting to cover over the past two and a half decades.

So, Toronto: Do You Want a Casino?

Steve Paikin — Thu, 28 Mar 13 09:13:52 GMT

The first thing you have to know about Rod Phillips is that he's an immensely likeable guy, which makes him the perfect pitch man to move one of Ontario's most controversial policies ever to fruition.

Phillips is CEO of Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), and as such, is responsible for remitting as much money as possible to the provincial treasury. These days, that's getting harder to do. Casinos aren't the magic bullet they once were 20 years ago, when Ontario's first one was established in Windsor. Now, it seems, everyone's got one.

And that's not OLG's only problem. Much of its casino infrastructure is in need of a $1-billion facelift, and the province wants the private sector to pay the freight on that, in exchange for getting to run the thing. And, at a speech to the Economic Club of Canada on Wednesday, Phillips acknowledged: "We have a paper-based system in a smartphone age. OLG's competition is online. OLG isn't, and the money is going offshore."

So, what's the big idea for increasing revenue? You've heard all about it: Putting a casino in downtown Toronto.

Rod Phillips, CEO of OLG, making the case for a Toronto casino at the Economic Club of Canada.

Phillips has been making the rounds, trying to convince audiences that this can work for everyone. "Casinos are about [9,000] to 12,000 permanent jobs, paying $50,000 a year, not to mention the construction jobs, too," he says.

And what about the fears that Toronto's casino will suck all the life off the street and ruin the neighborhood?

Phillips has an answer for that. Toronto will not be like Atlantic City (population 280,000) with 13 casinos and no street life, he insists. Think Melbourne, Australia (population four million), with its one giant casino and plenty of restaurants and attractions nearby.

Back in the day, OLG meant people turning on their television sets to watch hosts Fred Davis and Fay Dance announce the winning lottery numbers. Remember the slogan? "Tuesday we bowl, Thursday we Wintario," referring to one of the popular games. Today, OLG remits more revenue (almost $2 billion annually) to the treasury than any other government agency. And while 39 municipalities in Ontario have said "yes" to siting casinos (including some that had previously voted "no" in referenda), Toronto is still the big enchilada, and opinion is decidedly mixed.

Yes, Markham, Vaughan, Kitchener-Waterloo and perhaps a few other suburban locations are still in the mix, but make no mistake: OLG wants downtown Toronto. So does MGM, apparently the leading proponent to build and run the thing. So does the mayor. So does the union representing the potential employees.

But lots of "old city" councillors don't. Neither does David Mirvish, whose theatre and development empire (he believes) would be decimated by a casino. Neither does Liberty Village near Exhibition Place, which sees only negative consequences to its neighborhood, being so close to a giant casino. Neither do the anti-gambling/addiction forces. And, frankly, although she's never come straight out and said it, neither does Premier Kathleen Wynne seem very enthused.

So, lucky for Rod Phillips that he's such an amiable guy. He's going to need all his skill and charm to pull this one off.

Phillips was once executive assistant to Mel Lastman when he was mayor of North York.

"Making Mel Lastman look good was never hard," he says. Siting a casino in downtown Toronto is proving to be harder.

The Amazing Lakes

Steve Paikin — Tue, 26 Mar 13 13:51:29 GMT

Last April, the Lake family visited us at TVO, in advance of World Autism Day, to talk about how autism has affected their lives.

Mike Lake is an MP from Edmonton. His wife Deb somehow runs their lives. Jaden, their son, is 17, has autism, and doesn't speak. And Jenae is his sister, who is 13 going on 30. She's had to grow up more quickly than most because her brother's disabilities are sometimes quite profound.

We were delighted to have the Lakes visit us before, and this time, we included Jenae in the conversation because the impact autism has on siblings is worth examining as well. One family's story. Powerful as hell. Watch it above.

The Liberals Pad Their War Chest

Steve Paikin — Thu, 21 Mar 13 07:17:55 GMT

Premier Kathleen Wynne speaks to her first Heritage Dinner, the Ontario Liberal Party's top fundraising event.

It seems beyond dispute now that Kathleen Wynne won the Ontario Liberal leadership in January in large measure because of her commitment to reach out to the opposition parties, in hopes of keeping this parliament (and by extension, this government) alive.

And during her first speech as premier to the Liberals' Heritage Dinner, Wynne kept that mantra going.

She pledged to "keep smiling" across the floor of the legislature, to do her level best to take the poison out of politics, and to "keep having those conversations" that she hopes will allow this parliament to live on.

So it was with more than a few raised eyebrows that the media watched Premier Wynne walk into her post-speech press conference, not by herself as she does to all her other press conferences, but rather, flanked by her two election co-chairs, deputy premier Deb Matthews and former MPP and party president Tim Murphy.

Why was the premier flanked by her two election co-chairs?

After several reporters' questions about various issues raised in her speech, I couldn't resist the temptation to ask, "Premier, why are your election co-chairs standing up there with you?"

After a few chuckles by all three of the people behind the microphone, the premier acknowledged what that image was intended to convey: that yes, cooperation and conversations come first, but if the budget doesn't pass, the Liberals will be ready to march back to the polls in hopes of winning their fourth consecutive election.

Optics are important at these kinds of events, and for the Grits, Wednesday night's dinner provided a mixed bag. If you're in the business of raising money for your party, one can't help but be impressed at the sight of a government, under siege on several fronts, still managing to get 2,000 people into the Metro Toronto Convention Centre at $1,200 a head. That's an astonishing haul for a party that for several years now has barely captured the support of one-third of the electorate (although luckily for the Grits, it peaked at 37.6 per cent on election day in 2011).

It certainly says to the two other parties at Queen's Park, don't underestimate us. You may think you have us on our heels over the gas plant cancellation fiasco, a weak economy, and still massive annual deficits. But we can still fill the biggest room in the province and raise a ton of dough.

Having said that, the crowd was flat. Premier Wynne entered the room with her leadership campaign theme song "Raise Your Glass" blasting in the background, but it elicited not much reaction from the crowd. The premier, over the course of running for the leadership, has become a much better speaker. Her authenticity and sunny disposition really pour forth now. She's gotten better at talking about policy without drowning her audience in minutiae that make their eyes glaze over.

But it must also be said that she wasn't interrupted too often by applause, and when she was, it wasn't that enthusiastic. There may be a few potential explanations. The event was running late and by the time the premier had finished speaking, it was already 8:00 p.m., and by then, people just want to eat. They've heard enough. It's also true that the acoustics in that room tend to have a deadening effect. And I suspect there were a ton of lobbyists there, who simply wouldn't get terribly enthusiastic about anyone's speech.

Knowing how cynical people are about politics these days, I asked Premier Wynne in her post-speech press conference whether her citizen activist side felt at all uncomfortable about all the money being raised.

"Would it be better to have public financing of election campaigns" to avoid the specter of all this lobbying money trying to influence government policy, I asked?

Her answer surprised me. "There's a lot of different kinds of energy that show up at election time," she said. "Some people are happy to knock in election signs, others make phone calls at a candidates' headquarters, and others still like to write a cheque. And I'm comfortable with any way people want to participate."

Two thousand people were at Wednesday night's dinner, including two former speakers of the legislature:

Left to right: Steve Peters and Alvin Curling.

Since we don't have a Citizens United-like decision from our Supreme Court in this country, I wonder whether banning private donations and having our campaigns publicly funded would take some of the cynicism out of politics. There is certainly a perception among many that casino lobbyists are having an unhealthy influence on our politics today.

Seems like good fodder for a future program.

Do Our Discussions Discriminate Against Indigenous Canadians?

Steve Paikin — Wed, 20 Mar 13 13:05:03 GMT

Do the discussions we conduct on The Agenda discriminate against indigenous Canadians? I've never thought so. But Alice Williams disagrees, and she gave me an earful when we took our program to Peterborough in early March.

Here's the issue: We conducted a discussion one Saturday afternoon on the campus of Trent University about how well the Ontario education system teaches aboriginal history. We had three guests (one professor, two students), all of whom were indigenous Canadians. They all agreed the system could use significant improvements. If you missed it, you can listen to podcasts of the discussion.

We then opened up the discussion to questions from the audience. Like most Canadian audiences, it was a bit like pulling teeth to get someone to go first. Canadians are like that. They're polite and they don't want to seem like microphone hogs. But after some cajoling from yours truly, a line did form, and we were off to the races. Nearly everyone who asked a question was white.

After the formal part of the program was over, I was approached by a member of the audience. It was Alice Williams, a well-known person on Trent's campus. Williams, of Curve Lake, just north of Peterborough, is honourary "artist-in-residence" at Champlain College, one of six colleges at Trent. She's a well-known quilter who brings traditional native art into her textile work.

"Your discussions discriminate against my people," she told me, with no attempt at any diplomatic niceties. "What are you going to do about it?"

I confess, one of the things I love about taking The Agenda on the road is the feedback we get from those we serve. And as odd as it may sound, I even like being on the receiving end of blistering criticism.

"How exactly are we discriminating against you?" I asked.

"When you opened it up to questions from the floor, you're favouring 'the whites,'" Williams said.

"How so?" I protested. "It's first come, first served. We don't favour or discriminate against anyone asking anything."

"You're wrong," Williams replied. "Your white culture tends to jump at an open microphone. Mine doesn't. We are more reserved. We tend to hold back. That's our way. We let others go first. Then time's up and we don't get our say."

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" I asked.

"I have no idea," she said. "That's your problem!"

For me, it was a fascinating exchange and opened my eyes to a problem I didn't even know existed. Were we, in fact, discriminating against indigenous Canadians by virtue of our "first come, first served" policy of questions from the floor? I'd never thought so. Frankly, I'd always thought that was the most democratic way to handle things.

Williams and I continued talking. I suggested the following:

"Would it improve things when conducting discussions involving indigenous Canadians to reserve a handful of spots off the top exclusively for indigenous Canadians to ask questions?" I asked.

"It might," she said. "That might work for my people."

"Well, what if no one comes forward?" I asked. "Five minutes of dead air waiting for someone to come forward doesn't work for my people -- that's television people," I said.

"I don't know," Williams finally said. "You figure it out."

Interesting conundrum. So let me get your advice dear reader: what would you do?

Who is Tim Hudak Preaching To?

Steve Paikin — Mon, 18 Mar 13 15:53:38 GMT

Tim Hudak has been leader of the opposition for almost four years now.

People who follow Queen's Park remember what the polls said in the summer of 2011. Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives had a 15-point lead on Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, and seemed a sure bet to take over the government of Ontario.

But then the campaign happened and when they counted the votes on October 6, 2011, somehow Hudak ended up in second place, garnering less than four points more than the ill-fated 2007 Tory campaign. The only silver lining was that McGuinty was held one seat short of a majority government.

There were criticisms aplenty of what went wrong in that election, including policy offerings that weren't conservative enough, or were too cute by half (chain gangs), or simply that the leader wasn't ready. Nevertheless, Hudak convinced almost 80 per cent of his party to give him another chance and he survived a leadership review.

Based on the plethora of policy that Hudak has unveiled over the past year, you'd have to say he will never again be accused of not being faithful to Ontario's small-c conservative base. A dozen discussion papers on everything from energy, to health, to agricultural, to pension policy have clearly indicated that Hudak intends to plant the PC flag resolutely and unapologetically to the right of Ontario's political spectrum.

And that's why Hudak's numbers have been stuck in the low thirties ever since. He has kept faith with the base. But it's an open question as to whether he has done so at the expense of reaching out to the other two-thirds of Ontarians, at least some of whom he'll need to bring over to his corner if he's to become premier in the next election.

Given that the obvious scenario going forward is a Liberal-NDP entente, Hudak's only hope of losing the opposition leader's job and moving into the premier's office is to win a majority government. That means finding at least another 6 per cent support, and maybe more.

Is it possible? Of course it is. Stephen Harper managed to find 73 seats for his brand of conservatism in Ontario in the 2011 federal election. Somehow, Hudak could only find 37 seats in the same province in the same year. So we know there are more Ontarians that are prepared to vote Conservative, even in the 416 ridings of Toronto. It's just that so far, they've been unwilling to put that check mark beside Hudak's brand of conservatism.

It's hard to see where Hudak picks up that next chunk of support to become premier. He's clearly targeted public sector employees, their unions, and teachers in particular, as fat cats, enjoying benefits we can no longer afford at everyone else's expense. Monday morning, he went after the public sector again, saying there's a $100-billion "ticking time bomb" of unfunded pension liabilities owed to public sector employees. Hudak would attempt to defuse that bomb by making future employees ineligible to receive defined benefit pension plans, which are widely thought to be more generous than alternative plans (defined contribution or pooled registered plans).

"The premier is out of touch with those who pay the bills," Hudak says. "Premier Wynne is in the pockets of the public sector union bosses."

The Liberals have countered saying they've just signed deals with several public sector unions, avoiding $1 billion in taxpayers' contributions to pension plans.

"You're just driving a wedge in society between those with and without good pensions," Premier Wynne responded during Question Period. "We want a comfortable retirement for everyone. That's the conversation we should be having. He's trying to create a rift between people who've worked for years and have bargained for particular benefits."

No one knows when the next election will take place. But one of the intriguing plot lines will be watching how and where the Ontario Progressive Conservatives think they can find that additional 6 per cent support. So far, all their policy pronouncements seem aimed at hanging on to the 33 per cent of the electorate they've already got.

Stephen Harper's Plans, Part II

Steve Paikin — Tue, 12 Mar 13 16:54:12 GMT

It seems we've learned something new here at The Agenda. Write a speculation piece about Stephen Harper's departure, and you get a flood of reaction.

For what it's worth, I wasn't predicting Harper would retire from public life this summer. I merely offered a case as to why he might consider it. Much of the feedback I got personally suggested the notion that Harper would leave soon was ridiculous. Rather than potentially secure his legacy by leaving "on top" this summer, these folks insisted Harper would stay in office as long as he could.

"He'll try to challenge Mackenzie King for longest-serving prime minister ever," one said. (King became prime minister at age 47, and served 22 years -- the longest ever premiership in Commonwealth history. Harper was 46 when he first became prime minister. He's currently ninth on the all-time list at just over seven years as prime minister.)

The longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history: William Lyon Mackenzie King.

Here's some of the reaction we received to the original blog post:

Not likely ... because he is such a control-freak, "uber-competitive" as you say, that it will be damn difficult to pry his hands off the reins of power. He likes it too much, to the detriment of our nation.
Ridiculous article. The entire premise [Harper] will step down after 11 years or three terms because others have, is absurd. I'd look for him to be forced out due to contrary court cases, forced out by the power grabbers in his own party he's managed to keep under his thumb all this time, or (please let this be) the police show up and arrest him for fraud. Any of those things are more likely to pull him down early than any of the ridiculous reasons the author of this fluff presents. Mr. Harper loves power, he will not be willingly divorced from it.
An interesting train of ideas. I'm not sure that he cares about beating St. Laurent, but he may care very much about beating Mulroney (only another couple of months at eight years, 281 days).
Historically, Harper had set two clear goals for himself and the Conservative party: [1.] Destroy the Liberal Party of Canada; [2.] Reform the Senate. If he resigns in the summer of 2013, he is leaving the return to power of the Liberal Party as a very possible outcome in 2015. Current polls show that the Liberals under Trudeau would win power. Secondly, Harper will have accomplished nothing to reform the Senate. All he will have done is fill the Senate with Conservative hacks -- a big patronage "thank you" for the likes of Mike Duffy (former media hack), Doug Finley (former Conservative Party election strategist), Irving Gerstein (former Conservative Party fundraising chief), etc. In conclusion, if Harper quits in 2013, he will be going down in self-defeat, having accomplished nothing he set out to do when he entered politics.
There are NO signs he is stepping down, and NO ONE in the Conservative Party wants him to. In fact, there is every sign he is going to continue through the next election and possibly the next after that. If you had researched the fundraising of the Conservatives, you would know ... Prime Minister Harper is a key to the organization. Quebecers are fickle, the rest of Canada is very cautious. It takes a long time to change the direction of a party. It took the Conservatives a decade of reorganizing after the disaster of [Kim] Campbell, she and the infighting in the ranks lost it more than Mulroney. The Liberals are on their way out unless they reorganize, Trudeau is the past, not the future, so they are likely toast. He is like a shot of morphine to the dying.
Harper won't step down. His hubris won't let him and he loves power too much to just give it up.
Quite logical, except I predict his retirement date to be a bit further off. A year ago I wrote: "In November 2014, after eight years as prime minister and 12 years as party leader, lagging in the polls behind Tom Mulcair, Stephen Harper (then 55) announces his resignation as Conservative Party leader. The party decides to choose a new leader in April 2015, six months before the election due October 19, 2015."

But perhaps he will retire while he's still ahead? Who are the contenders? Peter MacKay, John Baird, Tony Clement, Jean Charest, Jason Kenney, Lisa Raitt, Alison Redford, Maxime Bernier, Bernard Lord, Christian Paradis, James Moore, Jim Prentice?

Harper was sworn in as the 22nd prime minister on February 6, 2006. How long can he go?

Since I wrote that piece, the Toronto Star has weighed in with its own speculation piece by Tim Harper (no relation to the prime minister) about possible up-and-coming contenders. And my hunch is, you'll start to see more of these stories in the days ahead, because the reality is, Harper is running up against the traditional and typical leadership clock. Voters, cabinet ministers, backbenchers, and civil servants all start looking for a signal after a leader has had the job for a decade. Is he doubling down and staying, or getting ready to stage manage a smooth exit?

We'll keep watching ...

The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How Kathleen Wynne Won

Steve Paikin — Tue, 12 Mar 13 16:13:17 GMT

Tom Allison, campaign manager for the victorious Kathleen Wynne campaign for the 2013 Ontario Liberal leadership.

Tom Allison was the campaign manager of the most historic leadership convention victory in Ontario history.

Here's how he helped make Kathleen Wynne the 25th premier of Ontario. Tom and I did a sit-down interview for the Economic Club of Canada. The conversation was filled with many of those behind-the-scenes stories political junkies just love to soak up. Listen:

Queen's Park Check-In

Steve Paikin — Mon, 11 Mar 13 12:04:57 GMT

Liberal David Herle and conservative John Mykytyshyn are among the sharpest observers of politics in this country. I sat down with them to analyze the latest political news out of Queen's Park:

Why Stephen Harper May Step Down This Summer

Steve Paikin — Thu, 07 Mar 13 17:55:22 GMT

Jean ChrÃ©tien may have been at the nadir of his popularity and effectiveness when he left public life. But he knew to get out while he was still undefeated, after three consecutive majority government victories, and with Paul Martin on the verge of taking over his party.

Dalton McGuinty also knew when to leave --- after three consecutive election wins (the first Ontario Liberal premier to do that in 128 years), and before losing the confidence of the minority parliament.

The list continues: William Davis, Peter Lougheed, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, Frank McKenna, John Robarts, Leslie Frost, Gordon Campbell --- all first ministers who left their jobs on their terms, rather than running the risk of having the voters show them the door (although in some cases such as Davis, Lougheed, and Robarts, the possibility of that happening was next to nil).

Will Stephen Harper, like former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, retire from public life after three consecutive wins?

Every good first minister has his or her eye on the clock. They have to. They need to consider whether they have another gruelling election campaign in them, and whether they can continue to govern for another three or four years thereafter.

Stephen Harper is one of the smartest political tacticians ever to live at 24 Sussex. And so, the following will not have escaped his attention:

* This summer, Harper will have been a member of parliament for eleven consecutive years and 15 altogether (he served a previous term from 1993-97, before leaving, temporarily as it turns out).

* This summer, Harper will have been leader of his party (Canadian Alliance/Conservative) for eleven years.

* This summer, Harper will have been prime minister for seven-and-a-half years, which may not sound like a long time, but it puts him in ninth place (out of 22 PMs) overall in terms of tenure. He'd have to spend another year and a half in office to pass Louis St. Laurent, who's eighth on the list.

* This summer, the Conservatives would still have almost two more years in power before having to call an election. Assuming a nine month long leadership campaign culminating in a leadership convention in the spring of 2014, that would still give Harper's successor almost a year to put his/her own stamp on the party. Previous leaders who have inherited their first ministers' positions have complained about not having enough time to establish a relationship with the voters (think Kim Campbell in 1993 or John Turner in 1984). A summertime departure for Harper would provide adequate time for his successor.

However...

Having said all that, let's acknowledge that Stephen Harper clearly enjoys the job and unlike many politicians who've been around for a while, doesn't appear to have any burning desire to leave to make his fortune in the private sector.

Harper also has no obvious successor who is nipping at his heels to get out, unlike the Jean ChrÃ©tien-Paul Martin situation. And we know he is an uber-competitive type, who may relish an election fight against two new opponents (Tom Mulcair and presumably Justin Trudeau).

On April 30, Harper will turn 54 years old --- in some respects, an ideal age to leave on top having won three consecutive elections and refashioned the country in a significant way. He's young and vigorous enough to embark on a new career.

If this scenario has occurred to me, you can bet it's occurred to others in Ottawa, who will be looking for every little clue to see whether the PM is tipping his hand. One sign could be Harper's travel schedule. Outgoing leaders love to take one last trip around the globe as a kind of farewell tour.

Has Stephen Harper got a fifth election campaign as leader in him?

I have no idea what the PM is going to do. But I do know he's a man who would prefer to go out on top, rather than through an election defeat. There's only one way to ensure that, and that's leave before that 2015 grand consultation with the people.

But maybe, just maybe, he'd relish the chance to take on the son of Pierre Trudeau, and finally bury the Liberal Party of Canada for good. Fun maybe, but also awfully risky. Canadians, as we saw in the last election, can be a fickle bunch and who knows, even if they're relatively satisfied with the Conservatives, they may just want something new.

Let's watch it all unfold.

Guest Post: The Caretaker Convention: Part II

Steve Paikin — Tue, 05 Mar 13 12:36:27 GMT

Mel Cappe was Clerk of the Privy Council -- Ottawa's highest-ranking civil servant -- during the latter years of Jean ChrÃ©tien's prime ministership. Below is his view of whether former premier Dalton McGuinty violated Canadian constitutional norms by cancelling the Mississauga gas plant in the dying days of the 2011 election campaign.

There is nothing clear about the Caretaker Convention. I have always been of the view that it requires judgment and that each circumstance is different.

One of the principles is that with the support of the opposition, you can take irretrievable action. As you note in the piece, the opposition was clearly of the view that [the gas plant] should be cancelled. To acquiesce to the opposition during this Caretaker period would not be particularly controversial.

Moreover, it is unclear to me what was the status of the contract for the plants. When the decision to cancel was made, were the plants already under construction, or were they merely contractual obligations without action having been begun. Furthermore, there are precedents when contracts have been cancelled during the Caretaker period.

So it is not a slam dunk that it was inappropriate.

Once again, it requires judgment and honourable people to administer a principle of which the consequences of violating are merely political. I don’t believe a court would get in the way of decisions because they violated the principle. Rather, the opposition and/or the media would expose it and there would be (as there have been) political consequences.

[Steve Paikin's] strong, unwavering, and unequivocal position seems to be that it is unclear. I concur.

Here's a paper by Mel Cappe on the Caretaker Convention:

The Caretaker Convention in Canada

There is very little written on the Caretaker Convention in Canada. Aside from the lack of analysis, this means that conventional rules are ambiguous. They are inherently lacking in specificity and predictability and rely on judgment. They should. But they can be clarified and the principle better articulated.

The Caretaker Convention:

There are several different circumstances when the Caretaker Convention may apply. These include the period before the election after the writs are dropped, after the election when the outcome is clear, and after the election when it is not clear. The principle to be applied is "that governments act with restraint confining itself to necessary public business." This means there is a legal personality to the government, but no political legitimacy. The government of the day still has all authority in law. But it must be exercised subject to the principle of the supremacy of parliament. Since the confidence of the House cannot be assumed before the election, restraint is the watchword.

Governments should not make decisions that will unnecessarily bind or limit the freedom of an incoming government. Thus it is perfectly legitimate for the Caretaker government to make routine decisions. They can deal with non-controversial issues as before. They can treat urgent issues in the public interest. They can make decisions that are reversible without undue cost. They can make decisions after consultation with the official opposition, and in some circumstances, other parties.

Application or Lack Thereof:

Several times in our history the Caretaker Convention has been called into question. In 1896, Lord Aberdeen, the then Governor General, decided not to make appointments to the bench and to the Senate recommended by Charles Tupper’s government because of questions of legitimacy. They were decisions that were important and irrevocable and could wait for the results of the election. Similar refusals took place by the LG In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and QuÃ©bec in the 19^th century and early 20^th century. However, there are examples where an LG followed advice of a deposed government and did make such appointments. In 1984, Prime Minister Trudeau made several appointments prior to his successor, Prime Minister Turner, allowing them to go through after the call of the election and the dissolution of parliament. According to Brian Mulroney, during the televised debates Turner "had a choice" and should have advised the Governor General not to make the appointments. The 1981 referendum on sovereignty was important both for the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the reference, and its elaboration of the principles of conventions, as well as for the Export Development Corporation’s advertisements of "freedom" flying geese singing Oh Canada, that was seen to be a violation of the election Caretaker Convention principles that might or should apply to referenda.

In 1979 Prime Minister Clark decided not to proceed with a $2 billion contract for fighter jets as he announced his government had lost the confidence of the House and thus had not the authority to make the purchase. The most well known example was Prime Minister Campbell approving the contract of sale of Pearson airport after the dissolution of parliament, and then Prime Minister ChrÃ©tien cancelling the contract after the election because, according to him, the Caretaker Convention had not been respected. During the 1993 election, the conclusion of the NAFTA negotiations presented the government with a challenge in terms of briefing the opposition and preparing for the incoming government to actually sign an international agreement negotiated by its predecessor. In 2004, Prime Minister Martin attended the G7/8 meeting in Sea Island during the election campaign. Did this provide him a lift as an international statesman, or was it important for him to represent Canada. After the call of the election for January 2006, StÃ©phane Dion chaired the Montreal Climate Conference on a most controversial issue during the Caretaker period. And finally, there was the situation of the RCMP announcing a criminal investigation into the possible leak of budget material during the election campaign of 2005/6.

In each of these circumstances, whether followed or not, the Caretaker Convention arose as an issue of some import and controversy. In these circumstances, the public awareness and the development of precedents build up important understandings about the operation of the convention. These events have helped elaborate the Jennings rules on conventions as applied to the Caretaker Convention.

Issues:

1. The political good will that is required for its application is eroded by the long gaps in serial power-sharing among at least the two leading parties who thus lose appreciation of why it may be good governance.

2. Will officials and ministers sometimes bend over backwards to avoid controversy and not take decisions they should in order to demonstrate respect for the amorphous principles of the Caretaker Convention?

3. How broad is the definition of government as it applies to crown corporations and agencies? How can it apply to quasi-judicial bodies with regulatory authority?

4. How should law enforcement agencies behave during the caretaker period? Can they do business as usual?

5. How should agents of parliament behave who may be public political actors like the information commissioner, the auditor general, and parliamentary budget officer?

6. How will the likely continuation of minority governments make the Caretaker Convention more important and more difficult to administer?

7. If we developed a tradition of coalition, how would the Caretaker Convention or its practice have to adapt?

8. Does it apply during a referendum?

9. Is the Caretaker Convention stronger in application after a government loses the confidence of the House than if it calls an election on its own?

10. Is it weaker in application after the election where the result is clear and consultation with an incoming government is possible?

11. What about if a minister loses his seat but the government is returned?

12. How will it work in jurisdictions with fixed terms like Ontario or B.C.? How long before the election will it begin?

13. How can it apply during crises like 9/11 or the ice storm had they happened during the caretaker period?

14. How should public servants behave in regard to access to information during the caretaker period with respect to the release of sensitive issues on controversial subjects?

15. What appointments cannot wait? Are these circumstantial?

16. What kinds of normal advertising for service delivery should be able to proceed? What about CRA at tax time during an election period or Canadian Forces recruitment?

17. What should departments of government do or refrain from doing on their websites during an election period? What about social media?

18. How can officials brief opposition members during the caretaker period?

19. What is the role of Clerk of the Privy Council in "enforcing" the Caretaker Convention? What about deputy ministers? What about the Governor General?

20. How can the professional, non-partisan public service prepare for the next government while serving the government of the day in preparing new policies, costing opposition proposals, suggesting new approaches to delivery or cost cutting etc?

21. What if the government runs out of money voted by parliament during the caretaker period and has to use Governor General’s warrants? Are the rules of application clear in law? In politics?

22. What is the conventional application of collective responsibility of cabinet during the caretaker period?

23. What about exempt staff?

24. Can there ever be a codification of the Caretaker Convention that removes the need for judgment?

25. Which international meetings is it appropriate for ministers or the prime minister to attend?

Proposal:

1. The government should make public the existing guidelines it uses to advise ministers and senior officials as is done in Australia and New Zealand.

2. The prime minister should announce when he is deciding not to make a decision in application of the guidelines.

3. They should be deliberately updated to adapt to circumstances.

References:

Supreme Court of Canada, "Reference re a Resolution to amend the Constitution, [1981] 1 S.C.R. 753."

Davis, Glyn, Alice Ling, Bill Scales, and Roger Wilkins. "Rethinking Caretaker Conventions for Australian Governments." Australian Journal of Public Administration. 60.3 (2001): 11-26.

Hogg, Peter. "Constitutional Law in Canada," 1991.

Heard, Andrew. "Constitutional Conventions and Election Campaigns," Canadian Parliamentary Review, Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter 1995-96.

Heard, Andrew. "Canadian Constitutional Conventions: The Marriage of Law and Politics," 1991, Toronto.

Wilson, John. “Constitutional Conventions and election campaigns: The status of the caretaker convention in Canada," Canadian Parliamentary Review Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter 1995-96

Jaconelli, Joseph. "Do Constitutional Conventions Bind?", The Cambridge Law Journal, 64.1 (2005): 149-176.

Keating, Michael. "Caretaker Conventions Post an Election." Australian Journal of Public Administration.61.2 (2002): 119-120.

Tiernan, Anne, and Jennifer Menzies. "Caretaker Conventions in Australasia: Minding the Shop for Government," Canberra, ANU ePress. 2007.

Proceedings of the Special Senate Committee on the Pearson Airport Agreements, September 1995

Jack

Steve Paikin — Tue, 05 Mar 13 11:57:11 GMT

The lineup to see "Jack."

If you loved Jack Layton the man, you'll love Jack Layton the movie.

The biopic had its inaugural public screening Monday night at the Varsity Cinemas in downtown Toronto for an invitation-only crowd. That meant lots of New Democrats in the audience, all of whom knew the former NDP leader, who carried the party to its best ever showing in the 2011 federal election, then two months later appeared as a ghost-like shell of his former self on television to announce a new cancer had stricken him.

He died August 22, 2011 of a still undisclosed cancer.

The movie zigzags through Layton's life, from rookie Toronto city councillor to defeated mayoralty candidate, to NDP messiah. In some respects, the picture's political story is the subplot to the love story, which was Layton's marriage to fellow city councillor and then MP Olivia Chow.

"The film takes some poetic license," Chow said in remarks after the screening. "We never did kiss on the lips as much as the movie suggests."

When I pointed out to Chow that there was a semi-nude scene in the movie of Layton and her in bed together, she added, "there was a lot more of that!"

In fact, in talking to members of the cast afterwards, the film takes a lot of poetic license. Anne McGrath (played by Wendy Crewson) was Layton's chief of staff. She confirmed her character's constantly being surgically attached to her BlackBerry was accurate. She added, "But giving the candidate a day off in the middle of a campaign? I'd never have done that!"

The movie puts the NDP in third place (rather than fourth, which it really was) in the lead-up to the 2011 election. The debate preparations for that election didn't take place in party headquarters as the movie suggested. The lines Layton used in the leaders' debate, in particular the zinger aimed at Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's poor House of Commons attendance, wasn't nearly as spontaneous as the picture suggested, but rather was focus-group tested to the nines.

But these are picky points that only political pros will care about. The general public, particularly those that admired Layton, will be dazzled by Rick Roberts' performance. Roberts needed two hours to get his Layton-like prosthetic makeup on every day, and another hour to peel it off. In reality, he looks nothing like Layton, but in the movie, he absolutely captures the former politician to a tee.

In real life, Rick Roberts may have looked nothing like Jack Layton ...

... but after two hours of makeup and some excellent acting, he sure did (image credit: CBC).

Sook-Yin Lee, the broadcaster, musician, and actress, also captured Olivia Chow extremely effectively.

I spoke to all the real-life politicos after the movie was over, and to a person, they all said they were emotionally spent after watching the film.

The real life players. From left to right:

Layton's widow, MP Olivia Chow (in white); Brad Lavigne; Anne McGrath; Karl Belanger; Layton's children Mike and Sarah; and Brian Topp.

McGrath said, "I was bawling my eyes out the entire film. But to have had the privilege of working with Jack was an awesome experience. And I could relive it with this movie."

Brad Lavigne said, "This movie is a monument to the quiet soldiers who've had the privilege of working with Jack."

Brian Topp, party president at Layton's death and one of the candidates who tried to replace him, said he was "deeply grateful the movie was made. I found it emotionally draining. It's filled with once-in-a-lifetime moments. We'll never replace Jack. But let's continue the work."

Life meets art: the former NDP president Brian Topp, and Judah Katz, who plays him in the film.

It's also worth noting that partisan Liberals and Conservatives will probably not like the film. It does portray Layton in a singularly positive light, and because the CBC was a co-producer of the film, there is considerable footage of CBC newscasts frequently breaking positive news about the NDP leader. In other words, Sun TV is going to have a field day carving this thing up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

But even those that didn't like Layton have to give the man his due: he got further than any previous NDP leader ever did, and his tragic passing did touch an empathetic chord in many Canadians. And the film simply reflects that very human story.

Did Dalton McGuinty Have the Authority to Cancel the Mississauga Gas Plant?

Steve Paikin — Thu, 28 Feb 13 23:52:26 GMT

Ontario’s new premier, Kathleen Wynne, has now twice confirmed what most people already suspected. Both during our interview on The Agenda on February 22, then again during Question Period on February 28, Premier Wynne acknowledged that her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, made the decision to kill the Mississauga gas plant during the dying days of the 2011 election campaign for political, rather than scientific, reasons.

Has the former premier handed the new premier a poisoned chalice in the Mississauga gas plant fiasco?

Essentially, the former premier and his campaign director agreed that the best way to save a handful of seats in Mississauga and Etobicoke was to cancel the plant, and pay a huge financial penalty to the construction company. No one knows what that number will come in at, but estimates have ranged from $230 million to more than $1 billion.

The reaction at the time was swift and highly critical. While the premier said, "it’s never too late to do the right thing," most observers characterized the move as brazenly and crassly political, designed to pander to local voters. And it worked. The Liberals held all the seats they hoped to save by cancelling the plant.

(The opposition weren’t much better either, also promising to cancel the plant had they won.)

But here’s a new wrinkle on the story: did McGuinty have the moral or constitutional authority to make that decision?

In our Westminster system of government, there’s something called the Caretaker Convention. It’s not a hard and fast law, written into our constitution. But it is an age-old tradition, which in the Canadian context is a fundamental, legitimate, and fully constitutional part of our system of governance.

The Caretaker Convention suggests that once an election has been called, the premier of the day must avoid making any decisions of significance dealing with government policy. Yes, he’s still the premier, and yes, if a major emergency were to happen, he’d still be the guy responsible for dealing with that crisis.

But short of an emergency, the tradition -- the constitutional convention -- is that while the premier is campaigning for a new mandate, he won’t abuse the office he holds by making significant new policy pronouncements. That wouldn’t be fair to his opponents.

Did former premier Dalton McGuinty violate the Caretaker Convention?

Does the cancellation of the Mississauga gas plant rise to the level of "an emergency," requiring the premier to take urgent and immediate action? Seems pretty clear it doesn’t.

So, did McGuinty violate the Caretaker Convention? Obviously, I'm not adequately versed in these matters to come to a conclusion on that. But could you make a case that he did? Let the debate begin.

Let’s be clear: what McGuinty did, according to our traditions, was technically legal. Even though the legislature had been dissolved and the election campaign was on, he was still the premier.

Legal, but against our constitutional conventions?

But did he, according to our traditions, have the moral or constitutional authority to cancel the Mississauga plant? The answer to that seems more ambiguous.

Of course, one of the problems in trying to get more clarity on this issue is that the three most significant players in the gas plant fiasco are now all gone.

Dalton McGuinty is no longer premier (although he is still the MPP for Ottawa South). Dwight Duncan, the former finance minister, has quit politics entirely. Duncan was also chair of the management board of cabinet, and as such would have been required to approve an expenditure as vast as what will be needed to pay out the company whose contract was unilaterally abrogated. And, finally, the former energy minister, Chris Bentley, has also quit politics, although he has categorically stated neither he or his ministry had anything to do with the cancellation.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa's seat was saved thanks to the gas plant cancellation.

Ironically, it falls to two Mississaugans to fix this mess. Charles Sousa (MPP for Mississauga South) is the new finance minister. And Harinder Takhar (MPP for Mississauga-Erindale) is the new chair of the management board of cabinet. Their seats were saved, so the story goes, thanks to the gas plant cancellation. However, one could also argue that perhaps their seats are even more precarious now, given the explosive nature of this fiasco.

Maybe the chair of the management board of cabinet, Harinder Takhar's, was too.

Our system of governance relies on both the written legal word and traditional conventions for its legitimacy. Did former premier McGuinty violate one of those important conventions, when he cancelled the Mississauga gas plant?

On This Last Day of Black History Month

Steve Paikin — Thu, 28 Feb 13 18:33:38 GMT

Check out Trevor David's vision of a new AfriCana Village and Museum on Toronto's waterfront.

For more information, visit the AfriCana Village website.

Our Conversation with the Premier

Steve Paikin — Fri, 22 Feb 13 13:53:25 GMT

Kathleen Wynne will appear on The Agenda tonight in her first feature interview since becoming premier 11 days ago. We hope you'll watch at 8:00 or 11:00 p.m. EST, or watch the interview in full right now, above, and then share your views with us.

We've pulled a few clips from the interview, too, including an admission from Premier Wynne that the Mississauga gas plants were cancelled in the dying days of the 2011 election campaign for purely political reasons, and at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to Ontario taxpayers.

Ever since she won the Ontario Liberal leadership four weeks ago tomorrow, I've been asking virtually everybody how they think Wynne's doing. What's interesting is that, regardless of political stripe, I'm hearing the same thing over and over.

The day after Wynne won the convention, she held a news conference at a downtown Toronto hotel. After it was over, I bumped into a female teacher who had been protesting outside Maple Leaf Gardens the day before, to decry the government's Bill 115, which forced contract settlements on the province's elementary and secondary teachers. This teacher told me she had always voted NDP, but had to confess that she admired and respected Wynne so much that her vote might now be up for grabs.

I'm running into this everywhere. Cynics who hate politics have confessed they like what they see, that Wynne's obvious authenticity easily comes through the lens of the camera.

So it was with some interest that I read this morning's Forum Research poll, which essentially confirms (at least for this moment) all of what I've been hearing for the past month. Where the Liberals looked dead on arrival with Dalton McGuinty still at the helm, the party has indeed received a bump thanks to the leadership change. Forum says if an election were held today, the PCs would attract 36 per cent of the vote, followed by 29 per cent for the Liberals, and 28 per cent for the NDP. The Greens would attract 5 per cent support.

This suggests the Liberal bump in popularity has come almost entirely from the NDP, which has seen a corresponding drop.

Furthermore, where McGuinty's personal approval rating by the end had plummeted to 21 per cent, Wynne's is currently at 36 per cent. NDP leader Andrea Horwath still tops the charts at 49 per cent approval, while PC leader Tim Hudak still polls well behind his party in popularity, with just 27 per cent approving of the job he's doing.

I also frequently ask people whether Ontario needs a "clarifying" election. Are people champing at the bit to have a vote and get rid of the Liberals, who've been in power for nine straight years? Most folks tell me no, and the Forum poll confirms that. Just 34 per cent of Ontarians now want an election (essentially the PC vote), down from a significant 48 per cent who wanted one before Wynne took over. Now, 59 per cent see no need for an election, up from 45 per cent.

In other words, Wynne's mantra of trying to make this parliament work seems to be catching on.

Now, before the Liberals get all giddy about these numbers, let's remember a few other things.

Kim Campbell took over from a very unpopular PC Party leader in Brian Mulroney in 1993 and immediately enjoyed a bump in support as Canada's first female prime minister. But it didn't take long for a combination of her own missteps and Mulroney's legacy to torpedo that bump. It's a cautionary tale for Wynne, who's enjoying similar circumstances today.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath wants a full-blown public inquiry into the gas plant fiasco.

The Ontario Liberals saw yet another stink bomb dropped on them on Thursday, when officials from the Ontario Power Authority had to admit they'd screwed up yet again, and found a third tranche of documents related to the Mississauga gas plant cancellation fiasco. New leaders can ill afford to have these kinds of surprises, reminiscent of the bad old days, constantly dropped on them.

MPP Vic Fedeli (PC - Nipissing) alleges political interference and ultimately sky-high costs to taxpayers thanks to the decision to scrap the Mississauga gas plant.

Two legislative committees are going to study the gas plant situation going forward, which virtually guarantees several months of negative headlines. The danger for Wynne is that the public may not care that these sins were actually committed by the McGuinty government rather than Wynne's government. The cast of characters running the show may be quite different today than it was 11 days ago when Wynne was sworn in as premier, but the reality is, they're all still Liberals.

Canada's 21st prime minister, Paul Martin, found his efforts to be transparent ultimately did him no good at all.

And let's not forget that it was a furious Paul Martin who took over from Jean ChrÃ©tien, vowing to get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal in Quebec. Martin called a public inquiry, promising to be transparent about everything. The resulting revelations damaged Martin's efforts to turn the page from the ChrÃ©tien era. Again, the similarities to the gas plant fiasco are eerily there.

Canada's 19th prime minister Kim Campbell was unable to right the PC ship after the Brian Mulroney years ...

To go back to the Mulroney/Campbell situation of 20 years ago, I remember interviewing both of them for a book I once wrote on people who go into public life. Campbell told me at the end of the day, no matter what she did, it wasn't enough to overcome the Mulroney legacy and the lack of adequate time he'd left her to repair the situation before she had to go back to the polls. For his part, Mulroney pointed out that is precisely what the job of the successor is: to champion the good things the previous administration did, and put a shiny coat of paint over the unpopular parts of the legacy. That's the job a successor signs up for, and at which Campbell ultimately failed.

... But Mulroney points out, that's the job of every leadership successor.

Of course, they're both right. And one of the most interesting unfolding stories at Queen's Park over the ensuing months will be whether Kathleen Wynne can do what Kim Campbell couldn't do, namely, erase the stench of the bad decisions made by her predecessor, while continuing to champion the things people actually liked about the Liberal government, such as an improved health-care system, full-day kindergarten, and shutting down pollution-spewing coal plants.

We'll watch that story, and hope you'll watch our conversation with Ontario's 25th premier.

Play Ball! Paul Beeston in his Element

Steve Paikin — Thu, 21 Feb 13 18:30:08 GMT

He was the first guy the Blue Jays ever hired. And nearly four decades later, after a journey that took him away for a while, he's still trying to sell baseball in Toronto.

Paul Beeston calls himself the luckiest guy in the world. When he started with the Jays in 1977, he was one of the executives overseeing 24 employees.

"Now we've got 24 employees in public relations alone," he jokes.

Beeston was recently a guest lecturer at Ryerson University's Ted Rogers School of Business Management. He told his life story to a packed classroom, starting with his days as a University of Western Ontario student, then becoming a chartered accountant in Welland.

And how popular were the Jays when he got there?

"TV was in its infancy," he recalls. "We almost had to pay the networks to get our games on TV. And we didn't just play in the worst stadium in baseball," he said of Exhibition Stadium. "We played in the worst stadium in all of sports."

The Jays, of course, became a massive hit once the team got competitive in the mid-1980s. And they were the biggest thing in major league baseball after June 1989, when they moved to what was then called SkyDome, now the Rogers Centre. From 1989 until 1993 --- the year they won their second consecutive World Series --- the Jays drew four million fans a year, by far the highest number in baseball.

"We had the swagger," Beeston told the class. "We acted like the smartest guys in the room. We had a pride. We brought everyone together. Sports is critically important in doing that."

But then came the lean years. Baseball went on strike in 1994. There was no World Series. The Jays got worse. For two decades, "The Dome" sat half empty for home games.

"I haven't worked a day in my life," says Paul Beeston.

However, this off season has been one of the most noteworthy in the team's history. They pulled the trigger on baseball's most sensational trade, bringing some top-flight talent from the Miami Marlins. Then they signed last year's Cy Young Award winner in R.A. Dickey, and suddenly, many experts are calling the Jays the team to beat. Not only that, people are talking baseball in Toronto, and Canada, again.

"I haven't worked a day in my life since I was 31," Beeston insists. "Every day is a Saturday for me. From an accounting degree to major league baseball, it's been a terrific ride."

Having said that, and at age 67, Beeston isn't sitting on his laurels. He says the Jays are a $225 million business, "But we should be a $400 million business."

Yet for all his baseball success (he also did a stint in the commissioner's office when he left the Jays for awhile), Paul Beeston can't send an email. Seriously.

"I'm not proud of the fact I can't send an email," he says. "But I'm not ashamed of it either. Just call me. I'll get back to you within 24 hours."

That quaint philosophy doesn't quite always work in today's workplace, Beeston admits, reminding students that the Jays' general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, was getting married at 1 p.m., but was on his BlackBerry at 12:45 p.m. negotiating a contract with one player.

One of the worst moments of Beeston's tenure came last year, when infielder Yunel Escobar was caught featuring an anti-gay slur, written into his "eyeblack" that some players wear under their eyes to reflect away the glare.

"Our entire organization, not just the players, learned from this," he says. "We learned to move quickly. We got a wake up call. So did the community." Escobar received a three-game suspension, which many found unsatisfactory. He's subsequently been traded.

During their glory days, the Jays had among the highest payrolls in baseball. Then, during the lean years, they fell to the middle of the pack. They've taken on significantly more payroll now, in hopes of winning while their division rival New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Tampa Bay Rays are all thought to be on the way down.

"Former Yankee owner George Steinbrenner didn't care how much money he lost, as long as he won championships," Beeston says. "And I can name you three owners who didn't care if they won champioinships as long as they made money." (He actually didn't name names).,

Making money should be easier for the Jays in the future. As an example, the Los Angeles Dodgers just signed a $7 billion television deal, much of which will go to attracting bigger names and better players.

"We had 18 games on TV in 1977," Beeston says. "Now, all 162."

On the question of whether the Jays would prefer to leave the American League East division, widely believed to be the toughest in baseball because the Yankees and Red Sox have been for years the two highest spending clubs in the majors, Beeston says he's indifferent: "I don't care what division we get moved into, as long as the Yankees and Red Sox come with us!" he laughs.

One of the great divides in Toronto these days is between Beeston and Paul Godfrey, the former Metro Toronto Chairman, who was instrumental in bringing the Jays to Toronto back in 1976. Godfrey, now chair of Ontario Lottery and Gaming, is trying to bring a casino to Toronto. Beeston is virulently opposed.

"I've got friends whose lives were devastated by gambling," he says. "The office of the baseball commissioner was created in 1919 because of the Black Sox gambling scandal. The greatest hitter of all time has been suspended (Pete Rose) because of gambling. What great city has a casino downtown? I oppose it."

Beeston with lawyer and longtime friend Ralph Lean

When reminded by the class's professor, lawyer Ralph Lean, that a casino siting fee could bring in $200 million to city coffers, Beeston was nonplussed.

"Then raise taxes if you want the money. I'm a conservative guy, but I still say raise taxes rather than go for a casino."

And finally, what about the notion that big time players don't want to come to Toronto because the money is different, the taxes are higher, and the border is a pain in the neck to cross?

"Not true," says Beeston. "Anyone who tells you Toronto isn't a good sales tool has never tried to sign a free agent. Robbie Alomar lives here. Jack Morris. Paul Molitor. Dave Winfield. Dave Stewart all wanted to be here."

And all have World Series rings for having done so. Wouldn't millions of Ontarians love a repeat of that experience this year?

Play ball.

It's a Family Affair

Steve Paikin — Thu, 21 Feb 13 13:37:55 GMT

For the first time, a father and son both represent the same riding, both on Parliament Hill and Queen's Park. Meet the O'Tooles.

Those Special Moments in Question Period

Steve Paikin — Wed, 20 Feb 13 18:41:01 GMT

Another day, and more "firsts" at the Ontario legislature:

The first Question Period for the new Kathleen Wynne government.
The first time in Ontario history that one female party leader asked a question that was answered by another female party leader.

Yes, Question Period is filled with feigned indigation, over-the-top theatrics, and a lot of nonsensical drivel. And today's edition was no exception.

But every now and then, you see things that remind you that, from time to time, politicians are people too. Seriously.

Here's a sample:

Opposition leader Tim Hudak prefaced his first question by congratulating Kathleen Wynne on becoming Ontario's 25th premier. It was a reminder that, amidst all the sturm und drang of Question Period, there actually are some moments of genuine collegiality.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath likewise welcomed Wynne by congratulating her on her leadership victory.

Kathleen Wynne answers her first question as premier. The geniality from the opposition benches didn't last long. The Speaker had to admonish the Tories to keep quiet so the premier could finish her reply.

Earlier in the day, PC MPP Rob Leone (Cambridge-North Dumfries) successfully argued for a continuation of the contempt hearings into the gas plant fiasco. Despite the prorogation, the legislature committees can pick up where they left off and hold the government to account on the decision to cancel the gas-fired generating station in Mississauga in the middle of the 2011 election campaign.

The first ever answer from a first ever cabinet minister: Windsor's Teresa Piruzza, Minister of Children's and Youth Services ...

... And the Liberal front bench turns around to watch Piruzza's answer in a show of support. I've never seen that happen before.

Both Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Premier Kathleen Wynne give their rapt attention to Piruzza's answer.

Health Minister Deb Matthews enthusiastically applauds the answer as well.

Education Minister Liz Sandals has waited nine years for this moment. Until now, she's been a backbencher. Now, she's in charge of a $20-billion ministry.

Later during Question Period, Hudak left his chair, and went into the Liberals' Visitors' Gallery, where he talked to the grandparents of one of the legislative pages. The family is from Fort Erie, Hudak's home town, and he knows them personally. The trio spent a good 15 minutes conversing.

The NDP's Andrea Horwath was urging the government to have fewer "conversations" (the premier's favourite word), and demonstrate more action and accomplishment.

But the Grits seemed pretty pleased with their leader's day-one performance.

Behind the Scenes at the Throne Speech

Steve Paikin — Tue, 19 Feb 13 19:54:53 GMT

The Speech from the Throne is a tradition, more than a century old, in many jurisdictions that have monarchies. If you watched it on television, you'd have seen plenty of pomp and circumstance, followed by the Lieutenant-Governor, David C. Onley, reading the speech. Note: the LG reads the speech, but he doesn't write it. That responsibility belongs to the government.

Here's some of what you might not have seen: behind the scenes at the Wynne Government's first throne speech.

Members of the legislature begin to gather on the house floor.

Legislative security motions at the arrival of the vice-regal party.

72-year-old Mario Sergio (York West), at the left of this shot, waited 18 years as a Liberal backbencher before finally getting into the Wynne cabinet.

Glen Murray (Toronto Centre), the new infrastructure and transportation minister, in a private moment before the reading of the throne speech.

Transition Chief Monique Smith confers with Northern Development & Mines Minister Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North).

The two northern Ontario ministers have a private chat about the speech: David Orazietti (Sault Ste. Marie) and Michael Gravelle.

Former Ontario Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy McMurtry (centre of shot) sits beside Marni Beal Alexander, the widow of former Lieutenant-Governor Lincoln Alexander.

The new Liberal front bench: Finance Minister Charles Sousa (Mississauga-South), Premier Kathleen Wynne (Don Valley West), and Health Minister Deb Matthews (London North Centre).

Their first throne speech as cabinet ministers: from left to right, Richmond Hill's Reza Moridi (bald with glasses, brown jacket), The Soo's David Orazietti, and Don Valley East's Michael Coteau.

A skeptical PC Leader Tim Hudak (Niagara West - Glanbrook) immediately signals his intention to vote against the throne speech.

Still looking plenty skeptical ...

The Wynne Government's future is in the hands of Andrea Horwath (Hamilton Centre) and the NDP.

A few weeks shy of his 82nd birthday, York Centre MPP Monte Kwinter is the oldest member of the Ontario Legislature ever, and counting.

The Liberal cabinet applauds the Speech from the Throne.

A full house of MPPs attended, and applauded the throne speech.

Lieutenant-Governor David Onley, with his wife, Ruth Ann, behind him. It's Onley's last throne speech.

Premier Wynne, her back to the camera, speaks with her life partner, Jane Rounthwaite.

Here's something you don't normally see: PC MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) in friendly conversation with Wynne and Rounthwaite.

A good chance to schmooze: the Ontario Trucking Association's David Bradley shake hands with Premier Wynne.

Speaker of the legislature and MPP for Brant, Dave Levac, hugs Premier Wynne.

The premier, a former aboriginal affairs minister, greets Phil Fontaine, former head of the Assembly of First Nations.

Another collegial moment: NDP MPP Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina) shares a hug with Premier Wynne.

Premier Wynne shares a moment with Marni Beal Alexander, the widow of former Lieutenant-Governor Lincoln Alexander.

Dalton McGuinty's slogan was "Forward Together." Wynne has tweaked it to "The Way Forward."

For more of The Agenda's coverage of Ontario politics, visit our Ontario politics feature page.

The First Chance to Take Down the Wynne Government

Steve Paikin — Tue, 19 Feb 13 11:46:34 GMT

One week ago, Kathleen Wynne was sworn in as Ontario's 25th premier.

Kathleen Wynne has been premier of Ontario for a week. The opposition will have its first chance to defeat her new government starting now.

A week ago, Wynne unveiled the cabinet she hopes will turn the page from the Dalton McGuinty years to the fresh coat of red paint she hopes to apply to public affairs in Ontario in 2013.

Just as the Liberals called Ernie Eves' new government "The Harris-Eves Government" in 2002, the PCs are now doing the same thing. They consistently refer to the new Liberal government as "The McGuinty-Wynne Government," hoping to tar Wynne with McGuinty's "sins."

And today, Wynne will have the lieutenant-governor read her first ever Speech from the Throne -- usually a flowery but vague recitation of the governing party's hopes for the upcoming session.

What could make this throne speech different is how it was created. For the last nine years, the governing Liberals have essentially put their priorities into the throne speech without much interest in what the opposition's views are. Even when McGuinty won his "major minority government" in October 2011, that didn't change, and no doubt contributed to the poisonous atmosphere in the house.

But Wynne got elected Liberal leader last month on the promise of being able to make minority parliament work better, including more expertly reaching out to the opposition parties.

Would Tim Hudak's Conservatives ever support the government's throne speech?

So already, the new premier has had twice as many face-to-face private meetings with the leader of the opposition in her three weeks as Liberal leader as the former premier had in nine years. Both sides say the meetings were cordial and focused on getting the house to function better. PC Party leader Tim Hudak used those meetings to urge a major volt face on the Liberals' part, hoping the government will implement what the Tories say are their "bold, cost-cutting moves."

Wynne was apparently polite in her replies, occasionally saying things such as, "Sorry, Tim, I can't do that exactly, but I am committed to ..." -- that kind of thing. No immediate commitments on what would be in the throne speech were sought or offered.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath has made her wish list for the throne speech well known.

The NDP have also been very public about what's on their wish list for the throne speech. Leader Andrea Horwath has held two news conferences over the past couple of weeks, outlining the items she'd like to see in the throne speech. She's described her list as very doable, with no outrageous, grandiose schemes or ultimatums should those ideas not find their way into the speech.

The conventional wisdom at the legislature is that Hudak's Tories will certainly find Wynne's program lacking in fiscal austerity, and therefore will vote to bring down the government after the requisite throne speech debate has concluded. The Tories insist they haven't yet made the decision whether to vote yea or nay on the speech, waiting to see what's actually in it. It's hard to imagine, short of adopting the entire PC platform, how the Liberals could garner Tory votes on the speech. The PCs are, after all, the official opposition, and even in a minority parliament, the opposition's job is almost always to oppose. There are exceptions (Bill 115 imposing contracts on the teacher unions was passed with Liberal and PC votes) but it is rare.

The Tories were all class, attending the Wynne Cabinet's swearing-in, even applauding Wynne's remarks and offering a standing ovation. Most Liberals and New Democrats inexplicably skipped the event. But are Tim Hudak's days as Mr. Congeniality now over?

That, once again, puts the spotlight on the NDP to determine whether Wynne's Liberals will continue to govern, or send Ontarians into a spring election.

The betting is that the two female leaders will find a way. The Liberals certainly don't want to go to the polls with a leader who's had virtually no time to put her stamp on the new government. And the NDP would risk significant punishment at the polls for torpedoing the first-ever female premier of Ontario, after just one week in office.

Would Andrea Horwath really pull the plug on the first female premier's government after just one week?

But stranger things have -- and often do -- happen at your Ontario legislature.

For more of The Agenda's coverage of Ontario politics, visit our Ontario politics feature page.