Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler
Most people who read this column know that I am a Conservative. Some do not like that very much, but that is who I am. It all started because I got on the wrong bus!
I had been accepted as a grade seven student at University of Toronto School (UTS). The school was on Bloor Street at Spadina, and we lived in North Toronto. That meant, for the first time, I had to take public transportation to and from school. There were two ‘Nortown’ bus routes in those days. One went up Yonge Street, the other up Avenue Road. On one occasion, I somehow got confused and took the bus that went up Yonge Street when I should have taken the Avenue Road bus. When I realized my mistake, I got off to walk home.
On the corner where I got off the bus was the old Consumers Gas Building, being used as campaign headquarters by Donald Fleming, the Conservative candidate for the riding of Eglinton. I knew nothing about politics, but it looked kind of interesting and I really wasn’t in a hurry to go home so I wandered in. They put me to work, running errands, stuffing mailers, and generally helping out. It was exciting stuff for a thirteen-year old!
On election night, Donald Fleming won in a landslide and John Diefenbaker narrowly became prime minister of Canada, the first for a Conservative in almost two decades. The next day, Fleming and some of his supporters were on the front page of the Toronto Star. I was in that picture and I was hooked!
In the ensuing years I have supported most Conservative leaders at both the federal and provincial levels, known many of them personally, and worked for two of them. At one point, I also served as senior vice president of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives.
And so I am indisputably a Tory, probably a Red Tory by today’s standards, but a Conservative none-the-less. I am not, however, a robot. I am not a partisan to the point where I am afraid to speak out when I believe that people in the party I support are wrong. I actually believe it is a matter of conscience and duty to do that, even though, as I have experienced from time to time, one pays a price for it, as have some of my friends.
This past week, I have been profoundly disappointed in Andrew Scheer. I have tried to be supportive. I believe he has been unfairly treated by the mainstream media and, as I said last week, I think he was doing his job as leader of the opposition in defending the responsibility of Parliament to oversee and hold the government accountable during the current pandemic. But recently, in my view, Andrew Scheer proved what others have been saying: he is not a strong leader.
Scheer has a nut-job in his caucus; a rookie M.P. most people haven’t heard of who thinks he should become the next prime minister of Canada, by the name of Derek Sloan. Last week, he made racist and unfounded charges against Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, questioning her loyalty to Canada and leaving open the possibility that she might be involved in a conspiracy with China. All this, as she is working twenty-hour days to lead Canadians through the health hazards of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was a defining moment for Andrew Scheer. It was his opportunity to show strong leadership, to say there was no room in the Conservative Party for this kind of racist nonsense that undermines the efforts of public servants in critical positions. He should have thrown the guy right out of caucus. That would have been real leadership.
Instead, what did Andrew Scheer do? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. He ducked the question and said that Sloan could speak for himself. In doing so he is allowing the likes of Derek Sloan to define the Conservative Party and that is unconscionable.
To their credit, many Conservative members of Parliament publicly decried, as Scheer did not, the comments by Sloan about Dr. Tam. This included Parry Sound-Muskoka M.P. Scott Aitchison.
Given Andrew Scheer’s actions of last week, it appears that many in Conservative circles are renewing their push for a return to an early leadership election date, after it was suspended by Party officials. I for one disagree. In fact, I believe the current leadership race should not only be suspended, it should be dissolved, and we should start all over again.
There are only four candidates who are currently approved to be on a federal Conservative leadership ballot. One of these should not even be in the Conservative Party; another is not well known outside of Toronto and does not have a reasonable chance of winning. That leaves only two candidates, both of whom are credible but who by themselves do not fully represent the high quality of leadership abilities that exist within the Conservative Party. The talent pool is a great deal deeper than that and as the next prime minister of Canada may come out of this contest, it is important to have a strong list of candidates from which to choose.
Much has changed in Canada since the coronavirus hit us and much more is going to change. It may be that some qualified candidates that decided to take a pass last time around, partly because of stringent rules and financial obligations that were put in place and partly for personal reasons, may now reconsider. Some of these have demonstrated extraordinary leadership during the pandemic. Given the unexpected difficulties we are currently experiencing and recognizing the need that this will dictate for strong and disciplined leadership in the years ahead, there are good and experienced people out there who may now feel called to serve. They should in my view be given the opportunity to put their name forward under these new set of circumstances.
Canadians deserve that.
Hugh Mackenzie
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Here’s a link to to a report from proud Conservative leadership that set up conditions for turning our long term care homes into charnel houses. Remember every preventable death when you go to vote…honour the dead and never vote Liberal or Conservative again.
http://longtermcareinquiry.ca/wp-content/uploads/LTCI_Final_Report_Volume1_e.pdf
As usual a well written article,and of course agree the Federal Conservatives are in disarray,and lack qualified candidates to lead their Party.Peter macKay is missing a great opportunity to express his viewpoint with respect to Mr Sloan’s recent comments,and provide the strong leadership which is so sadly lacking in his Party.One can only assume that he is in agreement with Mr Sloan. Having said,and very briefly, is it now not time to rid our Democratic society of Party politics and operate by way of a Consensus system such as exists in say our Northwest Territories(perhaps not the best example)?.
Just one of many examples of the weaknesses of our current system,of which we are all aware, occurred more recently in the U.S. during the Trump impeachment process,when “Truth was on trial” .I could go on—— but—.
Yes, Hugh, the recent regressive yearnings of Conservative MP, Derek Sloan, are certainly contrary to the generally tolerant, compassionate post-1943 Progressive Conservative/Red Tory tradition reflected in the leadership of people like John Bracken, John Diefenbaker – including his minister of finance, Donald Fleming – Robert Stanfield, Justice Emmett Hall, Flora MacDonald, Joe Clark, and former senator, Hugh Segal.
The comments of Derek Sloan appear to be dog-whistle yearnings for a return to a time of legislative racism with things like the Chinese Head Tax (1885-1923) and the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was on Canada’s legislative books until 1947! These dog-whistle yearnings were certainly not in the tradition of the aforementioned leaders like former prime minister, John Diefenbaker, who as a MP early in his political career and during a time of “total war,” bravely and courageously spoke out against and voted against the internment of Japanese Canadians in 1942.
Later, while prime minister between 1957 and 1963, Diefenbaker was instrumental in having the Canadian Parliament legislate the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960, which also included full voting rights for the Indigenous peoples. In addition, he was instrumental in 1961 in having the Republic of South Africa expelled from the Commonwealth for its racist policy of apartheid.
Yes, “Honest John” Diefenbaker had his flaws – like we all have – but he certainly set a high Canadian standard for human rights, which Derek Sloan, MP, with his despicable and venomous comments, has unfortunately not lived up to.
I agree with you, Tony. Since no politician will ever be perfect, there will never be a leader who is perfect. To be fair to Andrew Scheer, he may have felt that, since he is on his way out of the leadership, any decisive action on the issue should be taken up by the new leader–whoever that turns out to be. I also agree with you on Erin O’Toole.
As for the remarks: they were racist and not particularly helpful to the discussion. I find that MANY of those in medical bureaucracy positions have been almost universally pessimistic–undoubtedly because they are paid to come up with “worst case” scenarios. While it appears that we have escaped the “worst case” with this virus, it is worth examining how we could have handled it differently.
Since this virus is so EXTREMELY contagious and, at the same time, not very lethal (except in the case of the medically fragile–the elderly and chronically ill) it would have made much more sense to put a more solid barrier around those people, and left everyone else alone to go about their business (and I say that in a figurative as well as a quite literal sense).
The Swedish example is worth a look. Sweden did not put any draconian measures in effect. People kept their jobs and their small businesses open. The schools stayed open. Some protective measures were put in place–social distancing primarily–and the wearing of masks where that was not possible. No one was arrested for going to the park (unlike our neighboring nation to the south, where there were at least two separate instances of parents taking their children to the park and being arrested–even HANDCUFFED in front of their children!). No police state nonsense.
The death rate was initially higher in Sweden because, as one senior Swedish epidemiologist stated ruefully, they did not move quickly enough to harden protection around their nursing homes–where a majority of the deaths have occurred. When it was clear that the elderly and medically frail (nursing home patients fit both categories) were the ones who were dying, more should have been done to protect them. No one deserves to die alone like a dog–as some number of nursing home residents in Spain have.
What can we learn from this? Nursing homes need to be better prepared to deal with outbreaks. 1) They need a ready supply of PPE–over 800 long term care staff have been infected by Covid-19, in Ontario. This is unacceptable. Negative pressure isolation rooms should be built in every nursing home with more than 10 patients. The Swedish epidemiologist noted that other Scandinavian nursing homes have had better death statistics because they build smaller nursing homes in Norway, Finland and Denmark. The Swedes tend to build large ones and once the virus establishes itself–it sweeps the whole institution. 2) More staff with better pay is a must. Nursing homes are understaffed–a continuing problem. It is hard work and they need to be compensated well. 3) Maintain public funding. At least here in Canada, most nursing homes are publicly funded so there is no profit-motive that tempts corporate owners to cut staff to bare minimums.
Each virus needs to be quickly evaluated for what it does. As a general rule, the more lethal, the sooner it “burns out” as was the case of Ebola, SARS-2003 and MERS. It is appropriate to use very strong measures against those types of contagions. In this case, with this virus, it was inappropriate. As the Swedish epidemiologist stated, because it is so VERY contagious, and, at the same time, often asymptomatic among the young, you cannot stop it. We can picture it like the surf that sweeps around a rock, where the rock is appropriately-hardened protection for the vulnerable and the surf is the rest of the population. Since a vaccine is unlikely anytime soon (if at all), natural “herd immunity” will occur no matter what we do. Hopefully, this is the “once in a century” pandemic. But, just in case it is not, we need to be better prepared for the next one and take a hard line with China that they need to act responsibly with any in the future–since most new viral epidemics come from there.
Spot on Hugh, Mr. Scheer should have done something other than nothing. He should have demanded Derek Sloan make a formal apology to Dr. Tam as well as all Canadians of Chinese descent or removed him from the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party should be more than it’s Leader it should be a compilation of the plethora of talent contained within its elected members.
A leader of our country need not know it all but have the ability to recognize leadership skills in others, to see their good ideas and their strengths, that they might work with honour, fortitude and respect of Canadians for Canadians.
It gives me hope during this difficult time to know that a life long conservative is able to set aside his political beliefs to call out racist and defamatory statements. It is especially disgusting when these statements were made by a so called honourable conservative member of parliment.It would appear ignorance and stupidity is not confine to the right or left aisles.Let us reject this mind set, unite as one and move forward, past this pandemic toward a better future for all!
Well said Hugh!
Thank you Hugh. I was disgusted and embarrassed by Mr Scheer’s lack of leadership, on this unforgivable comment. If the party cannot find a strong, knowledgeable- both in the political and humanity (we do not need a south of the boarder leader). The party is doomed and you are 100% right. No candidate on the current list
Thanks for your earnest addition to the issues at hand, Hugh. But I must disagree with your conclusion. Yes new leadership is necessary within the Conservative Party of Canada. But no, we Conservatives should not re-do the leadership race. The yearning for some mythical white knight who will swoop in and solve the Party’s problems is forlorn and unrealistic. If these mythical candidates haven’t come forward already what leads anyone to conclude they will now? Organizers and fundraisers that fuel the race have already made their decisions. What’s left is to get on with it, preferably by August. Membership cutoff is May 15; there’s no way any other reputable candidate has the time, inclination, resources or support to enter and win.
I’ve made my choice for leader: Erin O’Toole. I’ve known him (and Peter MacKay for that matter) for decades and he has the skills and experience to be an excellent and worthy Prime Minister who can win the country.
Regardless, the country deserves a properly functioning opposition party. Hoping for the messiah won’t get us one. Get on with it!
The Hon. Tony Clement
Port Sydney, Ontario
Hugh..I never knew you attended those “Hallowed Halls” as Brock would say…
I was in the first Grade 7 class after the war…1952… six degrees…lol