National Post endorses John Tory for Ontario Premier

Update: John Tory's week in review.

"Tory may have stolen the week from Dalton McGuinty."

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I love the National Post!

The lead editorial today (John Tory for Ontario Premier) explains that "on health, crime, education and taxes, he has the better approach":

Most notably, Mr. Tory has said that, as premier, he would be open to contracting with private companies that serve patients within the single-payer public health system. Since Ontario already follows this practice in a number of areas, we do not see Mr. Tory's position as controversial. Indeed, champions of the government health care monopoly should be welcoming every effort to wring more efficiency from the current system. But you would not know this from the hysterical attacks Mr. Tory's sensible views on this subject have attracted from Mr. McGuinty and his media cheerleaders.

Yes, the fear-mongers have been very good at their job.

The Post continues to explain why they support John Tory's policy in the areas of taxation, health care, crime, the economy and education.


Then they shine a spotlight on the duplicity and hypocrisy of the McGuinty campaign:

We should also note that, for all the furor surrounding Mr. Tory's allegedly radical plan, the over-the-top response from Mr. McGuinty's camp should be seen as more off-putting than the proposal itself. Beginning last month, the Premier, posturing earnestly as a champion of diversity, has suggested that Mr. Tory's plan would somehow lead to the sociological balkanization of the province -- all the while hypocritically ignoring the fact that he himself attended a publicly funded Catholic school as a child.

I totally agree. If overblown rhetoric and apocalyptic scenarios win this election, then I think then Ontario voters have only themselves to blame for the kind of leader we end up with.


The Post suggests that John Tory has the kind of personality that could make us proud:

Indeed, it is arguable that the entire country, not just Ontario, has a stake in the Oct. 10 election. As one Canadian writer put it in a very fine column about Mr. Tory this week, Mr. Tory's archetype is former Ontario premier Bill Davis, "the ultimate consensus politician, who presided at a time when Ontario had more stature in Confederation than it does now." Given the manner in which premiers' meetings have descended into unsightly orgies of interprovincial money-grubbing in recent years, it would be nice to see Canada's largest province put forward a leader who could draw these squabbling men into something like common purpose. It is hard to imagine anyone in this country better able to do that than John Tory.

If Ontario voters get sucked in to the vicious, demonizing lies of the McGuinty campaign and choose four more years of this arrogant, unaccountable regime, I will at least derive a small amount of comfort from rereading this editorial - and the knowledge that just as Torontonians are beginning to realize the cost of electing David Miller over John Tory in 2003, Ontario too will likely wake up from this Neverland Nanny State dream and see that it was just that - a dream.

Or more likely a nightmare.