Will John Tory’s ‘prudent’ leadership be tough enough to tackle Toronto’s big issues if he’s re-elected?
The Ontario premier is known for his blunt and plainspoken style, and is famously known for making his decisions based on the facts, whatever those facts may be. But in a city that has lost so much wealth and opportunity over the past ten years, Tory has been outflanked in the early stage of the campaign so far and it’s time for a change.
The election is being billed as the first test for the new Conservative leadership and for Premier John Tory.
A key question now is whether he has the guts and determination to change the direction of the province (and the city) if re-elected.
Tory was sworn in with $4 billion of the province’s surplus to spend on roads, schools, hospitals, bridges, and so on.
He can’t re-do that now, though. His ministry is a $40-million-a-year-penny service department.
Some people think he hasn’t been aggressive enough on the big issues, and the election campaign is coming down to two things: how aggressively he tries to fix those problems, and how aggressively he tries to persuade voters that he’s the best person to deal with the big issues that the city faces.
Those are two separate problems.
It’s true that Tory has been an unpopular premier. His party lost both the provincial election in Ontario and the federal election earlier this year. He’s been hammered as a provincial leader with poor leadership skills and an inability to make tough decisions.
That’s why he’s been outflanked so far in the campaign. He’s been outmatched by Andrea Horwath, which is bad news for him, but not necessarily bad news for Toronto itself. If Horwath