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All over for Tory

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So that’s it, then. This election is over, and so is John Tory – bad news for the PCs and for the province, too.

For the week remaining, hacks will be analyzing the PC’s U-turn on Monday, when he suddenly announced that, contrary to earlier declarations, he would hold a free vote on his beleagured plan to use tax dollars to fund religious schools.

To add to Tory heartburn, the coming weekend is Thanksgiving, when Ontarians will be eating turkey and feeding on the news that’s already been served up to them. Analysts are already musing about whether we can call this one of the biggest climb-downs in Ontario political history.

But John Tory’s political career was not the only thing that died this week.

So did NDP hopes of adding significantly to their seat total. In fact, if PC voters stay home, Howard Hampton will be lucky to hang onto ridings like York South-Weston, which the NDP won by a whisker in a by-election last February.

Two weeks ago, Hampton was the toast of the Queen’s Park press gallery, a probable kingmaker in the event of a minority result on E-day. This week, with the PC campaign in disarray, Hampton is simply toast.

“How much of your career is riding on this?” one media flack asks. “If you end up with 13 seats, are people going to be talking about a new leader?”

Hampton replies weakly, “I couldn’t tell you from one day to the next.”

Meanwhile, the NDP message of the day on Monday served up at Peter Ferreira’s campaign office in Davenport – the need for a higher minimum wage – was lost yet again in the spat over religious school funding. No one bothered to pose a question to the businessperson standing beside Hampton whose policy it is to pay at least $10 an hour.

If a Liberal majority is returned on October 10, you can count out that excited internal NDP debate over which party to back in a minority situation. Many thoughtful party members were leaning toward the Tories.

“From our [NDP] perspective, we want to see the [PCs] moderating,” a former provincial candidate told me. “Besides, we always say there’s no difference between the Liberals and the Tories. Let’s put our money where our mouth is.”

But the negative reverberations from Tory’s ill-fated plan to fund faith-based schools will be felt far beyond social dem circles.

With Tory likely to lose his own seat to McGuinty education minister Kathleen Wynne and the party leadership soon after, there’s a real possibility that PC party members who believe Mike Harris was not a buffoon but one of the best leaders the party ever had will try to stage a recovery.

Key to the John Tory strategy was the attempt to position him as a more urbane, kinder, gentler Conservative – one who appealed to rather than scared off effete Torontonians. Harris wasn’t outwardly homophobic – indeed, he had a crew of queer hangers-on – but you wouldn’t find him cruising Church Street for votes as John Tory did.

But what did Tory’s citified efforts get him?, PC strategists might well ask.

For the Liberals, Tory’s disastrous religious schools plan has been the gift that’s allowed them to sail through the campaign with a weak premier so scripted that he’s more robot than leader. Four years of caretaker government have gone unexamined and untested.

No wonder, when I catch up with Health Minister and Toronto Centre MPP George Smitherman on Monday afternoon, he’s still trying to pump life into the faith-based schools story. He’s just read the transcript of Monday’s scrum between Tory and reporters, he says. “He’s not backing down,” Smitherman insists. “He says he’ll bring it in as a bill before the legislature.”

Yes, I reply, a bill that has zero chance of passing. Tory won’t even say whether his cabinet ministers would be required to back it.

Four more Liberal years, courtesy of John Tory. What a waste.

news@nowtoronto.com

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