[BRIEF NOTE] On the resignation of Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberals' future

[rfmcdonald]

The resignation of Ontario's Liberal Party premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday evening took me completely by surprise. Yes, there had been ongoing scandals, but surely someone else, like the embattled Energy Minister Chris Bentley, would have fallen? But no.

Hamutal Dotan's analysis at Torontoist deftly analyses the reasons for this surprise shift.

[S]peculation mounted that McGuinty might be stepping down provincially in order to launch a bid for the federal Liberal party leadership. Tonight McGuinty said that he didn’t “have any plans” for what he’d be doing next, but he refused to rule out that leadership bid outright. He cited his daughter’s recent wedding as a reminder of what “was really important,” as one key factor in his decision to step down. The other deciding factor, McGuinty went on, was the party’s annual general meeting last month, at which he received strong support (86 per cent of delegates backed him) and which convinced him of the party’s stability. “My responsibility is to look to the future and ensure renewal,” he said tonight. He also said that AGM convinced him “our party had the strength, the rigour, and the vigour” to withstand the pressures of a leadership race.

Observers, however, are quick to point out that McGuinty and his party are under serious fire for Energy Minister Chris Bentley’s decision to scrap two gas plants, at great expense. Bentley has said he won’t resign; some today speculated that McGuinty may have decided to take the fall. He didn’t, however, apologize for that situation when asked to directly tonight by a reporter.

The minority Liberal government is also in the midst of tense labour negotiations, which have seen McGuinty alienated from the teachers whose support he sought and received for years. The Liberals are calling for a pay freeze and other concessions—a call that the teachers are challenging in court. Negotiations are also tense with many other bargaining units, all of whom are facing similar demands as the Liberals attempt to eliminate the deficit, which Finance Minister Dwight Duncan pegged at $14.4 billion today. McGuinty said that his party will continue to “negotiate directly with our labour partners,” and also try to strike up “civil” conversation with other parties, while the legislature is prorogued. He expressed hope that those conversations might go better than they have to date if they happen outside of the pressures of a legislative session.

Both the Toronto Star and the CBC also place McGuinty's resignation in the context of his minority government's significant problems.

All this brings to mind an analysis of public opinion at the end of September by Éric Grenier, posted at his blog ThreeHundredEight.com. There, he suggested that support for the Liberals had fallen so low that not only was a Progressive Conservative majority plausible, but that the NDP would take the mantle of official opposition and--just like the federal Progressive Conservatives in 1993--the Ontario Liberals would be crushed down to a single-digit number of seats. Could McGuinty have hoped that, without the baggage of his leadership, his party could avoid this future? (But then, it's not as if McGuinty has any obvious successors. For better and for worse, the Ontario Liberal Party has become very closely identified with the man.)