What a sad state of affairs. We are about to witness probably the wildest budget yet, and what seems to be the preoccupation of the would-be leaders of the opposition? Here it is: Did he/she sell as many memberships as they said and did he/she raise and report money properly? I’m blown away at how stupid and irrelevant it all is.  Who cares how many memberships have been sold.  The proof will be revealed in just over a month (and it can’t come soon enough) when members show up (or not) to the polls to select the new leader. And, while allegations of fundraising impropriety are important to be investigated, is this the kind of thing we really want dragged out in the newspapers and on Twitter?  It could have been addressed by asking officials to take a look at whether these concerns have any merit.

I’m utterly amazed.  We have the premier both outflanking the NDP on the left on some issues and the premier outflanking the PCs on the right.  It’s remarkable, confusing and contradictory all at the same time.  And yet, any semblance of opposition seems not to exist.  The premier is finally liberalizing alcohol sales, sort of at least. We’ve got new social engineering in hydro, a pension plan, a new carbon tax, and potential changes to urban planning.  That’s just the tipping point, and we’re only in year 1 of this mandate.  The premier is determined to radically change Ontario over the next four years.  This is serious and we need to debate it, but I’m not hearing anything.

At the same time, with the announced privatizations, monetizing, and outright downsizing, the premier is well on her way to cutting 100,000 jobs in the public sector.  Take a look: thousands of jobs are being privatized at OLG casinos, thousands of jobs could be privatized at hydro, the pledge to cut $500 million in education in a couple years will result in thousands of teaching jobs gone.  We’re seeing school boards cut teachers and special education right now.  Hospitals are firing nurses across the province. By my count, we could be at least a fifth of the way to the 100,000 job cut.

Amid all of this massive change, the PC leadership race is focusing on none of it.  We are witnessing two campaigns bicker about inside-the-tent stuff that has no relevance to the outside world.  Actually, that’s not completely true: it does provide fodder for future campaign ads by our opponents (remember that Stephane Dion ad ‘Do you think it’s easy to make priorities’ – these sorts of ads will certainly feature next election by the Liberals and their Working Families friends).  At least McNaughton is talking about policy issues. Maybe they aren’t the right ones, but the focus is where it ought to be.

This leadership is supposed to be about renewal.  It’s about presenting Ontarians with a party that is reinvigorated and has learned from its mistakes.  What is that new direction? What policy issues will our leader champion? How will the conversation we’re having with Ontarians change? All of this should be what we’re talking about now, but it isn’t.  Today, I get news releases of a map of support from one campaign and another campaign fixated on asserting that the party release the membership figures for all campaigns (as if the party can or should do so – it’s supposed to be neutral).  It is all just silly, and disappointing.

Party activists on all sides need to demand a whole lot more from our leadership campaigns right now or else members will base their decision on irrelevant things.