A week from now we’ll know who is the leader of P.E.I.’s Progressive Conservative party – or ‘the party ready, eager and willing to take power in an election two years from now,’ as it likes to think of itself.
Third time the charm?
It has, after all, been an unusually rocky road for the provincial Tories. They unwisely urged Pat Binns to take one more swing at electoral victory in 2007. He, just as unwisely, said sure, let’s go for it.
Predictably, voters showed him the door. You could see it coming. You always can.
One of my favourite moments from the election – I use it in my Manipulation And The Media journalism course – involved then reporter Brendan Elliott.
The Binns government announced it was going to get rid of the provincial sales tax on baby formula. Candidates jumped on the baby bandwagon, celebrating the forward thinking nature of a government trying for an unlikely fourth straight term in power.
Elliott’s eyes must have squinted at the announcement.
Was there a tax on the stuff? He called a nearby drugstore and asked the person answering the phone. Oh sure, came the answer. But not for long, the well-informed staffer added, the government’s going to remove it.
Really? Could you scan something and see if the tax shows up in the price. The scan left no doubt. The government had just announced a plan to get rid of a tax that didn’t exist. Some days, investigative reporting really is that easy.
Elliott has moved on from journalism to a job in communications, a not-uncommon career move for reporters of a certain combination of age and years of work experience.
But the desire of a government to bag that elusive fourth straight term lives on. Wade MacLauchlan rescued the ruling Liberals from themselves in 2015, matching the rare three-peat of Binns and keeping the Robert Ghiz team in power. Now his job is to win again in two years.
Which brings us back to the Tories.
They thought they had the answer in Olive Crane in 2010. They didn’t. The party backroom didn’t like her much and she returned the feeling. Out she went in 2013, leaving the babysitting job to Steven Myers, who held the spot until Rob Lantz took over in 2015.
He was young, energetic, keen. Everything looked swell. Then the party got greedy, thought it might win the 2015 election and forgot to make sure its leader won his seat in Charlottetown. He lost and was gone.
Back to the drawing board. So here we are, time to try again. The voting has begun and the results are due Oct. 20.
This time, the party is playing it safe. James Aylward has been an MLA since 2011 and he has long been considered a likely candidate for the top job.
Brad Trivers, an MLA since 2015, is being pitched as a fresh face for P.E.I. Youth, energy, university education, business owner, soccer coach. The traditional sort of solid resume for a leadership hopeful.
And solid is what the party’s betting on. Nothing flashy. Just solid. Then they will wait for the election two years hence and hope the old saying is right – governments defeat themselves.
It has worked many a time in the past. It’s not a daring bet. It’s the cautious one.
- Rick MacLean is an instructor in the journalism program at Holland College in Charlottetown.
