Queen’s Park Today – Daily Report October 4, 2019

Quotation of the day

“In the end, we failed to deliver on the expectation that the first woman premier would be the change. There would be no second chance.”

Longtime Liberal operative Pat Sorbara reflects on the party’s historic 2018 election defeat in ​ ​ Let ‘Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics, which hits the shelves tomorrow. ​

Today at Queen’s Park

On the schedule The house is on extended recess until Monday, October 28.

Premier watch Premier was in Sudbury Thursday night for a $600-a-head PC Party fundraiser. ​ ​ ​ ​ Families and advocates of kids on the autism spectrum had plans to protest outside the event. ​ ​

The premier is still mostly laying low during the ongoing federal election campaign. Aside from ​ ​ the fundraiser, social media does not show him making any other public appearances this week.

At least hockey is back to occupy the premier’s time underground: Ford tweeted and shared three pro- Maple Leafs messages on , including a congrats to new captain John ​ Tavares. ​

PCs walk back two more cuts to provincial programs The PC’s $67-million cut to the Transition Child Benefit is no longer on the chopping block. According to the , the province informed municipalities late Wednesday it is also ​ ​ ​ walking back changes to earning exemptions (the amount of money a person on social assistance can earn at a part-time job before the government starts clawing back their benefits).

It’s unclear whether the controversial plan to change the definition of disability under social assistance to align with federal programs is still on the table.

The Transition Child Benefit helps families on social assistance, and refugee claimants in particular, feed and clothe their kids.

Opposition MPPs hammered the PCs for cancelling the fund during question period last spring. At the time, Attorney General maintained refugee services were a federal ​ ​ responsibility.

NDP Community and Social Services critic said the “cruel” cuts should never have ​ ​ been made in the first place

“While the Ford government is now frantically backtracking, it’s clear that its ‘cut-first-think-later’ agenda remains in place,” Gretzky said, adding that her party will be monitoring to ensure the Ford government “isn’t merely kicking the can down the road, with plans to plow ahead with these cuts as soon as the federal election is over.”

Meanwhile, the PCs are also reversing a $28-million budget cut to children’s aid societies, per ​ the Star. Instead, at the end of September, the province’s 50 children’s aid societies were ​ ​ transferred $23 million more than the $1.5 billion they received in 2018.

Children and Social Services Minister told the Star he is keeping funding stable ​ ​ ​ ​ while he consults with the vulnerable children organizations about reforms. Even with the funding boost, the Association of Children’s Aid Societies said the local organizations will still be operating with deficits.

Green Party Leader said he is glad funding has been restored, but that the ​ ​ move “seems more like a decision driven by Ford’s plummeting popularity than by the interests of children.”

The about-faces are two of many the Ford government has made when faced with public backlash, including reversals on cuts to municipalities, francophone services and children with autism.

Today’s events

October 4 at 1 p.m. — Thunder Bay ​ Energy Minister will make an announcement at Wisk Air, a helicopter service for ​ ​ firefighting, mining, medivac, electric and sightseeing operations in the north.

Topics of conversation

● Liberal Leader doesn’t have a monopoly on Doug Ford bashing on the ​ ​ ​ ​ federal campaign trail. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh took shots at Ford while in Toronto ​ ​ Thursday, saying the premier “is making life harder for people” by “slashing and painfully cutting” funding for education, health care, affordable housing and autism services.

○ Singh also jabbed at ex-premier ’s decision to sell off Hydro ​ ​ One, saying it “surely benefited” folks on Bay Street, but drove up hydro bills for regular families. ○ Singh is an ex-Queen’s Park MPP and Ontario NDP deputy leader, but his time at the legislature never overlapped with Ford’s.

● Theatre Ontario is staring down its final curtain call. The board of the advocacy and educational group, which has been around since 1971, said its “financial situation has deteriorated over the past several years” and the Ford government delivered the “final blow” when it cut funding to the Ontario Arts Council earlier this year. ○ That meant an eight per cent reduction to its operating funding and the suspension of its professional and youth training programs. ○ It also means layoffs for long-time staffers Raeburn Ferguson and Brandon ​ ​ ​ Moore. ​ ○ “This is a very difficult recommendation for the board to make, as it means shutting down an arts service organization that has a 48-year history of supporting the theatre and arts communities of Ontario,” says a release. ​ ​

● Ontario’s biggest school board says it will shut down should CUPE support staff go ahead with a full-fledged strike on Monday. On Thursday, the Toronto District School Board joined York Region, Peel and the Waterloo and Dufferin-Peel Catholic boards in telling parents they may have to look into alternative arrangements because schools could not stay open if thousands of workers walk off the job. ○ CUPE, the province and the school board trustee association return to the bargaining table this afternoon and plan to meet over the weekend. However the union, which launched work-to-rule action this week, said it is willing to up the ante and go on strike if they can’t get a fair agreement.

● Ontario’s human rights watchdog launched a public inquiry to zero in on the issues impacting grade school students with reading disabilities on Thursday. Chief Human Rights Commissioner Renu Mandhane cited EQAO data that suggests students’ literacy ​ ​ rates aren’t up to provincial standards, which can increase the likelihood of other troubling consequences such as dropping out of school, experiencing homelessness or becoming involved in criminal activity. ○ Mandhane said 25 per cent of Grade 3 students and 53 per cent of third-graders with disabilities do not meet provincial literacy standards.

● Pour one out for the distillers. An economic analysis commissioned by the Association of Canadian Distillers warns the Ford government’s plan to expand beer and wine sales could hurt the spirits industry and temper local demand for their products. The Toronto ​ Star has the story. ​ ​

News briefs — governmental Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs ● Minister teased a bill he plans to introduce when the legislature ​ ​ ​ ​ resumes sitting this fall aimed at reducing the regulatory burden on agricultural and horticultural organizations. ○ The bill would allow those groups to give notice of annual meetings via email, easing the mail-only requirement and lowering compliance costs by $100,000 per year. The Ontario Horticultural Association would also be able to create minimum standards for membership, which it is currently prevented from doing. ○ Treasurers won’t be forced to give security to cover any loss of funds for the organization, and board directors won’t be personally on the hook. ○ The government is also proposing to remove an “unnecessary” clause that gives agricultural organizations authority over certain horse racing activities; currently, horse racing is regulated by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.

Ministry of Health ● Energy Minister Greg Rickford was in Geraldton, a town northeast of Thunder Bay, to ​ ​ re-announce $17.8 million to revamp the local hospital’s emergency ward. ○ Rickford made the announcement on behalf of Health Minister . ​ ​ ○ The project is expected to be complete by spring 2021.

Teaser: Pat Sorbara’s Let ‘Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom ​ Politics Longtime political operative Pat Sorbara has a new memoir out Saturday that dishes on the ​ ​ Sudbury byelection trial, backroom political drama and the ’s historic election defeat last spring. The ex-deputy chief of staff to then-Premier Kathleen Wynne was ​ ​ acquitted of bribery charges under the Election Act in the 2017 Sudbury byelection case, but ​ ​ ​ was subsequently dumped from the party’s 2018 re-election team.

Here’s a few highlights from Let ‘Em Howl: Lessons from a Life in Backroom Politics. ​

Post-Sudbury trial In hindsight, the Sudbury case was “intense,” “convoluted” and subject to “political spin,” according to Sorbara.

Sorbara and Gerry Lougheed were both charged after wannabe Liberal candidate Andrew ​ ​ ​ Olivier released audio of phone calls where the two operatives allegedly tried to convince him ​ to drop out of the nomination race to make room for preferred candidate , who ​ ​ later won the byelection and became energy minister.

“You kicked ass,” co-campaign director David Herle of the Gandalf Group told Sorbara at ​ ​ post-trial celebrations at Italian restaurant Verdicchio.

She says she was “flying high” when she was eventually cleared, but “little did [she] know how wrong things were about to go.” Lougheed was also acquitted of the charges.

‘No single answer’ for 2018 defeat Sorbara, the architect behind Wynne’s unlikely 2014 victory, says the reasons for the Liberals’ brutal election loss last June are “layered” and go beyond the typical hurdles facing women in politics. “In the end, we failed to deliver on the expectation that the first woman premier would be the change. There would be no second chance.”

But before that, days ahead of the vote, Wynne effectively conceded the premiership. ​ ​

For Sorbara’s part, “it was vintage Kathleen Wynne.” Wynne was told internal polling confirmed external polling heralding her election defeat. “Pretending was generally not in her nature. So, she called it.”

However, “local campaigns were completely blindsided. It was so out of the blue that some candidates learned of it as they canvassed that Saturday morning from voters who’d just seen it on television.”

While shifting ground game away from an unpopular leader to a campaign focused on local candidates may not have been enough for the Liberals to hold on to a majority government, “an earlier acknowledgement of what was really happening likely would have made it possible to save more ridings.”

“No direction was provided, no messaging, no literature. And as it was just four days before election day it was simply too late in the game to move the fight to the riding level,” she says.

Three months later at the party’s provincial council meeting, a local campaign worker asked Herle, “Why didn’t you tell us how badly it was going?” Herle replied that Liberal HQ “did not want to demoralize candidates and workers,” Sorbara says.

Ontario Proud Sorbara offers a lesson learned during a confrontation in Sudbury with Jeff Ballingall, who runs ​ ​ , the third-party group often credited with helping contribute to Wynne’s electoral downfall.

Sorbara calls the social media group “mean-spirited” and “nasty” but, alas, in politics “you need a thick skin to differentiate between what’s about you and what’s about the partisan fight.”

‘He likes you, he just thinks you are a bitch’: Backroom drama with Bevan Sorbara dishes on “friendly fire within [her] own party,” mostly coming from Andrew Bevan. ​ ​

Once Bevan took over from Tom Teahen as Wynne’s chief of staff, Sorbara says she was ​ ​ excluded from the inner circle. At one point she asked Herle why Bevan seemed to dislike her.

“He likes you, he just thinks you are a bitch,” Sorbara recalls Herle saying.

Shortly after she was cleared in the Sudbury case she was turfed from the re-election campaign, which Sorbara, a close friend of Wynne’s, said the then-leader didn’t want.

“Andrew Bevan raised with the group the concern he had first put on the table in June 2016: senior staff have been unhappy reporting to me and suggested there would be issues if they had to report to me again.”

She contends Bevan was the one to edge her out of the political campaign, as well as the policy side when she was working on campaign finance law reform. (The Liberals were forced to tighten fundraising rules under pressure over a “cash-for-access” scandal.)

Bevan had a tight grip on the campaign finance reform process in the early days of her involvement. Sorbara says she urged Bevan to take the proposed reforms to caucus and other political parties, but he responded with a “hard no,” saying they were in a conflict of interest.

She says that allowed Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa “to wield a lot of influence on the ​ ​ legislation” and claims “his views were driven by what was best for and less about the voters.”

When caucus finally got a peek at the draft bill behind closed doors, MPPs “reacted negatively,” Sorbara writes. “They made their views known but was told it was too late.”

In public, MPPs mainly complained they weren’t allowed to meet with constituents and would-be supporters at low-key events like spaghetti dinners. (The ban was reversed by the Ford government when it loosened up some of the Liberal-era reforms last fall.)

“These MPPs were expected to ignore their reservations and support their government wholeheartedly. There was a growing uneasiness and uncertainty developing within the larger organization.”

That was the turning point when Sorbara realized many Liberals “were starting to feel unhappy about the leadership and its failure to listen to its own members.”

Again, she points the finger at Bevan. “It felt one step too far, as it crippled the ability of local MPPs to raise money. Andrew was the only one who seemed unable to recognize this, and yet he was the person who insisted the change be included.”

Besides an unhappy caucus, the reforms “hurt us immensely” because it was harder to shore up the funds needed to mount a strong pre-writ campaign and left the Liberal Party in a precarious financial situation after the vote.

Let ‘Em Howl was published by Nightwood Editions. None of the claims in this story have been ​ independently verified by Queen’s Park Today. ​

Lobbyist registrations

If you are looking for further information on any lobbying registry, it is all public and easily searchable here. ​ ​

Consultants who registered as lobbyists from September 27, 2019 – October 3, 2019

● Patrick Harris, Rubicon Strategy Inc. ​ o Clients: Fiera Foods

● Kory Teneycke, Rubicon Strategy Inc. ​ o Clients: Teranet

● Chris Holz, Campbell Strategies ​ o Clients: Sub-Metering Council of Ontario, Safer Highway 11 Muskoka, Corporation of The Town of Ingersoll

● Kyle Larkin, Impact Public Affairs ​ o Clients: Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada, Associated Equipment Distributors

● Fraser Macdonald and Henry Boyd, Stosic & Associates ​ ​ ​ o Clients: Save Canadian Mining Inc.

● Patricia Sibal, Crestview Strategy ​ o Clients: Sun Life Financial, Northeastern University

● Brian Zeiler-Kligman, Sussex Strategy Group Inc. ​ o Clients: Responsible Cannabis Use

● Scott Munnoch, Temple Scott Associates Inc. ​ o Clients: Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited

● Ryan Singh, Temple Scott Associates Inc. ​ o Clients: TransUnion of Canada Inc.

● Andrew Brander, Crestview Strategy ​ o Clients: Morneau Shepell

● Yaron Gersh, The CCS Group ​ o Clients: Ontario Native Women's Association

● Philip Dewan, Counsel Public Affairs Inc. ​ o Clients: Medical Pharmacies Group Limited

● Elizabeth Wagdin, Global Public Affairs Inc. ​ o Clients: The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Science, Cineplex Entertainment

● Andrew Retfalvi, Global Public Affairs Inc. ​ o Clients: Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Canada

● Adam Moote, Armstrong Communications Inc. ​ o Clients: MasonryWorx, Vocational Rehabilitation Alliance of Canada

● Caroline Pinto, Counsel Public Affairs Inc. ​ o Clients: Medical Pharmacies Group Limited

● Kevin Powers, Campbell Strategies ​ o Clients: Safer Highway 11 Muskoka

● Marc Kealey, Kealey & Associates Inc. ​ o Clients: AgMedica BioScience Inc.

● Alec Newton, Maple Leaf Strategies ​ o Clients: Chiefs of Ontario, Cogeco Inc., Georgian Bay Preservation Alliance, Zebra Technologies

● Kenneth Stewart, The Capital Hill Group Inc. ​ o Clients: DXC Technology

● Jonathan Rose, Policy Concepts Inc. ​ o Clients: Scaffold Industry Association of Canada

● David Angus, The Capital Hill Group Inc. ​ o Clients: Artistree Inc

● Nick Kayler, StrategyCorp Inc. ​ o Clients: Muslim Association of Canada

● Amy Boddington, Policy Concepts Inc. ​ o Clients: Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA)

● Adam Yahn, Summa Strategies Canada ​

o Clients: Paramedic Association of Canada, Boys and Girls Club of Canada, Google Canada Corporation, Railway Association of Canada, SAP Canada Inc.

● Derrick Araneda, Stosic & Associates ​ o Clients: Innomar Strategies

● John McKenna, Hansell McLaughlin Advisory ​ o Clients: MCAP

● Aaron Gairdner, Rubicon Strategy Inc. ​ o Clients: Allvision

● Michael von Herff, PAA Public Affairs Advisors ​ o Clients: Visa Canada

● Jim Burnett, Pathway Group Inc. ​ o Clients: Rehabilitation Centre Corp.

● Jerry Khouri, Pathway Group Inc. ​ o Clients: Hamilton Port Authority, Town of Lincoln

● Carys Baker, Maple Leaf Strategies ​ o Clients: TruGreen

● Nancy Abbey, NewProspex Healthcare Consulting ​ o Clients: Shouldice Hospital

● Mark Olsheski, Sussex Strategy Group ​ o Clients: NRG Peaks

● Leanna Karremans, Pathway Group Inc. ​ o Clients: Newmarket Cemetery Corporation

● Isaac Ransom, Melissa Lantsman and Gillian Smith, Hill+Knowlton Strategies ​ ​ ​ o Clients: Vancity Community Investment Bank

● Kelly Mitchell, KW Mitchell Consulting Services Inc. ​ o Clients: MCW Group of Companies, Mitigokaa Development Corp., Medical Laboratories of Windsor, Ontario Stone, Sand & Gravel Association

● Katie Heelis, Enterprise ​ o Clients: Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada

● Leah Mulholland, Navigator Ltd. ​ o Clients: Clorox (GLAD) Company of Canada Ltd.

● Chris Benedetti, Sussex Strategy Group ​ o Clients: Greenfield Energy Centre LP, NRG Peaks

● Anika Christie, Grosso McCarthy Inc. ​ o Clients: Saint Elizabeth Health Care, VON, Bayshore Health Care

● David Messer, Edelman ​ o Clients: Cisco Systems Canada

● Danielle Peters, Magnet Strategy Group ​ o Clients: Spectrum Patient Services

● Natalie Dash and Ted Griffith, Campbell Strategies ​ ​ ​ o Clients: Corporation of The Town of Ingersoll

● Michael McCarthy, Grosso McCarthy Inc. ​ o Clients: EMD Serono Canada

● Sarah Domino, Leonard Domino & Associates Inc. ​ o Clients: Dietitians of Canada - Ontario

● Daniel McIntyre, Grosso McCarthy Inc. ​ o Clients: Medavie Inc.

● Matthew Henley, Wellington Dupont ​ o Clients: Boehringer Ingelheim

● John Light, John Light ​ o Clients: Ice River Springs

● Mina Moser, Impact Public Affairs ​ o Clients: Ontario Dairy Council

● Aleksandar Stosic and Sadaf Abbasi, Stosic & Associates ​ ​ ​ o Clients: TerraFarma Cannabis

● Sheila Willis, TRM Public Affairs ​ o Clients: Romspen Mortgage Investment Fund

● Ralph Palumbo, The Hillcrest Consulting Group Inc. ​ o Clients: Medical Laboratories of Windsor

● David Angus, The Capital Hill Group Inc. ​ o Clients: DXC Technology, Uniprint.net

● Jennifer Mossop, Mossop Media/JFM Productions Inc. ​ o Clients: Hospice Palliative Care Ontario

● Alex Chreston, Crestview Strategy ​ o Clients: Minogue Medical Inc.

● Celine Chang, Crestview Strategy ​ o Clients: Northeastern University

Organizations that registered in-house lobbyists from September 27, 2019 – October 3

● Investment Industry Association of Canada ● Electricity Distributors Association ● Canadian Communication Systems Alliance ● Ontario Petroleum Institute Inc. ● Lakehead University ● Mohawk College ● Mitacs ● Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario ● Food & Consumer Products of Canada ● Right to Play International ● Ontario Private Campground Association ● United Way Greater Toronto ● Chemistry Industry Association of Canada ● Consumer Health Products Canada ● Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board ● Canadian Medical Association ● Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada ● Life Sciences Ontario ● Unifor ● Ontario Provincial Police Association ● United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union ● Insurance Bureau of Canada ● Tesla Motors Canada ULC ● Bombardier Inc. ● Rogers Communications Inc. ● Johnson & Johnson Inc. ● CIBC ● Restaurant Brands International ● Entertainment One Ltd. ● Manulife ● Surtreat Canada Inc. ● Coast Capital Savings Federal Credit Union ● Emera Inc.

Queen's Park Today is written by Sabrina Nanji, reporting from the Queen's Park press gallery.

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