What could bring Ontario’s Liberals back to power? Steven Del Duca is betting on economic dignity

In mid-pandemic it’s hard to imagine a post-COVID-19 Ontario.

Thestar.com
Jan. 25, 2021

That said, it’s time to start talking about what our political life will look like after the death-watch is over. Do we have the vision to see ahead?

Few are watching Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, who helms Ontario’s third party. He tends to be overlooked when Premier Doug Ford puts himself front and centre, or Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath positions herself as an NDP premier-in-waiting.

While they proffer ready-made answers, Del Duca is posing questions of his own. He wants to talk about something beyond single issue politics and personality politics by talking policy.

Next month, the Liberals are preparing to launch a virtual platform-building process across the province, reaching out to party members -- and the general public -- for fresh ideas to be debated and curated and cobbled together before the next election. Which is coming sooner than most realize.

Let us assume the peril of the pandemic largely subsides once most Canadians are vaccinated this September, some nine months from now. That clears the way to start an unofficial pre-election campaign, a mere nine months before the next scheduled vote in June of 2022.

Just as medical science predicts a postvaccination respite, the social science of public opinion research suggests voters have the appetite for another Progressive Conservative government post-pandemic. Ford’s personal approval ratings skyrocketed after his initial response to COVID-19; the halo effect is fading as his second honeymoon loses its lustre, yet he still leads in the polls.

The question is where the Liberals fit in. After 15 years in power, they were dispatched to the penalty box under ex-premier Kathleen Wynne, weighed down by dynasty fatigue.

Yet even before Del Duca took the helm, the leaderless Liberals -- a party still without a fresh face or new policies in place -- had overtaken the second-place New Democrats and continue to outperform them. The party’s membership has nearly doubled to 75,000 since he took over, and candidate rivalries in competitive ridings are signs of life in a party given up for dead.

Del Duca won the leadership campaign just as the pandemic was taking root in early March of 2020. Within days, Ontario went into lockdown and he went underground, relegated to virtual campaigning for months on end -- the only environment he has known as leader (rather like another politician named Joe Biden).

Despite serving in Wynne’s cabinet, Del Duca remains largely unknown to the general public. His task today is to reintroduce himself, rethink party policies and revive a Liberal brand that seems remarkably resilient.

As a former minister of economic development, he understands the imperative of growth and job-creation in the aftermath of lockdowns. But he stresses that individual well-being matters at least as much as overall economic performance.

“The pandemic has disrupted the way we look at everything,” Del Duca argues in an interview. “The other half of the coin is economic dignity.”

Dignity is an inchoate concept, but he defines it as proper recognition of the value of work, both permanent and precarious, essential and core -- the labour that society no longer takes for granted in previously undervalued and underpaid fields such health care, long term care, child care or the retail sector. Del Duca is making dignity his touchstone as he lays the foundation for an election platform built on three other pillars -- education, closing gaps in health care and confronting climate change.

He is no stranger to digital outreach, having co-chaired the last Liberal platform consultation in 2014, a hybrid online and in-person process. Now, lockdowns have forced the new leader to go fully virtual.

He has shrewdly recruited two former leadership rivals, Michael Coteau and Kate Graham, for a belated healing of wounds and a meeting of minds.

“The platform that we ultimately present to the electorate must align with their rightful belief that government has a core responsibility to provide security and build resiliency,” Del Duca exhorted them in a letter ahead of the official launch next month.

Part of this thought experiment is to rethink what didn’t work last time. The paradox of their pre-pandemic defeat -- when many of Wynne’s most progressive ideas were disregarded and discarded by voters -- is that in a post-pandemic world, many of those same ideas may be back in fashion.

Wynne’s previous campaign promises boosted pharmacare coverage (OHIP+), expanded child care, guaranteed paid sick leave and set a $15 minimum wage. Those ideas were by and large casualties of Wynne’s political demise, thanks to voters who were as indifferent to any one policy as they were hostile to her personality.

When Del Duca took over the party, many assumed he would steer it rightward, away from the centre-left orientation that Wynne personified. But an Ontario electorate still reeling and recovering from the personal and economical impact of COVID-19 may prove more amenable and susceptible to proposals they once rejected.

Del Duca insists he won’t be a prisoner of the party’s past or a captive of present-day caprice. Unshackled by the exigencies of power, he adds, the party can afford to be bold.

Will voters forgive and forget the perceived Liberal sins of the past and refocus on their renewed platform?

In politics, it is impossible to predict victory -- only the virtue of wise policy.