Confessions from major leaguer Greg Sorbara at Queen’s Park
A telling memoir from Greg Sorbara of how politicians play the game and think through every play - doing the right thing versus getting things done.

thestar.com
Nov. 10, 2014
By Martin Regg

Greg Sorbara won’t get rich on his political memoirs - but that’s the story of his life: He doesn’t need to.

Born into wealth, Sorbara didn’t get into books - or politics - for the money.

As a pot-smoking university dropout, hanging out with hippies, he could have remained a trust fund kid on the West Coast. Instead, he became a kind of poster boy for the confluence of affluence and influence in Ontario politics.

Reading his just-released memoirs, it’s clear that Sorbara never bought his way into power. It’s just that family wealth backstopped him until his 30s, when, as a father of six kids, he finally grew up and got a law degree.

Not everyone gets second chances like that. Or unexpectedly gets invited to run for office and win a cabinet post on his first try - culminating with the posts of provincial treasurer and campaign chief, where he made the most of Ontario’s wealth by sharing it with children in poverty and university students in need.

Now 68, he writes about the “silver spoon lodged firmly in my mouth that allowed me the indulgence of a political career spanning 25 years.”

During that quarter-century, Sorbara followed a path of opportunity and serendipity that coincided with the electoral ups and downs of Ontario’s Liberal Party. As an accidental politician, he served three accidental premiers - riding into power with David Peterson in 1985, resurrecting the Liberal brand with Dalton McGuinty in 1993, and reaching out to Kathleen Wynne on the convention floor in 2013.

In Sorbara’s vernacular, his vocation was the Major Leagues - proof that he still sees the world of politics through the prism of a baseball diamond.

The book isn’t so much a kiss-and-tell as it is a telling memoir of how politicians play the game and think through every play - doing the right thing versus getting things done. Sorbara recounts doing deals with his federal Tory counterpart, the late Jim Flaherty - highways for subways - by paving a 407 extension east toward Flaherty’s Whitby riding, while Sorbara got federal funding for a Spadina line extension to his Vaughan riding. He calls it good government but acknowledges it was also “great... for my political prospects.”

It’s a recurring balancing act. As Liberal president in 2002, he quashed attempts by party reformers to follow the federal lead in banning corporate and union donations. As finance minister he opted to de-list optometry services, but acknowledges it ultimately saved little money (regular checkups could help save people’s eyesight).

But on the legacy ledger, Sorbara can claim paternity for the Ontario Child Benefit, which allocated billions to help lift children out of poverty. As campaign chair in 2011, he crusaded for a 30 per cent tuition credit for qualifying families - motivated, perhaps unconsciously, by his own good fortune in being able to return to school and become minister responsible for postsecondary education.

The new Harmonized Sales Tax posed the biggest re-election challenge for Sorbara. He viewed the hated HST as economically justifiable but politically suicidal. Ever the team player, he held his tongue.

He confesses to utter uncertainty about renewable energy, but takes comfort in its political appeal among progressive voters who could be seduced to swing Liberal.

Sorbara writes bluntly about his own failed leadership bid in 1992, when anti-Italian prejudice hobbled his candidacy. Even in defeat, however, he resolved to stay on: “I’d made the commitment to my electors to serve out the term.” Yet in 2012 he felt no such loyalty to the voters of Vaughan, resigning his safe seat barely 10 months after seeking a four-year election mandate - confiding in the book that it was a deft way to deflect attention from a Liberal byelection loss elsewhere that same night.

Sorbara - who as a young man briefly studied for the priesthood - now wants Ontario to merge its anachronistic Catholic school boards with the public system, arguing that our constitutional pact with Catholics has been overtaken by the multicultural diversity of our times. The argument sounds persuasive in print.

Why then didn’t he pursue the idea in power? You don’t have to read his book to know the answer: That’s politics.

None of these confessions about his political calculations and aspirations come across as shockingly cynical or unforgivably sneaky - they are merely a sneak peek into a politician’s mindset. The rhetoric can be rich, but Sorbara’s candor is disarming.