Analysis of Jane Twinney's PCPO Nomination "Victory"

If your name is Vic, Farid, Peter, or Gila, (the names of the local PC's running in neighbouring York Region ridings), you are probably muttering some pretty dark curses for PC Party Leader Tim Hudak who ham-fistedly took the wind out of the sales of the PC Party fortunes in York Region. 

Internal Liberal polls indicate that the OLP is pulling 11 points up on the Newmarket-Aurora race, according to the Toronto Star.  If that is true then the only safe York Region seat for the Ontario PC's right now is Julia Munro's (unless Gila Martow can convince Prime Minister Stephen Harper to revisit Israel during the next Ontario general election campaign).  Could you imagine a scenario where the PC Party ekes out an Ontario Election victory when it can manage to win just one seat in all of York Region?  I can't. 

Just a few weeks ago, it appeared that PC support in York Region would have been buttressed by a hard-fought, but likely convincing Maddie Di Muccio win that would have brought in a thousand new members, hundreds of new volunteers, and lots of media coverage.

Thanks to Tim Hudak's fatally delicate ego, there has been lots of media but all of it bad and demotivating to the segment of potential supporters that would have been energised by the populist message of a Maddie Di Muccio campaign. 

The riding association announced that it had 740 members in January.  I have heard that some new memberships have been sold, but the sales have been but a trickle. 

There is no enthusiasm.  No positive press coverage, (news of Jane Twinney's acclamation was printed on page A7 of the Era, not the front page).  No wave of support to give the PC's momentum.

The number of people at Thursday's meeting was slightly more than a typical NAPPCA AGM but definitely considerably less than the numbers of the MPP's New Year's Levee.  

Some of the elderly faces in the room I have seen for years at these sorts of events and the NAPPCA Board members were out in force too.  There were prominent lookie-lous who everyone can identify as supporters of other parties.  And there was a smaller subset of people who were there for Jane, who were predominantly from Newmarket.  The Aurora segment of the Newmarket-Aurora riding was under represented. 

It wasn't who was present on Thursday night but who was missing from the meeting that should be noted.  No Tim Hudak, or any PC MPPs from other ridings such as Julia Munro or Gila Martow, not even other PCPO candidates turned out.  And Maddie Di Muccio didn't show which suggests that Jane's people believe that they can win with Maddie's supporters relegated to the sidelines. 

I didn't see anyone being accosted or followed around the room by certain PC members who took it upon themselves to challenge the loyalty of other long term PC members.  Not that it would surprise me.  To this observer, the room had an atmosphere of a high school clique desperately trying to maintain their "cool kid" status in the quad. 

It appears Stephen Somerville has very few friends left in this group.  The opinions varied from "He over-reacted" to more profanity laced assessments but of the people I spoke with there wasn't a single person to show him any degree of sympathy.  Politics can be very unforgiving.

But the main topic of discussion at DiNardos was, "Can Jane win?"  The problem that she will have to overcome is her voting record.  At this point, Jane Twinney has zero credibility as a conservative.  Here are just some of the inconsistencies to illustrate Jane Twinney's troubles representing the PC Party of Ontario: 

Issue	PC Party's Position	Jane Twinney's Voting Record
Tax hikes	The PCPO believes “can cut taxes so that people have more money to spend and businesses have more to invest"	Newmarket Councillor Jane Twinney has voted in favour of hiking property taxes at every budget except in 2012.
Transparency	Supports MPP Vic Fideli who released documents showing the government lied about deficit projections	Voted in favour of censuring Councillor Di Muccio when she courageously exposed that Newmarket Council was abusing its in camera meeting process.  Jane Twinney also failed to support making the details of the Newmarket Soccer Club bailout public.
Green Energy and Fit Program	“Ontario PC Party under Tim Hudak maintains its commitment to scrap the Green Energy Act. That means we would remove subsidies on wind and solar, we would restore locally based decision making and we would implement a moratorium on developments until health and environmental impacts are assessed." Statement from MPP Lisa MacLeod (Feb. 19, 2014)	Councillor Jane Twinney has repeatedly voted in favour of projects related to the Green Energy Act and the Fit Program.
Public Transit	PC York Region MPPs Introduce Back To Work Legislation To End Transit Strike.	While initially saying in her blog that she supported back to work legislation, Councillor Jane Twinney later flipped-flopped on the issue and voted against supporting the measure.  Without this back to work legislation resulted in a disastrous negotiation and today York Region Transit users pay among the highest public transit fares in the province and routes have been cut back.
Corporate "Welfare"	Tim Hudak has stated publicly that his party is against what he termed “corporate welfare” and the province must not help big corporations.	Newmarket Council voted to bail out the Newmarket Soccer Club to the tune of $2.8 million. Jane was among the 5 councillors who supported the bail out.
Public Sector Wage Freeze	The PC's continue to call for immediate legislation to freeze all public sector wages, union and non-union. They want to limit the independence of arbitrators as a way to keep wage costs down.	While being silent on this issue, it is well known that Newmarket employees have been given across the board wage increases and Twinney is part of the council that would have approved this measure.