Tim Hudak proves HRC reform is a political winner

I should have devoted more attention to the leadership contest for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Four candidates ran in that election -- Tim Hudak, Frank Klees, Christine Elliott and Randy Hillier. And -- amazingly -- reform of Ontario's out-of-control human rights commission became the central policy debate of the race.

Stop for a moment to reflect on how incredible that is. That simply wouldn't have happened two years ago, or perhaps even a year ago. That is a testament to the denormalization of Canada's HRCs, and how politically-aware Canadians (particularly those of a conservative stripe) have taken a keen interest in the subject.

As I noted in April, it was Randy Hillier, the great libertarian MPP, who first raised the subject, with his simple call for the abolition of Ontario's HRC. I loved his motto: real justice, real judges.

Tim Hudak saw the common sense of Hillier's position -- and its political appeal -- and dittoed Hillier's position. He had a few phraseological nuances -- he'd simply refer such matters to real courts, and get rid of the more obscene counterfeit human rights, like the "right" not to be offended. I wrote about it here.

That's when Elliott and Klees decided to use the issue as a wedge.

Klees said the Hudak and Hillier proposals would "send the wrong message" and that letting real courts handle these matters – meaning real rules of evidence and procedure, costs being awarded against nuisance litigants, etc. -- would "limit access to justice".

It would limit access to something, that’s for sure, but not to justice.

Elliott's campaign said HRCs are a "legitimate forum" that should be reformed, not abolished.

But both Elliott and Klees tried to have it both ways; as you can see in the two statements I linked to, Elliott called for the HRC's abuses to be "stopped", but left it at that vague non-promise; and Klees proposed to repeal the Ontario Human Rights Code's ban on discriminatory signs and notices -- a good start, but hardly the root of the problem.

The main argument put forward by Elliott and Klees, though, was not that HRCs were particularly good, or that the Hudak-Hillier position was particularly bad, from a policy point of view. It was that they thought HRC reform simply couldn’t be sold.

In the debates, Klees said “just like the faith-based school policy, which took us 20 minutes to explain ... no one has 20 minutes to explain this” and Elliott called it “politically toxic”. Note carefully: neither of those arguments are substantive policy arguments. They’re political worries, signs of self-doubt, of conceding that the other side will be better communicators on the issue. As the reference to the school policy of the last election shows, it’s a position motivated in fear – a fear that would let the Liberal Party determine what the PCs would or wouldn’t believe in.

That’s pretty weak – and it smacks of the Liberal lite policies that were so disastrous for the PC party after Mike Harris’s departure, when the PCs thought that tacking to the left would help. It didn’t.

Let me close win some observations as to the political viability of proposals to reform HRCs:

1.     Hudak won, and the two nervous nellies lost. That’s pretty much the clearest verdict on whether or not HRC reform is “toxic”.

2.     Hudak didn’t just win with his own members and Hillier’s; he won substantial numbers of votes (points, actually, under their system) from Elliott’s camp, too. On the second ballot, the points stood at

Hudak: 4,128

Klees 3,299

Elliott 2,903

Clearly, if Elliott’s voters were convinced that HRC reform was “toxic” – or a “recipe for electoral disaster” – they would have gone to Klees, and easily beat Hudak in the final run-off. Instead, Hudak picked up more than half of her vote.

It was dramatic spin from Elliott’s camp to make HRC reform sound scary, but most of her own supporters didn’t believe her.

3.     Klees said it takes 20 minutes to make the case against HRCs, and that in an election politicians just don’t have much time. I don’t think it takes 20 minutes – I think it can be done in 20 seconds. Here’s one news story about Hudak’s win that mentions HRCs in passing, and does a pretty good job of summing up the problem in about half that time:

…Mr. Hudak was unapologetic about his campaign, which included a pledge to disband the province’s human rights tribunal, a body that has issued some perplexing decisions in recent years, including one forcing a bar owner to post signs saying “We accommodate authorized marijuana users” after he asked the man to move from the doorway while he smoked a joint.

That’s not bad, and that’s by a reporter, not a professional campaign team. I could imagine campaign sound bites that included phrases like “there’s no such thing as a human right not to be offended” or “real human rights deserve real courts” or “kangaroo courts that don’t respect freeom of speech are un-Canadian” or simply “Barbara Hall is out of control”. Of course, none of those are as powerful as simply summing up the nutty cases out there, as the reporters above did, referencing the crazy case of Gator Ted’s.

4. As I mentioned the other day, there is a receptive political landscape on this issue that just wasn’t there for John Tory’s school reforms last time:

[Last time] …there was no appalling figurehead like Barbara Hall to run against; there wasn't a steady stream of easy-to-understand examples of appalling stupidity emanating from the object in need of reform; the media wasn't uniform on the matter -- and committed to it, as personal users of free speech; liberal NGOs weren't on side; and the public hadn't been primed on the subject for a good 18 months in advance.

Suffice it to say that in the first political battle in which HRC reform was the central issue, the reformer won handily. Tim Hudak has proved that we have moved from the denormalization phase to legislative action phase of our campaign. Other political entrepreneurs should take note.