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A byelection in Newmarket-Aurora would be very risky for the Liberals - a lot of people would be reluctant to give the Liberals a "blank cheque" in such a Tory riding...Klees might end up sitting as an independent and might support the Liberals from time to time though.
rather be silent
Yeah it's a good job, particularly compared to being a backbench member, but essentially it's 30k$ (everyone gets some sort of job that gives them 10k or 20k extra annually) and an apartment to break party solidarity, burn personal bridges, wreck your party's leverage and give the party you've been opposing all your career a majority. So while I'm surprised that's enough of an offer to make a opposition member effectively defect, I'm not surprised that someone who has been around the block that took the bait, like Klees. He's been a backbencher, a Minister, ran for leader...what's he got left to strive for? Nada.
I keep wondering what happens to Klees after he loses the race for speaker. BTW I hear him interviewed on Metro Morning today and setting aside the mathematical implications of him being speaker - the guy sounded like an arrogant, vainglorious jerk and struck me as having a personality that was 100% wrong for the job of speaker of the leg. Ultimately MPPs need to ask themselves who would make the best speaker - Klees would be awful.
I don't get what the end game is for him though. Once he loses - does he get welcomed back into the PC caucus with open arms? I doubt it. Does he end up as an independent playing the role of Chuck Cadman in this minority parliament?
Well, around the block people who have had previously had more than they have now, have little to lose in risking their bird in the hand.
Klees will have a nice pension, the chance for 'side jobs' that make more than pocket change; for which in return he gives up the boring day to day of back bencher which he has no further chance of changing since he was not going be around for the next election anyway.
Cecil Clarke- who is a good guy not to be compared to Klees- was a Nova Scotia PC MLA. He's still fairly young and people wondered why he wanted to give up being an MLA for the VERY long odds of getting elected as a Conservative MP on Cape Breton.
Answer: apparently he decided he had enough of provincial politics anyway. Nothing to lose.
Maybe this is even a preferrable exit for Klees. That not getting government he wanted out. Even a vainglorious jerk prefers not to look like a quitter. So he takes a shot at being Speaker... and if he doesnt get it, gets driven out.
To be fair although they get an RRSP matching contribution (I think?), the MPPs no longer have a pension. And Klees being elected in 1995 means that he wouldn't have received all that much of a lump-sump when the penion was cancelled. It's one of the reasons for the lack of turnover in the PC caucus. Not that Klees will be wanting for much in his post-Legislature career.
I agree that this is likely an exit strategy. The PCs were very confident for quite a while that they'd be the government.
Is there a clamour for Hudak's head?
Of course there would be at least talk. But how much, if any, is it more than just talk?
I heard the news report of that interview on CBC main later. Seems besides being all the things you mentioned, he also doesn't understand the role of Speaker after all these years either. Dumb as a post came to mind. He claimed that he would chart a new course and wouldn't be bound by the practice of breaking a tie in favour of the status quo- the time honoured tradition of the Speaker in the Westminister system. Instead he would vote in the best interests of the people of Ontario or some such pompous nonsense.
I sure hope it is an exit strategy at this point. Because, as a lover of the traditions of our system, this is not someone up to the role of Speaker in a hung House.
It is not inconceivable that Klees figured he'd rather let McGuinty make decisions on his own than with the input of the NDP.
They are one big business party pretending to be two. Charade they are.
It's highly conceivable that Klees and many other Conservatives would do anything to prevent the NDP having the votes to bargain with McGuinty.
Liberal/Tory...same old story!
Sounds like the 2006-2011 federal Conservative government situation, doesn't it?
Its not that complicated for the Tories to make that happen - all Hudak has to o is announce that his party will back McGuinty on all confidence votes - and then the NDP has no bargaining power. In fact, why doesn't Hudak make a proposal to have a German-style "grand coalition" with McGuinty and he can be Deputy Premier
I think most of us here would accept the notion that the Tories and the Grits, as with the Dems and the GOP, are two heads of the same chimera, enacting largely identical policies while maintaining an illusion of political choice. I think these parties corporate political masters may have ordered this deal, to ensure their agenda is enacted without input of the NDP.
Whcih brings me to something I'd love to have links about, namely the key unelected senior civil servants in this country, what agendas they carry through regardless of who gets elected, and who these specific individuals are.
http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/a8/46/7fe138d747a3b5737e873cce08...
Can someone more familiar with Ontario provincial politics inform the rest of us as to who Klees might have supported in the last Tory leadership contest? Was he a Hudak backer, or not?
I would imagine that means that Klees backed Klees for the leadership of the Ontario PCs... who knows?
Hudak is pissed at Klees. I don't think he will be very welcome back in the CRAP party
Was there long-standing bad blood between them long before Klees let is name stand for Speaker?
Or could this be Klees's push to gain publicity for a possible federal Conservative leadership bid if he thinks Harper will not be around for the 2015 election?
I wouldn't put it past Harper to ram as much down the throats of Canadians as he possibly can over the next few years, and then (like Brian Mulroney) take off for some corporate position in 2014, letting someone else lead the Conservatives into the next election, to face the voters' wrath.
Does Klees strike anyone as having federal ambitions?
hudak should have a very big say in the parliament, they won 35 percent of the vote, 2 percent less than the liberals..i am against both parties, but i am a supporter of porportional representation and fair is fair.
Is there any precedent for a Speaker becoming a leader? It seems an unlikely pathway.
It appears that Donna Cansfield may end up as the first female Speaker of the Ontario Legislature. About time too. As for Kleesgate, it's been the next best distraction to the epick Ford-Delahunty cage match. In the end Kless has managed to reinforce to us why we should not have voted for Tim Hudak.
And so, Cansfield would be central Etobicoke's second Speaker over the past two decades (after Chris Stockwell)
Interesting. I heard rumblings that Cansfield was going to quit this election. I'm guessing this a valedictory tour until 2015, at which point, Cansfield will retire.