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John Tory is in Ottawa tomorrow to meet with members of the Ontario CPC caucus and key federal Conservative strategists. Of course, the PCPO leader comes to the nation’s capital under the cloud of a challenge of a possible leadership review being organized by conservative strategist Nick Kouvlalis, who is leading the charge for a review with his “yes” campaign. The leader of the “no” (to review) campaign is John Capobianco, a long-time conservative organizer in his own right. After interviewing Kouvalis on his efforts last week, I immediately sought to ask Capobianco a set of questions about the possible leadership review and his team’s efforts to shield Tory and promote him as a strong leader for the party membership.

ST.CA: “Mr. Capobianco, in the face of this challenge to John Tory’s leadership of the PCPO, do you recognize this as a significant ‘grassroots’ campaign of the base, or the efforts of a few discontents?”

JC: One should never discount the efforts of party members who are calling for a leadership review. I’ve seen some websites and read reports of a dinner where folks gathered to discuss organizing for a
review vote in February. I don’t think these can be called either a
campaign of the ‘grassroots’ or efforts of a few discontents – however,
I take all constructive criticisms seriously as does John Tory. Given
our loss, I certainly think this is a time of valid discussion for the
entire party, and John Tory has been at the forefront of this
discussion, meeting Tories in their ridings face to face or calling them
on the phone, which is about as ‘grassroots’ and genuine as one can get.
The response John has been getting is good, he is out there, with the
party and real conservatives, every day, face to face, hearing about
their concerns and, more importantly, learning from them.

ST.CA: “In the last campaign, John Tory stated that ‘Leadership Matters’. Some say that the results indicated that Tory failed this standard that he set for himself. Why should Tory stay on now?”

JC: It’s true that John Tory set high standards for himself, and didn’t achieve what he wanted to, he knows and laments this. However within weeks of the election, he was out in the ridings, face to face with the party and working with them to discover what he did wrong, which shows he is indeed a leader.

Tory should stay on because his drive and energy to create a compelling conservative vision for the province is relentless. Out of nowhere he almost became mayor of Toronto, and within three years of winning the leadership of the PC party – at a time, I will add, where we were $10 million in debt and with the lowest morale I’ve seen in years – many thought we were in a position to win the province, despite an economy that appeared strong and huge liberal spending.

When you talk to party members, of course they’re upset at the loss; we as Conservatives have certainly suffered our fair share of losses both provincially and nationally over the years, but we usually determine where we made our mistakes and went about fixing them… we don’t and should not get into the practice of defeating our leaders after one election loss. If we did, we wouldn’t have had Mike Harris as Premier or Stephen Harper as our current Prime Minister, both suffered initial electoral defeat, but come back to win their respective elections the second time.

Tory is currently listening to and working with the party and over the next 4 years will create an incredibly dynamic Progressive Conservative Party.

ST.CA: “The ‘yes’ side of the campaign has made their first move. Will you be responding? What will you be doing to sign up as many delegates as possible to meet the challenge, whatever its degree, from the ‘no’ side?”

JC: Tory will be doing what he has been doing since October, meeting with the party, face to face and in the open, learning and letting progressive conservatives across the province know that they can trust him to be a strong Conservative leader.

Much is being made of Tory’s tour to connect with the membership for feedback and for a post-mortem to the election loss. Critics on both sides of the debate argue about the merits of how these consultations are being held. Tory’s people would seem to claim that these consultations show a grassroots effort to consult the membership, while the “yes” campaign suggests that the consultations are framed by Tory and show little accountability. Capobianco seems to counter the self-proclaimed label of “grassroots” by the “yes” campaign by suggesting that the campaign is being organized by a handful of senior conservatives.

Next year, in February, Ontario provincial conservatives will converge on London for their annual general meeting. Ontario PC leader John Tory is sure to face pressure before that time from Ontario Tories regarding his leadership after a poor showing during the last General Election.

Today, a press release landed in my inbox from “DraftALeader.com”, a website “with the goal of giving a voice back to the grassroots of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario”. The man behind the effort is conservative Nick Kouvalis, a campaign manager from Windsor Ontario. He writes, “It’s all about accountability and John Tory’s leadership of the Party. He made the last campaign all about leadership. The people of Ontario had their say in a vote, now it’s time for the membership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. I recently attended a campaign debrief put on by John Tory to explain the dismal performance of the PCPO in the last election” said Kouvalis. “Obviously there are many people who have serious concerns about that campaign. These issues all come back to ‘Leadership’ and that is why we are here today.”

Kouvalis is calling for Ontario PC members to vote “yes” to a leadership review.

I contacted Kouvalis for an interview via email.

ST.ca: “Mr. Kouvalis, the purpose of your website is to ask the grassroots to vote yes to a review of John Tory as the leader of the PC Party of Ontario. Why do you believe this is necessary now?”

NK: I can tell you that from the response we received on DAY 1, this party is strong, very fiesty, and it wants to be heard! I did not ever anticipate such a tremendous turnout of support in less than 24 hours of launching this campaign. I am simply shocked at the level of traffic, emails, donations and overall support we have already received.

The grassroots of this party must have a voice in this very important debate. AGM’s and Delegate Selection Meetings are quickly being organized with no information being provided on the party website as to the timings and other details. The average supporter, member, donor, and volunteer need to know these details.

The purpose of the site is to give the membership a voice, a platform that is on equal footing with the “messages” coming from the “No” camp.

I do not believe that accountability will ever be achieved without a leadership race, where the shareholders of this party have an opportunity to know what really happened, who was responsible, why certain decisions were made and why others were continually put off.

When should the membership stand up and take ownership of “their party”? Now is the time to organize to bring accountability back to this party.

My role is to ensure that the membership is aware of meetings, aware of deadlines, understands that many things were way out of place in this campaign and it was not one issue that cost us this election. At the end of the day it will be up to the members of this party to encourage potential candidates to step up and step out, I am here to ensure that their voice is heard.

Our strength is in our people, in our message and in our numbers.

ST.ca: “Since you are launching a campaign to review Tory’s leadership, you are presumably against Tory’s direction of this party. Why is that?”

NK: It would not be fair for me to speak on behalf of the grassroots with respect to the direction that John Tory has taken this party in. That is a question for the membership at large to answer.

Personally, I feel that when you ignore the people with respect to policy development, when you ignore the backbone of this party – board members of riding associations, volunteers and donors, when you surround yourself with “yes” men, when you build the entire PC brand, policy and image of the Party around one man, when you ignore decisions of the elected executive, and then make the campaign about Leadership – then that Leader alone, must be accountable to the membership.

Many of us believe that John Tory is a good man. Many of us believe that John Tory has exceptional skills. That does not mean that John Tory is the right Leader for this party. Leadership Matters……it Matters Big Time. If John Tory cannot command the loyalty of a significant majority of this party, then he cannot lead us.

My role is to ensure that the membership is heard loud and clear. My role is to ensure that information regarding Delegate Selection Meetings reaches the grassroots in time that each slate of Delegates that arrives in February actually represents the membership at large.

ST.ca: “Doesn’t Tory deserve an opportunity an another election? One failed election has rarely been justification for an immediate ouster of a party’s leader.”

NK: Frank Miller, Larry Grossman and Ernie Eves.

John Tory�s fate ultimately must be decided by the membership.

People in Ontario had numerous reasons NOT to vote for Dalton McGuinty but this Leader and his Team gave Ontarians a reason NOT to vote Progressive Conservative.

Of course, we can infer that what Kouvalis and his co-travelers are doing is securing delegate spots at the upcoming convention in order to vote “yes” to a question of whether or not the PC Party of Ontario should review the leadership of John Tory and we can infer that Kouvalis intends to hasten Tory’s retirement. Of course, all Tories believe in taking the pulse of congregating delegates on this question (for lack of a better system. *cough* One member, one vote *cough*), but critics would say that Kouvalis’ strategy here is to bring his agenda to the meeting.

So far, at Kouvalis’ website, he has Elizabeth Witmer, Tim Hudak, Christine Elliot, and Frank Klees under “pick a leader”. It is unclear as to whether these Ontario conservatives endorse Kouvalis’ efforts or whether they have simply been selected as potential future candidates for leadership. Noticeably absent in the list is John Tory, which further indicates what may be the real intent of the site. Hudak and Klees have been rumoured to covet the top job.

Of course, as a number of PC Tories were upset by the electoral defeat a couple of months ago, the unveiling of such a site was only a matter of time. And, of course, the first move was theirs to make.

I have contacted John Capobianco, the “point person” of the “No” campaign of the leadership review. Answers to questions that I will pose to him will of course receive equal time here.

Tag: nick kouvalis

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