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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

Patrick Brown: Conservatives need a Bill Davis-style leader if they hope to defeat Liberals

From link.

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Now that the dust has settled on the 43rd federal election, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the Conservative movement. As a former three-term Conservative MP and a former leader of the Ontario PC Party, I have some advice for my former colleagues. As the mayor of Canada’s ninth largest and most diverse city, I understand the needs and sentiments of urban Canadians about where the party needs to grow.

If the Conservative Party of Canada expects to win the next election, it will need a viable plan that combats climate change and stands up for human rights and equality. The party failed on these fronts in the recent campaign.

The Conservative failure to present a credible plan on the environment contributed to its inability to grow the party base. In 2019, you cannot stick your head in the sand on the environment. Canadians believe climate change is man made, real and we have to do something about it. Refusing to put a price on pollution (carbon) is not credible in Canada today.

Great Conservatives understood the environment is not a partisan issue. When Bill Davis was premier of Ontario, he created the Ministry of the Environment and put into place Canada’s first environmental land-use plan.

It was Brian Mulroney who was named Canada’s “greenest” prime minister. In 1987, Mulroney hosted world leaders in Montreal to get them to drastically cut the use of ozone-destroying CFCs. In 1991, Mulroney signed the Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement to reduce the pollution that caused acid rain.

German leader Angela Merkel has been nicknamed “Climate Chancellor” for her long-standing international engagement for emissions cuts. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron led record reductions in emissions and investment in clean energy. These conservative politicians pursued an environmental agenda as they knew the environment was not a partisan issue.

As Chantal Hébert, the Toronto Star columnist and CBC panelist, said on election night, “This should be the last election that any party believes it can win without having a serious plan for climate change.”

Another glaring weakness from the modern Conservative movement is the issue of equity. The Conservative Party needs to be the party that stands up for human rights and equality. Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker introduced the Canadian Bill of Rights, which was the country’s first federal law to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms
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The Conservative Party has seen its finest moments in history when it stood up for equality. It was a Conservative prime minister who brought in voting rights for women. It was a Conservative prime minister who opposed apartheid in South Africa.

The Conservative leadership needs to stand up for all Canadians. We cannot pick and choose when we believe in equality for all people. No federal Conservative Party leader has marched in a Pride Parade. This is shameful. Love is love is love. It is an honour to be at events like these that celebrate the achievements of the Pride movement and to continue to push for equality, dignity, inclusion and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community.

Another example of a lack of leadership on equity is the Islamophobia debate. I was bewildered when the Conservative Party opposed a bill condemning hate against Muslim Canadians. A big-tent Conservative Party must cut all ties with elements in our society that preach hate. Far right groups like Rebel Media may have applauded Conservatives for jingoistic votes like this but they turned off many more Canadians by doing so. Even more recently, the Conservative failure to challenge Quebec on its draconian Bill 21, which is an attack on religious freedom, is a failure of leadership.

I would like to see Conservative leadership that says with clarity it does not matter where you were born, who you love, the colour of your skin or what god you worship, we are going to build a strong Canada together.
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JasonParis said:
Yet the one alcohol-related thing that a lot of people have actually been asking for decades is still not being considered... later drinking hours, at least, in the city of Toronto.
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It would also be nice to be able to walk around in the open with an open bottle of beer like in Europe.
 
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JasonParis said:
Yet the one alcohol-related thing that a lot of people have actually been asking for decades is still not being considered... later drinking hours, at least, in the city of Toronto.
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To me, the perfect item to pair w/tougher drinking and driving laws and a direct investment in late-night transit across the province, even with a time-limited grant (ie. the provinces eats 100% of the cost of new late-night service for 2 years, then phases it to zero over 5 years).
 
I have a question, is there a legitimate way to reform auto insurance in Ontario? Like I dont get how auto insurance is many times more expensive than other places...

Like i have a clean record and have to pay nearly 4000 dollars a year in Brampton.


So is there any way to resolve this... I dont think people should be spending 5-10% of their pay on auto insurance.
 
Jasmine18 said:
I have a question, is there a legitimate way to reform auto insurance in Ontario? Like I dont get how auto insurance is many times more expensive than other places...

Like i have a clean record and have to pay nearly 4000 dollars a year in Brampton.

So is there any way to resolve this... I dont think people should be spending 5-10% of their pay on auto insurance.
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Vote for a government that supports consumer price protections and corporate regulation?

Edit: If you ever want to see how good others have it, there was an Australian TV show called "The Checkout"; it was on for about 8 years or so, and was essentially all about consumer protection (and was quite funny). Australia—arguably a more conservative country—has far better consumer protections than we have here, thanks to all sides of the political spectrum. We're too influenced by US unbridled capitalism and deregulation, and the people have suffered for it.

Ironically, one of the best resources for consumer protection knowledge was itself cancelled in 2018 due to budget cuts at the government funded Australian Broadcast Corporation.

 
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Jasmine18 said:
I have a question, is there a legitimate way to reform auto insurance in Ontario? Like I dont get how auto insurance is many times more expensive than other places...

Like i have a clean record and have to pay nearly 4000 dollars a year in Brampton.


So is there any way to resolve this... I dont think people should be spending 5-10% of their pay on auto insurance.
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Insurance rates are set to deal with 'local conditions". If you live in an area with many house fires you will pay more home fire insurance, if you live in an area with many auto claims you will pay higher auto insurance. That's why prices vary. Of course, you may live in a totally fire-resistant home in a high fire-risk area or drive in a higher claim-risk area but only use your car on Sundays between 7am and 10am: then you WILL pay more than is 'fair' (for you) but it's hard to see how an insurance company can totally tailor premium to person ....
 
Jasmine18 said:
I have a question, is there a legitimate way to reform auto insurance in Ontario? Like I dont get how auto insurance is many times more expensive than other places...

Like i have a clean record and have to pay nearly 4000 dollars a year in Brampton.


So is there any way to resolve this... I dont think people should be spending 5-10% of their pay on auto insurance.
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There are lots of changes that can be made.

But you have to understand the implications of the various trade-offs.

Let's start the general level; is auto insurance province-wide more expensive than it should be?

Probably, but insurance company greed isn't the driver; the driver is a combination of relatively high levels of fraud and associated claims, along with comparatively high levels of mandated liability coverage.

There are jurisdictions in the U.S. where its legal to get only $300,000 in liability coverage, as opposed to the typical $2,000,000 in Ontario.

Now the upside of that that is much cheaper coverage; the downside is that if you're in a serious accident and you, your passengers or another driver have catastrophic injuries that insurance won't go very far; you stand a much greater
likelihood of being personally sued (and/or having to sue).

On the subject of frauds; there are some do-able steps; but they involve either bringing in physiotherapy/occupational therapy etc. under government insurance; or having the insurance industry get into that line of work to
address the nature and scale of false claims.

Better use of A.I. to analyze claims patters could drive out some fraud; but probably isn't sufficient in the near term.

Also driving costs in Ontario is that we all absorb the cost of 'facility' insurance. That's the insurance that gets sold to really crappy drivers with multiple, serious driving convictions including DUI and multiple serious at-fault accidents.

Those really terrible drivers do pay more for insurance, but its still effectively capped at a few thousand over what the average driver pays. This has to do with insurance being mandatory and the idea that if the rate isn't somewhat affordable people might just drive uninsured.

***

Once one gets past the general auto insurance system; one gets into how rates are calculated.

Very crudely, Ontario driving rates look something like Driver x Car x location.

So your car has a rating for insurance purposes, based on how often that type of vehicle generates claims; what size of claims etc. which is based party on how expensive your car is to repair but also on how often its stolen and/or in accidents.

You have a rating as a driver, based on license class and number of years free of at-fault accidents, years free of claims, and how many driving infractions you have against you in recent years.

Finally a location factor is applied which looks at the number and size of claims in the area where you live.

***

I'll post below on some options to address these.
 
So what can be done?

Lots of things.

Fraudulent claims are the most challenging, I addressed those in the post above.

Drivers without insurance. This is an important one and I would suggest 2 ways of tackling it. First, change the penalty for driving without insurance to include vehicle impoundment. One week on a 1st offence, 3 months on second and subsequent offences.

Second, in order to catch people driving without insurance, the industry should pay to equip more police cars with 'sweepers' (plate scanners) and should tie those in to a centralized insurance database so that a sweeper knows when a car is not currently listed on any insurance policy, and police can pull it over. Relatively easy to do; but requires investment and regulatory change.

Facility coverage is another problem, one in which we all pay so that really bad drivers can afford to stay on the road. I'm not convinced this is a good use of my or anyone else's money. Part of this is not being afraid to see sky-high rates for terrible drivers and making the changes outlined above so we can catch them if they drive uninsured and hit them with a sufficient penalty that this will not be a widespread problem.

Another element to this is that we simply let too many people keep their licenses when their record of convictions suggests it should be otherwise. I would like to see repeat DUI and repeat Stunt Driving offenders face either a
10-year driving ban, or a lifetime suspension.

We also need to look making driving training mandatory (it is not); and I'd prefer to see driver testing done with a simulator. The computer won't miss that rolling stop......but more importantly, it allows for testing driving skill in a range of real-life conditions that typical road tests do not. Black ice, nighttime driving, kid running out in front of your car, driver in front of you hard breaking etc. Changing the system would make it more expensive to get a license. Probably $1,500+ driver training and an extra $250 for the test. But it would result in fewer accidents and lower rates.

From there, the question about location comes in; as with sex one is penalized regardless of personal driving ability.

We can strip out location and sex from factoring criteria; though, in the absence of other changes, it means drivers in lower accident areas and women would pay more; so that those in Brampton and men could pay less.

But we could do what some insurers are already doing and install real-time driver-skill/style monitoring in cars.

Those devices (already in market) tell an insurer how often you hard break, how often you hard turn, or aggressively accelerate; provide your real number of KM as driven; and can be used to adjust for time of day and driving route, though to my knowledge these are currently not enabled on devices in use here.

When the insurer has access to all that information, its likely you see more personalized rates.

What you will also see is insurance charged by the KM.

That IS coming, soon, based on what I understand. Though it will be optional for the foreseeable future.
 
WislaHD said:
It would also be nice to be able to walk around in the open with an open bottle of beer like in Europe.
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That's not a huge concern of mine (and not as common as it once was in Europe either). I do think some form of licensing "wet zones" for festivals, like Pride, could be done a lot better and without putting attendees into a zoo-like cage.
 
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