OLP: I’m (Still) With Nate

I’m All In On Nate

There’s a lot I could say about the Ontario Liberal Party’s rules for their leadership race. The fact it’s going to take until November to get a new leader is insane, and the shambolic nature of the process to get here is nonsensical. The fact that this weekend represents five months from the AGM that saw Bonnie Crombie resign, and we’ve just gotten the rules, is an indictment on a party that is seemingly institutionally indifferent to doing what’s best for itself. Or, that’s what I would say, if it wasn’t the case that the rules are what the rules are and we have to live with them.

Longtime readers will know I supported Nate Erskine-Smith last time, and I consider NES to be one of the most talented politicians we have today. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t infuriate me at times - Lord fucking knows he does - but it does mean at the end of the day my complete certainty that he is the right person to lead the Ontario Liberals is not born of ignorance or idiocy. And it’s clear in the party’s process up to today that Nate has what the party lacks - ambition, drive, creativity, and above all a burning passion to save this province.

The moment this province faces is a crisis. There’s no other way of saying it, and denying it is one is a form of crazy. We need bold solutions to our myriad crises, and we need a Liberal government to achieve them. The PCs cannot be the change, having been the ones to send us careening to the cliff’s edge, and the NDP cannot be the answer, with their non-existent solutions and even less existent path to 63 seats. And if we’re going to meet this moment, we need the leader who gives us the best chance of both being the change we need and being seen as able to provide that change.

And that’s why I’d be crazy not to follow Nate to the edge of the earth.

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I used to hate Nate. When he was first elected, I couldn’t believe that his Maverick persona was genuine. But it came out, over a decade of watching him, that that was a reflection of my cynicism, and he was and is real about this. He’s a heterodox thinker and a committed Liberal, and those two things occasionally come into conflict in interesting ways. Does that mean he’ll inevitably frustrate me at times? Sure, but that’s the point. A leader who thinks for himself, who is confident and comfortable with being unpopular with party hacks, and who can embrace the good parts of our party’s record while acknowledging our failures is what it will take to win the province back over.

Unlike in 2023, I don’t have any animosity towards the rest of the likely field. There is nobody wholly objectionable in this field, nobody who would cause the crisis of confidence in my party that Bonnie Crombie did. But the lack of objects of visceral hatred has only underlined how much I do actually think Nate is the right leader. Seeing him against a different set of contenders, it reminds me of his strengths, and that there was something that brought me to his side even before Bonnie said she wanted to govern from right of centre.

Nate’s a more experienced candidate than he was last time, and his time as a Federal Minister can only help him. It is immensely valuable that he went through that, learning not just the issues around housing but seeing the structural problems that stop governments from turning ambitions into actions firsthand. That experience will be incredibly useful to ensuring the next Liberal government isn’t bogged down with nonsense errors and an inability to get on top of things.

His time as Housing Minister is often talked about like a mistake or a distraction, but it’s nonsense. He was asked to serve, and as much as I publicly crashed the fuck out about him taking the job, the PM asks you to serve, you serve. You can’t complain that Nate’s not a team player and then implicitly say that he should have told Trudeau to take the offer and shove it. And, frankly, that’s what Nate’s critics keep doing - twist themselves in pretzels to find bad faith where there’s just someone trying to do good.

Cynicism is an understandable thing in this line of business, a defence against the callous nature of political speech and the associated loose relationship between words and the public understanding of their meanings. We know it’s bullshit, so we protect our hearts. It’s a defence mechanism, but it’s one that ends with us in a worse position. We refuse to accept better is actually possible, because we’ve been conditioning ourselves to look at better options as somehow flawed, no matter the circumstances.

If Nate had turned down the Federal cabinet job, the very same people complaining that provincial politics is a backup plan would be saying he thinks he’s entitled to the provincial leadership and he’s too good for Trudeau. If you want to paint any decision in a cynical light, you can do it. But at some point (not soon enough!) Ontario Liberals will get to choose a leader that can be the positive, vibrant, and inspirational voice we need to beat Doug.

Nate will be the leader who can solve the housing crisis and give young Ontarians a sense of hope and optimism for the future. Nate will be the leader to deliver economic growth while respecting our planet. Nate will be the leader to restore honesty and transparency to our politics. And most of all, he will be the leader with the drive and ambition, the zeal to save the OLP and return us to government, where the Ontario public needs us. Nate’s all in.

So am I.