This story was originally published by Stratford Today, a Village Media publication.
When former Minister of Revenue John Wilkinson was tasked with working on the thorny HST, his parliamentary assistant at Queen's Park was a rookie MPP from Ottawa Centre, Yasir Naqvi.
"Working on the HST (combining the separate GST and PST) was a huge political challenge at the time," Wilkinson told Stratford Today. "I have said you really get to know people when you are in the foxhole with them. We were in the political foxhole because of that great HST debate. That is how we became friends."
Wilkinson represented Perth—Middlesex, later changing to Perth—Wellington, from 2003 to 2011, serving first as a parliamentary assistant before being asked to take on cabinet positions later into his tenure by former premier Dalton McGuinty.
The president and CEO of Wilkinson Insight Incorporated, working with private and public clients, and a member of the board of directors for Greenfield Global, a specialty alcohol producer, Wilkinson has no shortage of things to do. He is active on other boards, including Life Sciences Ontario, Ontario Arts Foundation, and he vice-chairs the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance's board of directors.
He and his old friend are back in the foxhole together as Naqvi, now an MP, runs for the Ontario Liberal leadership
"For me, politics has always been about the friendships you make. Personally, he is a great friend. I was more than happy to help him out when he asked me to be one of his campaign co-chairs."
Wilkinson and three other senior members of the "Liberal family" meet with Naqvi once a week to provide advice during the leadership campaign. He is also actively asking local Liberals in Perth—Wellington to support the Ottawa Centre MP.
Candidates for the provincial Liberal leadership were in Stratford this week for one of five debates. They include MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches—East York), MPP Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands) and Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie, a former MP of Mississauga—Streetsville.
It was a spirited debate at Stratford city hall that touched on agriculture and farmland, the Greenbelt and Doug Ford and suggestions on rebuilding a struggling Liberal brand that has suffered with consecutive poor showings at provincial elections.
The friendship and collaboration between Wilkinson and Naqvi may seem at odds, given the rural/urban divide, but Wilkinson said when he was building bridges with his urban colleagues at Queen's Park, trying to sell the wares of his rural riding, Naqvi was one of the MPPs who listened and asked questions.
"When we served together, Yasir was always interested in agricultural issues in my riding. I always valued those members from urban Ontario who actually cared about rural Ontario."
Naqvi suggested a "farmbelt" at the Liberal leadership debate in Stratford, which would be similar to protected geographic areas like the Greenbelt.
"Probably one of the reasons (Yasir) came up with this proposal for a farmbelt — yes, we need to have the Greenbelt — but we have to take up long-term measures to protect our farmland," Wilkinson said. "With climate change coming, that land is going to become more and more valuable."
Urban sprawl around cities is also an issue, Wilkinson said, removing some of the "richest farmland in the world."
Naqvi said during the debate that once the land is paved over, it can never be farmland again.
"I am really happy that the guy that I am backing and the member from Ottawa Centre put on the table that we should work with municipalities to have a farmbelt, that our prime farmland is protected and protected forever. The way to protect it, like the Greenbelt, is to set it away long-term."
The Greenbelt shot to the forefront of provincial politics when Premier Doug Ford went against his word and said he would open up parts of the protected land to housing development, noting a housing shortage across Ontario. The province removed 7,000 acres in more than a dozen areas from the Greenbelt's protection in order to build an estimated 50,000 homes.
The process favoured certain developers that had access to the government, the auditor general found.
Ford announced a reversal of Greenbelt land removals last month.
"It's an own goal by the Ford government," Wilkinson said. "They did this to themselves. Nothing to do with the opposition. They made decisions. As the premier said, he decided to break his promise on the Greenbelt. He said he would not touch it, and he did. And it took a lot of people, and a lot of people that supported the premier, for him to find out that he really stepped in it."
"Having a bunch of insiders get the inside track to make billions of dollars is not how these things should happen."
A recent poll for The Trillium, Village Media's Queen's Park publication, suggested that Progressive Conservative popularity could be falling. They are sitting on two consecutive majority governments.
Wilkinson has lived through the ebbs and flows of provincial politics. He lost to Conservative Bert Johnson by 6,000 votes in the 1999 election when the Mike Harris-led Conservatives were re-elected to a second majority. Wilkinson was elected in 2003, defeating Johnson by 1,500 votes. Wilkinson won again in 2007 by more than 5,800 votes, before losing to Conservative Randy Pettapiece four years later by just 210 votes.
Wilkinson referred to a Mark Twain quote when describing the cyclic nature of politics: "People change government and baby's diapers for the same reason."
"You have to learn your lessons. The fact that the Liberals would lose after 15 years is not anything I think would be earth-shaking. We live in a democracy, not a one-person state, so over time, parties form government, but they are not there forever. There are no premiers and parties for life."
"We regrouped over a strong leader (McGuinty), strong riding associations and candidates. When we were at the top, you could say the same thing was happening with the current governing party, after the Harris and (Ernie) Eves years, they went through a bunch of leaders. They went through John Tory, (Tim) Hudak and then Ford."
When Wilkinson first got involved in politics 25 years ago, the Liberals were going through a very similar period, with McGuinty soon to be the leader.
"We became great friends and I decided to run on his team."
The four current Liberal leadership candidates have wrapped up recruiting party members, who will choose the leader. Wilkinson said there are just over 100,000 party members who can vote. In the one-member-one-vote system with preferential ballots, each riding in the province is worth 100 points, intending to ensure that the candidate with the most support throughout the province gets the most points.
"So it doesn't matter if you have a whole bunch of members in just a handful of ridings, for example, Mississauga."
The system is designed to pick a winner that has the most support across the province in all the ridings, which should transfer well to a provincial election.
"Yasir's advantage is he is well known in the party, and he is also a former party president. All the years he was in provincial politics, he got to know people."
Wilkinson said Crombie and Naqvi have sold the most new memberships, which is an important factor.
It is a similar system to the one the Progressive Conservatives used in their last leadership campaign.
Christine Elliott got more votes than Doug Ford, but Ford won the leadership to become their leader, Wilkinson said, because he had more support across the province and won more ridings.
"Every member has one vote in their riding and each riding is equal. Whether there are 50 members or 5,000, each one is worth 100 points in the system."
Naqvi has the most experience among the candidates in provincial politics, Wilkinson suggested. He served from 2007 to 2018 at Queen's Park, holding several ministerial roles.
"He is the first person of colour to be Attorney General. If he were to win, he would be the first person of colour to lead the Liberal Party. Then he could become the first person of colour to be the premier. And the first Muslim to be premier."
Naqvi grew up in Pakistan, and both of his parents were lawyers. His father defied the government of the day from a democratic point of view and was thrown in jail. Wilkinson said his friend visited his father in jail with his mother, sister and brother.
Eventually, the family moved to Canada.
Wilkinson was asked to introduce Naqvi at his campaign kickoff.
"I was standing offstage. Yasir made a few comments about the current government and the premier of the day. I was standing beside his dad. He was doing what his dad did, getting up and stating his political opinion. The difference was Yasir wasn't going to go to jail for doing that."
Naqvi hasn't shied away from commenting on others, including Crombie, the leadership candidate from Mississauga, who has significant campaign donations from the development industry.
Naqvi has promised to ban "bundled donations" — groups of donations to the same candidate from people residing at the same address or working for the same company and called Crombie's ethics into question in debates.
Crombie has defended herself and her donors.
"Some of my donors are being attacked because of what they do for a living. I reject that criticism and I reject the entire premise of the attacks," she wrote to supporters.
"Our campaign has followed all campaign-finance rules. Every single time. All leadership donations are capped at a maximum of $3,350 and are disclosed publicly."
Wilkinson said the province needs a strong development industry.
"But it's up to the government to regulate developers, not the other way around. When the premier reversed his promise not to touch the Greenbelt, Crombie's initial comment was that the process was wrong, but the decision was right, the way they did it was wrong."
"I think for me and a lot of Liberals who worked very hard to bring in the Greenbelt, we don't believe in land swaps. That it is not available under the Greenbelt, you don't get to swap some protected land out to turn it into a development and have some other land that can't be developed swapped in. The reason it is protected is it is a source of drinking water and prime agricultural land."
Wilkinson said the party will decide among a group of candidates who are good people and running for the right reasons.
"In a campaign, not everyone will agree. That is the whole reason we have debates."
Wilkinson believes that under the preferential ballot system, voting will come down to Crombie and Naqvi. Party members will cast ranked ballots on Nov. 25 and 26.
"I think the Crombie campaign is saying they have it wrapped up. In my opinion, looking at the numbers, they don't. It is a highly competitive race."
Liberals, he said, are engaged again and he is hopeful that he can continue to provide sage advice for his candidate.
"I am proud to support him. I always thought he had a great deal of ability and he has overcome in his life challenges what most of us will never have to deal with, and it has made him a better person. It has given him the qualities we need in the next leader."
