Former Dartmouth Tory cabinet minister, Tim Olive sent a Letter to Editor to The Notebook, on our recent coverage of Tim Houston’s leadership style. In his letter, Tim Olive writes about the challenges of being an Opposition leader. Here is Olive’s letter:
“If you think that being the Premier of a province is a tough job then you need to experience the challenges of Leader of the Opposition. To get there you need to successfully defeat a list of well meaning, loyal, experienced party members who also want the opportunity to lead the PC Party of Nova Scotia back to government. Their supporters, because of their overall commitment to the PC’s, will come together under one banner over time, and the Tories have the time.
The problem then becomes the development of policy and positions on major issues that all voters in Nova Scotia will accept as a reasonable alternative to the sitting government. Leadership of a political organization is best not done by large committees but rather by making those tough choices based on your experience and your communications with the public, not just your party insiders.
The PC Party membership have made their leadership decision and it is now up to the leader to provide substance to proposed policy being prepared by the party for submission to the voters during an election. There will always been those that for personal reasons will question the leadership of their organizations, political or otherwise, but those individuals also have an obligation to consider how their actions and comments effect the greater good as, in this case, the PC party prepares its election strategy.
Tory efforts must now be geared to demonstrating how the governing Liberal Party in Nova Scotia has performed in Health Care, the Environment, Mental Health and Senior’s Services, Economic Growth (including the enormous tax burden on Nova Scotians) and the deplorable condition of our highway infrastructure.
The next provincial election is Tim Houston’s to lose. It is at that point the PC Party membership will have an opportunity to endorse or deny him his future as the Leader of the PC Party of Nova Scotia. The upcoming election is about the Leadership demonstrated by the two major Party Leaders, Liberal and Tory and what part Nova Scotia will take in the economy in our Canadian Federation. We cannot continue to be a have not province within our Federation and the work must begin now to reverse our current state in so many areas provincially.
For those purported party members that are impatient for that process to go forward, maybe they need to take some time away from a political process they perhaps do not fully comprehend”.
