Article content continued

“This is not a power play. It’s a people play,” he said.

“We’ve got to be excited about service. … This has to be ingrained — we have to enjoy doing the best for people,” he said.

“Life is not about stuff. It’s about people,” he said.

“Canada is like my wife. That’s who I choose to live with,” he said.

A lot of it could have been delivered to literally any room in need of a motivational talk: Liberals or New Democrats, for sure. Probably high-schoolers, car salesmen or environmental activists (though a party spokesman made sure reporters knew this wasn’t a paid gig for Clemons).

Everyone is welcome here. Everyone has a voice in the Ontario PC party

A long discussion on the harmful effects of technology sounded really weird, coming as it did after a presentation about how the Tories will use a website called ForOntario.ca as the backbone of their efforts to develop policies for the 2018 election.

Parts of it, though, the Tories really needed to hear.

“Respect is the choice of the person that is delivering it. With that, I want to challenge us to be more respectful,” Clemons said.

Clemons, of course, is black and grew up poor in Florida, though he’s now a Canadian and apparently a Progressive Conservative. We, he said, need to embrace lesbians, gays and trans people. Women. Aboriginals. Even Liberals.

Tories don’t have to agree with them, Clemons said. But they do have to respect them. “If we don’t exhibit respect, it’s almost impossible to expect it anywhere else,” he said.

The Tories have to bring outsiders into their rebuild because, frankly, the rump of a party remaining after the last election isn’t qualified for the job. The party caucus — presumably some of its best and most thoughtful people — is massively white, male and rural. It includes one avowed Creationist, numerous opponents of Ontario’s school health curriculum (who don’t like that it talks about sex), and landowners’-rights fanatics.