TORONTO

With the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race down to two candidates -- Christine Elliott and Patrick Brown -- both are receiving plenty of advice on how to win the 2018 election.

And both have ideas of their own.

Elliott basically says the PCs have to emphasize the “Progressive” in Progressive Conservative, Brown that they must focus on “Conservative.”

But in the world of realpolitik -- practical versus theoretical politics -- the reality is this.

The Ontario PCs are unlikely to win another election unless the provincial government changes its rules -- meaning the lack of rules -- on third-party advertising, now dominated by unions and particulary public sector unions, who effectively campaign for the Liberals in every election.

The quid pro quo is the Liberals -- first under Dalton McGuinty, now under Kathleen Wynne -- are far more generous to the public sector unions in contract negotiations than a PC government would ever be.

(That doesn’t mean the Liberals and unions don’t have the occasional lovers’ quarrel before kissing and making up, which must drive the NDP crazy, as well.)

Ontario Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essena warned in a report last month the lack of limits on third-party advertising is creating an “uneven playing field that can potentially influence electoral outcomes.” In fact, it already has.

While we pay lip service to the idea voters shun negative election advertising -- in Ontario’s case, meaning union ads attacking whoever the PC leader is -- the fact is unions spend millions of dollars on negative advertising because it works.

In the 2014 vote, third-party advertisers -- dominated by public and private sector unions that were for all intents and purposes campaigning for Wynne by attacking Tim Hudak -- spent $8.4 million, compared to a spending cap on political parties of $7.4 million.

The anti-Conservative Working Families coalition of public and private sector unions was the biggest single spender at $2.49 million.

Next was the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association at $2.1 million, followed by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario at $1.2 million.

The unions didn’t focus on such issues as the Liberals’ $1.1 billion gas plants scandal, or the up to 12 deaths linked to the Liberals’ Ornge air ambulance scandal.

Rather, directly or subtly, they attacked Hudak and the PCs.

While not all of the more than 30 special interest groups registered as third-party advertisers in the 2014 election were anti-Conservative and thus pro-Liberal (Ontario Public Service Employees Union President Warren “Smokey” Thomas didn’t shill for Wynne), the vast majority spending the vast majority of the money were.

Over the last three elections, third-party advertising has increased by over 400%, from $1.8 million in 2007 to $8.4 million last year.

In federal elections, third-party advertisers are limited to a cap of $188,000, and, as Essena noted, of all the political jurisdictions in Canada that regulate third-party advertising, Ontario is the only one that doesn’t set spending caps.

However, the Chief Electoral Officer’s concerns, which he also expressed in 2013, are somewhat ironic, given that the PCs have been trying to make similar arguments before Elections Ontario and the courts for years and have been repeatedly shot down because of how the current law is worded.

The unions aren’t breaking the rules, they’re using the lack of rules to their advantage, which won’t change unless the Legislature amends the Election Finances Act.

But why would the Legislature make any meaningful changes to the law when Wynne and the Liberals have a majority government and the status quo works in their favour?

The PCs haven’t helped their cause over the years because their own leaders keep shooting themselves in the foot -- John Tory advocating the wildly unpopular idea of public funding for faith-based schools in the 2007 election, Hudak foolishly campaigning as “McGuinty lite” in 2011.

Post-election analysis of the 2014 vote has focused on Hudak’s promise to cut 100,000 Ontario public sector jobs -- out of more than one million -- as the key blunder of that election.

The alarming thing is that while such measures (which can be done mainly by attrition) are desperately needed to get Ontario’s spiraling debt and deficits under control, no political leader is likely to raise them again, as long as public sector unions dominate political advertising during elections.

And that’s bad news for taxpayers, most of whom work in the private sector for lower salaries, benefits and pensions than those in the public sector, while doing comparable work.