With the realities of the Second World War well in mind, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party held a historic conference in Port Hope in 1942.

The party had been out of power for nearly 10 years due to the public's dissatisfaction with their handling of economic and social policy during the Great Depression.

After much debate, the Tories decided to bring Ontario out of its economic doldrums by making it economically competitive through direct government investment. Armed with a strong sense of vision, and backed up with a practical style of fiscal management, the Progressive Conservatives won the provincial election that year and stayed in power until 1985.

It was under the Progressive Conservatives that the Ontario we know today came into being through the investment of billions of tax dollars into the infrastructure of the province.

During the 1950s, and continuing through the '60s, the 400 series of highways were built, along with public schools, universities and hospitals in unprecedented numbers across the province.

An expanded civil service helped the ordinary person through the direct intervention of the government into employment disputes, affordable housing and the prevention of social and racial discrimination through the promotion of civil rights.

One of the great accomplishments of this period of economic and social optimism through government investment was Metropolitan Toronto, which being a creature of the province, was properly taken care of.

Established in 1953, Metro amalgamated the 13 municipalities of that time into a rational and cost-effective regional government that created "the city that works."

During the first 10 years of Metro, the equivalent of $172 billion in today's dollars was invested into roads, subways, public buildings and municipal infrastructures using tax dollars.

Today we have the Don Valley Parkway, the Gardiner Expressway, Yonge and other subway lines, along with hundreds of new schools and other municipal buildings thanks to that investment.

We also saw the creation of a municipal work force that maintained a quality of life for the average citizen that was the envy of the world.

This period of investment created no deficits, balanced all budgets and did so within a green agenda that created thousands of acres of parkland we still enjoy today.

However, it was during the 1980s with the introduction of radical right-wing ideas into the ranks of the Progressive Conservatives that weakened and eventually destroyed the confidence that built modern Ontario.

Since 1985, a small but powerful minority within the Provincial Conservatives pushed forward an agenda of neo-conservatism that has manufactured the financial crisis that Toronto now faces.

The city and province need the progressives amongst the ranks of the conservatives to regain their confidence in their own political heritage of properly managed investment.

If they could only re-connect to that progressive vision of Ontario and Toronto that began back in 1942, we could have "the city that works" once again.