ARCHIVED BLOGS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IT’S MY PARTY

Lesley Gore`s lyrics seems appropriate: "It’s my party. I will cry if I want to. You would cry if it happened to you". Saturday night we waited for hours to see the results of the PC Ontario party leadership campaign. Around 10.15 p. m after the delegates had been told to vacate the hall we saw the news that Ford had beaten his rival Elliott for the coveted leadership position.

Similar to the US election Ford was the winner of the ridings, Electoral College, and Elliott garnered the majority of the popular votes.

Ford who was a municipal counselor for the City of Toronto serving just one term supporting his troubled younger brother, Rob, who served as the Mayor of Toronto. Doug Ford has spent most of his career in the family business, Deco Labels.

Elliott is the widow of Jim Flaherty the Minister of Finance for the Federal Harper government. She lost the leadership bids in 2009 to Tim Hudak and to Patrick Brown in 2015. Christine has been a stalwart proud Conservative who aspired to lead the Conservatives but it was not to be.

Have the Ontario Conservative party opted to elect a look-a-like Donald Trump American Canadian adversary? Ford is a very wealthy social conservative promising to review the province’s sex education curriculum. He opposes the Ontario carbon tax and promises to keep taxes low. Ford is casting himself as the fearless fighter of the underdog against imaginary elites. Next, he is probably is going to tell us that he is going to make Ontario great again.

The PC recent convention was fraught with dissension and disarray; not able to come together to
choose a leader. If the party leaders could not run a successful convention we have to ask if they have they have wherewithal to run a province with all of the complexities?

Is Ford competent to bring forth accord to a diverse multi racial urban province where women and minorities are demanding that their voices are a force to be reckoned with?

As for Elliott she sure had the fortitude (guts) to throw her hat into the ring three times in the vain hope that she would this time be the chosen the one to lead her party into the next election. She has served her constituents very well in the Ontario Legislative Assembly from 2006 to 2015. The PC party of Ontario has never had a women leader. Perhaps it is time for Elliott to look to the private sector to be appreciated and paid accordingly to her worth?

The PC’s have not been in power since Premier Mike Harris June 1995-April 2002 ; do the math and it has been 16 years in the political opposition wilderness. I sincerely hope that the Ontario electorate will not follow the Trump/Ford leadership. Until then: " It’s my party and I will cry if I want to."

Len Lesser is an education/career counselor in Dorchester.

Len Lesser