It was back at the beginning of this election that I laughed at the complaints and said how much I enjoyed elections. As the rest of our voters go to the polls today, I have to admit that I did not enjoy this election as much as I usually do. I missed the sense of involvement in the campaign. Nobody asked for help. My daily blogs lacked some inside insight.
This lack of direct involvement ate at me. It felt like we were still in pandemic lockdown. This was despite the easing of restrictions in Ontario. I usually get more comments on what I write, but this time nobody seemed to want to argue.
I can hardly even disagree with the pollsters. Their polls all seem to agree with me about this election. I have a feeling I will be up very late eastern time before I get a clear picture of the next parliament.
Even Quebec remains a question mark. The key was the Bloc Québécois. There are five or six critically needed seats in Quebec that Trudeau had to win from the Bloc to come within a possibility of a majority.
But there have been days in this campaign when the pandemic news was more encouraging than the election news for the liberals.
The truth is that Trudeau has let us progressives down in Ontario. There are ridings in Ontario he and his handmaidens have written off that they should not have. I have always had the impression that he does not understand this province. He fakes it by concentrating on the selfies and staying away from serious discussions. I have often thought of suggesting to him that he shadow Mayor Tory in Toronto for a week and learn how to be a real politician.
One of his problems is that he has an excellent deputy prime minister but no political leader in Ontario to back him. Finance minister Chrystia Freeland is just not a political heavy weight. This election might have been more fun if O’Toole had not convinced Doug Ford to get lost during the campaign. Ford, in the field, might have meant the loss of even more conservative seats.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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