Barrie is beset by bad decisions this summer. The city lost a good mayor when Jeff Lehman decided to finally make the move to Queen’s Park. Poor timing on his part. He was left adrift and defeated by weak liberal leadership.
I was there to help, if he had thought to ask me. We have different views of what leadership means. He needed to recognize the needs of the people in the rural areas of our electoral district. Taking on an incumbent is far trickier than a fresh field.
But the major cause for concern is Lehman’s lack of planning for the future, particularly in filling the mayor’s chair. Who wants their legacy smeared by leaving their job to the town fool?
And that is one of the possibilities looking at the early registrations. First to file was boy wonder, former councillor, former MP, Alex Nuttall. Nuttall was a disciple of Patrick Brown—the former Barrie councillor, former MP, former leader of the Ontario conservatives and currently mayor of Brampton. It was Nuttall who moved into Patrick Brown’s proposed riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte. He came within 86 votes of losing and he was hardly gracious at the recount.
It took him one term in Ottawa, to know he was out of his depth. His one contribution during that period was to work for Maxime Bernier who almost beat Andrew Scheer for the leadership of the conservatives—and went on to found the extremist People’s Party of Canada. To further prove he had no political smarts, Nuttall was a worker for Peter Mackay’s run for the leadership in 2020.
I admit that I have never liked Alex Nuttall. He was a confused and negative influence on city council. He was a useless member of parliament. His fighting against Barrie having a safe consumption site when he was in Ottawa was based on ignorance. He contributed less in Ottawa than the mice that run over the MP’s feet in their offices.
But I am going to have to pay attention in my own town as we head for this fall’s municipal elections. There is a city here that needs protection from ghosts of the past.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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