You hate to see a promising politician do a pratfall on the way out of the starting gate. Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie broke all the rules she could have learned from Hazel McCallion. Hazel was a strong liberal and I am sure she wished all the best to Bonnie in her political career. No doubt she could have given some good advice to her successor about welcoming all who want to support you.
But Bonnie puts the caveat on her candidacy for the leadership of the Ontario liberals that she is a middle of the road liberal. Where I come from in the liberal party, people who go down the middle of the road are called ‘Road Kill.’
And if Bonnie thought that the provincial reigns of liberals such as Dalton McGinty and Kathleen Wynne were too left-wing, she wasn’t paying attention. In moving to the left, Dalton was just slow. Wynne was glacial.
Dalton McGinty had a lot to fix after the disastrous years of conservative Mike Harris in the premier’s office. He only addressed the more public of the problems. And Kathleen Wynne followed his example.
It was when she started to loosen up the liquor regulations that her instincts as a prissy school-teacher took over. Being openly lesbian in no way guarantees that you are progressive in anything else. I got the impression that maybe she had made a deal with the Weston clan that she would introduce beer in grocery stores one Loblaws store at a time.
And when she conceded the 2018 election before the polls had even closed, she did serious harm to the liberal party.
Right-wing liberals are the source of problems over the years for the party. A leader such as federal liberal Paul Martin was so far to the right that the voters figured they might as well vote for the conservatives and get the real thing. Liberal premier David Peterson in Ontario proved to be so right-wing that voters opted for the new democratic party in hopes of improving things. It didn’t.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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