This could be Ontario premier Doug Ford’s last best summer on the Muskoka Lakes of Ontario. As he speeds around the lakes on his personal water scooter, the storm clouds are gathering. Doug has made it a better time for the liberals to sign up those disquieted voters who do not buy into his schemes for the Ontario Greenbelt, for our highways, laying waste to our hospitals and schools and privatizing Medicare.
The good news is that the Ontario liberals are choosing a new leader before the year ends. There are already five strong contenders. One will be a potential premier and the other four are a good core group for a strong cabinet.
But they have to show that they are all liberals. They need to be advocates for human rights. They need to showcase their progressive views. They need to show how Ontario grows and progresses under liberal governments.
A liberal supporter asked me the other day how he is supposed to prove he is a member of the Ontario liberals. I asked him, “Do you get e-mails from Ontario liberals asking you for money?”
“All the time,” he said ruefully.
“Congratulations,” I told him. “That proves you are a member of the party.”
I remember many years ago when people paid an annual membership in the party and we had some by-elections coming up. I thought at the time that the party should put the arm on our 75,000 members to contribute money to the effort to win those by-elections. As this was before e-mail, I soon had all the begging letters ready to go to the post office lined up on the party headquarters’ boardroom table.
The party treasurer came in, looked at all the piles of letters, shook his head, and said, “You’re doing it all wrong, Peter.”
I will admit that the results to that first letter were not earth shaking. It has taken a long time to change the financial structure of our political parties across Canada. We need to remember that seniors and others without a lot of discretionary funds, who are willing workers at election time, also make a very large contribution in terms of their time and efforts. So, our candidates should bear that in mind when asking, nicely, for funds.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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