In yesterday’s discussion of the Ontario provincial liberal leadership race, there was no dismissal of the part being played by the other three candidates. In any race of this nature, the political mind automatically sorts the candidates into their pole positions. While much of the news media attention is devoted to the obvious front runners with the higher profiles, you ignore the also-rans at your peril.
If they can raise the entry fees, these candidates can buy into higher party positioning and future cabinet roles. You would not bet your kid’s college funds on the chances but with to-day’s fund-raising figures, a hundred thousand is not that difficult.
And I think all three are worth it. Yasir Naqvi has already proved his loyalty and strengths for the party and I see him a worthy caretaker, but not a leader. He was an adequate Ontario party president.
But whomever in the Ontario party followed the stupid federal decision to eliminate annual membership fees was not doing anyone other than Justin Trudeau a favour.
(As an aside here, I have no proof of my membership in the party other than the hundreds of fund-raising e-mails I have received in the past several years.)
I had been wondering what moved Ted Hsu, MPP for Kingston and the Islands. It was premature for him to jump into this race before he had more of a track record with the party, though I welcome his confidence to step forward. As the race moves on over the fall, I am going to pay attention to this candidate’s long-term vision for the party. It could be very interesting.
The final candidate is Don Valley West MPP Adil Shamji. It is probably a good thing that we are getting more doctors involved in politics these days. After the pandemic, we need to have more expertise at hand in making the decisions about the long-term impacts of changes in medical services. And besides, we always have enough lawyers in politics but my GP and I are both convinced that you get the most experience in politics in the cut and thrust of doings at the Ontario Medical Association.
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