It seems to be a universal quest these days. Whether country, province or municipality, we are desperately in need of effective leadership. I feel embarrassed that I bitched about Jason Kenney as premier in Alberta. Compared to Danielle Smith who replaced him, Kenney was a saint. Even in Ontario, when I complained about Kathleen Wynne, the party gave us a turtle named Stephen Del Duca. He seemed reluctant about getting in the legislature, so the voters re-upped Doug Ford. I might never complain again.
And while I much prefer Marit Stiles to the previous NDP leader, it has become increasingly obvious that Stiles is very nice but definitely out of her league. I can’t imagine the unionists in the new democrats giving her the time of day.
And that brings us, reluctantly, to the current liberal crowning. I have watched grass grow faster than this leadership race. Not only is it a terrible waste of time but we all know who would win if it was a true ‘One supporter/One vote’ proposition.
I was laughing last week when I got an unabashed e-mail pitch from Ted Hsu for my second vote. Ted had obviously done the mathematics and realized that this stupid conservative voting system favours the candidate with the most second votes, if nobody wins on the first vote count. Mind you, there is no logical way to fix the outcome when each electoral district is weighted according to how bad they are at signing up new party members. The idea of considering all ridings equal is likely the stupidest idea anyone has ever dreamed up. Why you would want to have ridings that don’t give a damn about their membership numbers to have extra voting strength is totally illogical.
The one candidate who seemed to recognize the problem of the ridings with the smallest memberships was Bonnie Crombie. One of her all-supporter e-mails made reference to ridings with small memberships. She was looking for help getting more support in those ridings.
Mind you it is obvious that Bonnie Crombie is by far the front runner in the liberal race and the sooner she gets into the legislature, the better.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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