MPP Charles Sousa from Mississauga South strikes you as the kind of guy who watched Premier Dalton McGuinty in Cabinet for the past year and said, “Hell, I can do that!” The problem with it is that he has not had a very good role model. The bar has to be raised.
But give him credit. Charles is a banker and does well at it. He is personable, friendly and interested in people. He is probably more capable than half of his opponents. And that is where he ends up; in the middle of the pack.
But who wants to come fifth in a field of seven? Sure, he is hard on the heels of Eric Hoskins but beating Eric would only raise him to fourth place. He probably sold a lot of memberships in the Portuguese community throughout the GTA but there are few electoral districts where there are large enough numbers of Portuguese-Canadians to elect many delegates to the January Liberal convention.
Looking at the figures in the 2011 provincial election, Sousa hardly seemed to need to block the Mississauga gas turbine generating plant to win his seat. He does not deserve to be hung with that desperation move in the last election.
The Sousa leadership campaign appears poorly organized and seems to lack professionalism. He has been chasing around the province looking for votes but without good advance work, local media coverage, electoral district support or experienced political assistants travelling with him, it is a lot of hard driving for little results.
It is interesting in analyzing Charles’ campaign that his supporters seem to cast him in a more right-wing stance than he himself takes. In a field of predominantly right wing candidates, the party hardly needs another. Yet the party needs people with his business background and all he needs to do is let people see the warmth of his personality that goes with that background.
It was no mistake that Dalton McGuinty gave Charles responsibility for the Pan American Games in 2015 in addition to his other cabinet duties. You need someone with his level of experience to do a good job at something like that. After all, we already have too many lawyers in politics.
-30-
Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]