It is probably the most anti-democratic news out of Queen’s Park since Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty quit and prorogued the Legislature last year. It was bad enough that Premier Kathleen Wynne chose the Thursday before a long weekend for the vote in five by-elections. The two-week period before and after that holiday weekend is the time when the most urban Ontario residents take summer holidays. The only question is how a turn-out of likely less than 50 per cent of eligible voters can help Wynne’s Whigs?
We only have four weeks to learn the answer.
While the Liberals and Conservatives have already appointed candidates, the New Democrats are delayed. The Ontario NDP has this quaint custom called nomination meetings. Nomination meetings used to be held by all parties so that the local party members could choose their candidate. The NDP still respect that custom. Wynne’s Whigs and Hudak’s Conservatives find the custom too democratic for them. It is so much easier to simply appoint the right candidate.
That is why Conservative Leader Tiny Tim Hudak is so pleased that the Conservative candidate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore—a Mr. Ryan—has agreed to step aside so that a Toronto Councillor Doug Holyday can be appointed as candidate for the Conservatives.
In the rush to appoint candidates for the five electoral districts, Wynne’s Whigs have forgotten the party is supposed to strive for gender equality. Four men and one woman, are hardly gender equal. Maybe the fact that the Whig’s female candidate in Scarborough-Guildwood is also a visible minority counts double.
Mind you, the pollsters are already busy with their automated telephone calling and measuring entrails of sacrifices to determine who will win for Wynne. And the news is not all good.
You do not have to be a genius to know that there is trouble in Windsor and the natives are annoyed. A New Democrat win in Windsor-Tecumseh is certainly quite possible. At the same time, London could return to the Tories. And since the by-elections will have no serious impact on the standings in the Legislature, the voters in all five electoral districts can be whimsical in their choices.
But the putative brain-trust around Fortress Liberal at Queen’s Park has already shown us what idiots they really are to have called these five by-elections. A general election forces voters to come to a logical and somewhat more reasoned decision. In this series of by-elections, they can decide to whom they want to give the finger—with impunity. It is a meaningless vote.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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