The question was posed the other day as to whom Ontario Premier Kathleen listens. She is very obviously getting very bad advice. From her first moves in cabinet building to calling the recent five by-elections, the novice premier has obviously been following the most conservative advice. The poor woman has been trapped in the past.
It was assumed that it was people like former Ontario Premier David Peterson, Dalton McGuinty’s old go-to guy who was giving her the bad advice. Maybe that was unfair to an old friend (David, not Ms. Wynne).
Part of the answer became clear the other day when we were invited to a function for the premier this Friday. It was one of those God-awful recorded calls that have replaced the civility of telephone trees of real people who used to be able to reach over a thousand people (or their voice mail) within an hour. The recorded voice was by the doyenne of Whig politics who has tried to control Liberal politics in Babel for the past 20 years.
On October 25 last year, Babel-on-the-Bay reported on the schism between Babel’s federal and provincial Liberals. When the provincial organization tried a putsch to take over the federals, they were soundly trounced and sent home.
Their fine hand was certainly apparent in the corrupted leadership contest to replace Dalton McGuinty in January and the local delegates to the provincial party’s Toronto convention were hardly representative of Babel’s Liberal voters or organizations. This was particularly apparent in the disproportionate number of delegates supporting Kathleen Wynne.
It was also apparent then that the fix was in among the Whigs—the right-wing of the Ontario Provincial Liberal Party—to support Kathleen Wynne. It was also why, we were so puzzled by the news media statements that Kathleen Wynne was a left-leaning Liberal. If the lady ever makes any kind of a move that appears to be left-wing, we would sure like to hear about it.
But this does not finish the story. It was necessary to sent formal regrets—despite the modern informality of a recorded telephone message—as we also received an e-mail invitation as a party member. The regrets were necessary as we are expecting company for the weekend and have promised our guests a different form of entertainment than a political gathering.
But we would really like to be a fly on the wall at the event. Just think of all the bad advice Kathleen Wynne will be getting there!
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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