This is a look at political baggage Canadians are dragging into the New Year. And none is more fascinating than Nigel Wright. The former chief of staff to the prime minister has been keeping his own counsel long enough. Is there a six figure book deal in the offing? Could there be vindication for Stephen Harper? Was the prime minister really clueless about the deal Wright cut for poor Senator Duffy? We need Nigel’s testimony (under oath) to hopefully clear the air.
And then there is that gross friend of the prime minister and finance minister who is now one of the two mayors of Toronto. Nobody cares how really, really, really sorry he is that he smoked crack but he should wash out his mouth with laundry soap. That crude, calamitous creature is going to run for mayor again in 2014 and his opponents need to rethink their strategies. No likely winning candidate has come forward yet and if all the possibilities get into the race, Mr. Ford has a cakewalk.
One of Mayor Ford’s federal critics is also someone to watch in 2014. Having seen many pretenders over the years worry the edges of an incumbent’s patience, it looks like Employment Minister Jason Kenney is going to continue to rag Stephen Harper. While Kenney shares the honours with Foreign Minister John Baird as the Bobbsey Twins of the Conservative government, he is the least appealing as a prime ministerial pretender.
Kenney is on the extreme of the religious ideologues in the Conservative party and no Canadian woman who values her freedom and rights would want Kenney turned loose as prime minister. He is also abrasive. He has failed at getting cooperation from the provinces on the Conservative cornerstone job grant program and he was hardly subtle in dumping on the Premiers’ suggestions on the Canada Pension Plan.
The only question in doubt about Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the exact size of that hairpiece. Only Harper and his hairdresser know for sure.
Premiers to watch in 2014 are Christy Clark in B.C. and Pauline Marois in Quebec. Christy Clark has already been bought on the Northern Gateway pipeline and will be hung in effigy along with Stephen Harper by environmentalists. Pauline Marois is trying to prove that bigotry works and there is an ugly election looming in Quebec.
We would mention Kathleen Wynne in Ontario but it looks like she will be history after an Ontario election in 2014. There is no way she can win a majority. Mind you, there was a real glimmer of hope for Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa when he roared back at the Fed’s Jim Flaherty recently. He needs a budget that will dumbfound everyone to save himself if not his premier. We will give him a good price if he asks this writer to pen it for him.
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Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
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