This is embarrassing. The Member of Parliament from Barrie is running for the leadership of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party. Or maybe not! If anything, the greedy chap is just seeking more publicity. It is embarrassing for Barrie, his party, his backers and the people wasting their money by donating to his campaign.
There are really only two serious contenders in the provincial Conservative leadership race at this time. Christine Elliott, MPP for Whitby-Oshawa, is the frontrunner. Widow of the former federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, she was the deputy leader to former leader Tim Hudak.
Lisa MacLeod, MPP for Nepean-Carleton is the other real contender in the race. She is younger and tougher than Elliott and more determined to further her career in politics. It is difficult to figure out where either of the two women would want to lead their party.
Not so with the candidate from Barrie. He is a poster boy for Campaign Life Coalition, the umbrella anti-abortion organization of the radical right. He is one of the few politicians in Ontario who meets Campaign Life’s strict criteria for green light endorsement. He comes across as firmly on the side of those who want to deny women the right to their own bodies.
We certainly know where he would lead his provincial party: nowhere. In the time he has been in Ottawa, he has never appeared to have had an idea of his own. His communications with his voters are mostly items fed to him by the Conservative caucus support staff. He fills the blanks by using charitable groups in the riding who cannot complain about him using them for his own publicity. His riding staff run charitable events in his name seemingly without benefit of any audit or oversight.
He is a runner. There was a publicity picture of him running on the Great Wall when Mr. Harper let him fly along on one of the Prime Minister’s trips to China. The joke at the time was that he was invited along because Harper needed extra help with his baggage. He was caught recently attempting to charge a trip to the New York Marathon as a government trip to the United Nations in New York. His staff quickly had the charge rescinded before it was too late.
But what our Member of Parliament is really famous for is spending the most taxpayer money on cheap mailers to voters to keep his name in front of them. As it is now, he gets his name on the end of every story about the upcoming provincial leadership in a footnote as ”also running….”
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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