Imagine if we had former Toronto Councillor Doug Ford of Toronto as premier of Ontario and Pierre-Karl Péladeau of Quebecor as premier of Quebec. Both of these gentlemen are standing at the sidelines at this moment waiting for the coaches to call them into the game. They are both considering the call to enter their respective party’s current leadership race.
It is a not too obtuse a conclusion that this is the sad state of politics in Canada today. You see it every day. You see it in all political parties. It is the anger, the distrust, the conniving, the cynicism, the hypocrisy, the lies and deceit. Politicians today do not like themselves. How do you think they feel about the voters?
Why would Doug Ford not want to take over the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party? His and his brother’s hard-core Ford Nation followers could swamp the membership of the entire PC party in Ontario. In a one-member-one-vote situation he could not lose. And that band of crazies in the ridings dominated by the Ontario Landowners would support Ford just to get even with the city-dominated old fashioned Conservatives in the Bill Davis style. If Doug Ford decides to go for it, the Conservative party might as well take the position for the enema he has promised it.
And just think of Pierre-Karl Péladeau as leader of the Parti Québécois in Quebec. That is an enema mix with jalapeños in it. And he is promising to declare before the end of November. It is still hard to say whether it was Péladeau or the PQ’s bigoted secularism charter that cost the PQ the provincial election last year. It is the blind belief in separatism that still drives what is left of the PQ and it seems the party’s already anointed saviour is Péladeau.
But just think about it: Ford and Péladeau as leaders of Canada’s two largest provinces, with more than half of Canada’s population. It would not only destroy the country but you would want it to separate.
But saner heads will prevail in both provinces. It appears that the separatist movement in Quebec has already split into three quarrelsome entities and it will never be a controversial person such as Péladeau that can rebuild the coalition. Quebecers might hate Ottawa at the moment but the government there is likely to change within the year. That will help change the dynamics in Quebec.
Ontario is actually the major problem. Its Liberal premier has a majority but has yet to show much spark as leader. Ontario New Democrats desperately need a new leader and there is no saviour on the horizon. As Conservatives go, the two leading contenders for that leadership, MPPs Christine Elliott and Lisa McLeod, are somewhere in the wishy-washy middle of the conservative spectrum. Doug Ford could put a face to that party: not a pretty one!
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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