This should warm you up on a cold February day. There is a provincial by-election tomorrow in Sudbury, Ontario. There is a lot of money on the table over that vote that says Wynne’s Whigs get their asses kicked. And they deserve it. They have resisted reform. They arrogantly co-opted a sitting federal member of another party to be their candidate. They ignored all the pleas in the electoral district for democratic choice. And along the way, they tried to mistreat a quadriplegic.
Consider all the anger directed at Justin Trudeau and his federal team when they break their word and interfere in local nominations. At least Wynne’s Whigs have never promised not to interfere. That does not mean that real Liberals are not fed up with their arrogance. When you deny local party organizations any purpose to exist at other than election time, they become shallow little fiefdoms of sycophants.
And just what incentives did they have for the sitting federal New Democrat Member of Parliament for the area to get him to resign his seat and run in the provincial by-election for the Liberals? To suggest that this entire exercise is just cheap and shoddy is to give it too much respectability.
And to kick a quadriplegic to the curb to make room for your star candidate is an entirely new low in politics.
Wynne’s Whigs refused the electoral district a nomination meeting. They, in effect, said “This is your candidate, like it or lump it.”
And for every Sudbury Liberal who walked away in disgust, Wynne’s Whigs brought in sycophants from other Ontario ridings to fill the gap. The only problem was that they are not voters.
And there was no concern about money for the campaign. Wynne’s Whigs had the entire Ontario database of Liberals to beg for funding.
There is one small cloud in that the Ontario Provincial Police are listening to the offers made to the previous Liberal candidate. Because he is a quadriplegic and unable to take notes, he records important meetings. While this type of thing is normally done through deniable underlings, Wynne’s Whigs might have gone a little too far up the food chain this time.
So get your bets down before Thursday’s results come in. Maybe someone will have to hand Wynne her head.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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