The wife is usually the reasoning member of this household. She is the peacemaker but not when it comes to Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown. She is no fan of his. When driving up to Rama Casino the other day for dinner, she saw the elections signs in Simcoe North provincial riding for the September 3 by-election. She became so enraged at the volume, size and intrusiveness of the Conservative signs that if we had just slowed a bit, she would have been out of the car tearing them down.
But someone else was not quite as constrained. It was a day later that we heard someone had been methodically tearing down both provincial by-election and federal Conservative election signs along Highway 12 at the north end of the riding. It makes you wonder if someone can be just as mad at Patrick Brown as they are at Prime Minister Harper.
Not that Patrick Brown is undeserving of condemnation. We think it might have even been an Ontario Conservative carrying out the mayhem for the way Brown cheated to win the Ontario party leadership. We had already explained to more than enough irate Ontario Conservatives that Brown might not have broken any law. His ethics might have smelled but we know of no law he broke in cheating his fellow Conservatives. Whether he paid the membership fees for most of the almost 40,000 people from the Sub-Continent is only a matter for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. If the party complained formally, just maybe there might be grounds for a charge of fraud but that would be for a judge to decide.
Having lived in Barrie while Patrick Brown has been the world’s most useless Member of Parliament we were initially amused by his going for the brass ring of the Ontario Conservative party leadership. When he produced 40,000 new memberships mainly from India, we were less than impressed. And since then we have heard from friends from that part of the world just how he did it. We realize now that the cost of that swindle was probably well over half a million and we would sure like to know where it came from.
The day is supposed to be long gone when the rich could buy a politician. As Mr. Brown can tell you there are no laws applied to leadership contests. The parties make rules and they are rarely enforced. It is the last stronghold for the cheater and the scoundrel.
But kicking down election signs is still vandalism and we are opposed to that. Our problem is with Premier Wynne allowing a fiasco of a by-election campaign in the summer months and in the middle of the federal election. The Liberal campaign for the by-election is pathetic and a disgrace. Liberals in Simcoe North provincial riding are embarrassed and feel they have been betrayed.
-30-
Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]