When first viewing the boundaries of the new federal electoral districts that now divide the City of Barrie, the reaction was ‘Why would they do anything that silly?’ It was when the Ontario Commission came to town that the term ‘Gerrymander’ came to mind. It was also after listening to local Conservatives compliment the commission on the brilliance of the design that we were convinced. And when we realized that the other local party organizations were not going to complain, we left in disgust.
Canada does not have a strong tradition of gerrymandering. It is an American term that describes the manipulation of the boundaries of an electoral district to the benefit of a particular party or race. What happened to Barrie is that with many younger, well-educated homeowners moving into a rapidly growing city, the trend was towards more progressive voting. By cutting the city in half, there was an opportunity to add heavily Conservative rural areas to the urban vote.
And that is why both Liberal candidates, each with a riding two-thirds urban and one-third rural, have their work cut out for them. The riding of Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte has the added ignominy of having Canada’s least effective Member of Parliament Patrick Brown being elected to the Legislature of Ontario during the federal election by the voters in Springwater and Oro-Medonte townships who live in the provincial riding of Simcoe-North.
And the Conservative candidate for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte has shadowed the new leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives. He apprenticed the guy for years. He served two terms as a Barrie Councillor ineffectually without getting more than a few people mad at him and now thinks he is ready for Ottawa.
Mind you, he needs little preparation to be as bad as his predecessor. The first time we heard him speak to Barrie Council at a council meeting, we asked someone why they did not fix his microphone. The answer was that his microphone worked fine. He mumbles. When asked why he did not take speaking lessons, the answer was that he had nothing important to say. This guy was chosen by the federal Conservatives after he got bounced from a provincial nomination contest because he tried to break the rules and pay the membership fees for some of his sign-ups.
This prize Conservative candidate can best be explained as being too young to have a biography and has never held a job long enough to have a career. He wants to be our MP. He is running against the President Emeritus of Georgian College who helped develop the college into one of the top community colleges in Ontario.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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