That might not be the way Americans say it but Americans do not worry much about syntax (such as the use of a plural verb with a plural subject). This thought occurred to us the other evening while sitting in a very uncomfortable students’ chair in a lecture hall at Georgian College here in Barrie. If we had known how uncomfortable those seats could be, we would never have agreed years ago to giving back-to-back lectures to business and commerce students delivered over two 50-minute periods.
But we were there on the students’ side because the City Hall Council Chambers are being renovated and the Barrie Chamber of Commerce all-candidate meeting for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte had been moved to the college this year. These are usually rowdy meetings in Barrie and politicos from all parties consider the event to be great fun. Nobody was disappointed.
For comic relief, you could not beat the bookends of the six candidates who were respectively the Libertarian and an independent. The Libertarian has run in every election we have noted over the past ten years. It is always a question if he can beat the number of spoiled ballots. The kindest thing to say about the independent is that he does have more opinions than the Libertarian—sometimes not in tune with his audience.
But of the four remaining candidates who might be considered as somewhat serious, the best speakers were the losers from the Green Party and the New Democratic Party. The Green candidate is a school teacher and sounds like it. He is also on the local council in the rural part of the riding and was able to read from his party’s song book with ease.
The NDP lady was feisty and showed why she is in the radio business. She talked fast and furiously while reading from the federal NDP song book. She also had a claque of about 10 or a dozen raucous supporters who let you know they were there.
The strongest support was for the Liberal candidate who had about 100 supporters willing to show their approval of what he said. This part of the crowd—along with the NDP claque–vocally showed their disapproval of the Conservative candidate. He got even by taking some scurrilous digs at the Liberal. One dig did not make sense so few even caught it and another was so rude that the audience strongly voiced their disapproval.
The Liberal candidate, who speaks with a bit of a self-effacing drawl, tended to stick to his knitting and tried to ignore the digs. He knew that this event was hardly going to decide the election in this riding.
This local campaign seems to be a direct conflict between knowledge and ignorance. As we have written before, the Liberal candidate is President Emeritus of Georgian College and has had a 30-year career in the administration of education and in service to his community. The Conservative candidate is too young to have a biography and has never held a job long enough to have a career. The decision is for the voters in the riding.
-30-
Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]