It brought back memories. Having spent New Years of 1980 up north in the winter wonderland of the Huntsville area, the family were barely in the door before the phone was ringing. There was an election on and we could hardly escape it. The first caller was our old friend David Smith. We had supported him since his first aldermanic bid in Toronto and he wanted to know if he could run federally in our electoral district
This all comes to mind as we see that Toronto Councillor Shelley Carroll is now making a bid for that seat provincially. It is the standard progression up the ladder from school trustee, to councillor, to provincial legislature or to Ottawa. Our friend David Smith served in Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet as well as briefly in John Turner’s. It was Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who put him in the senate. David had taken over the national campaign role as our friend Keith Davey succumbed to the vagueness of Alzheimer.
There was no doubt in the campaign of 2015 that the experience of Senator Smith was sorely missed. There were lurches and missteps in the Trudeau campaign that could have been prevented with more experienced hands at the helm. You can ignore some inexperience during an easily winnable campaign but the mistakes will be more serious in 2019.
We started out about the declaration of Councillor Shelley Carroll. She wants to run in our old provincial riding. It is like the declaration of North York Councillor Elinor Caplan for that riding in 1985. Party Leader David Peterson expected yours truly to run there and was less than pleased when we stepped aside. The family considerations that prevented us from running are as private today as they were then.
Carroll has been on Toronto Council for the past 13 years and has been at different times budget chief and representative to the Police Services Board. If still living in the electoral district, our first question to her would be for clarification of how she sees the responsibility of the Police Services Board in regard to the police actions during the 2010 G-20 Summit meeting in Toronto. If her intention in running for provincial office is to make the desperately needed changes in policing policy, she would certainly have our support.
That electoral district is made up of very stable neighbourhoods and has had both Conservative and Liberal representation over the years. Candidates have to know those neighbourhoods and communicate effectively. Winning there in the next provincial election will not be a Sunday walk in the park.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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