Writing about the problems the Barrie Liberals face in the 2018 provincial election recently, we should have stated the obvious answer. It has been there for the past seven years.
The problem is that there will be two electoral districts covering Barrie for the 2018 provincial election. These are identical to the federal electoral districts and were gerrymandered by the federal Conservatives to ensure that at least a third of the voters would be rural (mainly Conservative) voters. The Conservatives won both federal electoral districts despite the Trudeau sweep in 2015.
In the 2014 provincial election (under the old boundaries) a Liberal won the Barrie electoral district. We have never met our MPP and we can only assume that, if she runs again, she will run in the Barrie—Innisfil electoral district. The new Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte electoral district has been claimed by Provincial Conservative Leader Patrick Brown.
And that will be our opportunity to remove Patrick Brown from Ontario politics. The man has never been anything but a politician and we see him as two-faced, hypocritical, dishonest and unsuited to lead any party. And if you have ever practiced keyboarding by the rhythmic typing of “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party,” now you can believe it.
The person so obviously able to defeat Patrick Brown in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte is Barrie’s current Mayor Jeff Lehman. Jeff is a Liberal who has held together a very Conservative council for the past seven years. He is an economist with an extensive understanding of electrical generation and distribution—one of the thorniest problems facing Ontario. He is one of the best natural political campaigners we have ever seen in action. (Disclosure Note: The writer ran Jeff Lehman’s ground game when he first ran for mayor in the 2010 municipal election.) Lehman is chair of the caucus of municipalities in Ontario with more than 100,000 population. He is not only the best choice for voters as their MPP but he would be an ideal successor as Liberal leader when Kathleen Wynne leaves office.
But we need to take one step at a time. Lehman needs to defeat Brown first. That is not going to happen overnight. We need to overcome the core of organization that has been put together by the Conservatives. Today there is time to plan. Tomorrow will be too late.
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Copyright 2017 © Peter Lowry
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