Provincial Politics

If we have learned nothing else from the most recent national elections in Canada and the United States, it is that campaigns still matter.

Watch British Columba.

The six-year-old provincial Liberal government of Premier Christy Clark meets the electorate on May 9, and the outcome is anyone’s guess.

B.C. elections are often isolated provincial phenomena with little impact beyond the mountains. This time, however, the outcome will resonate as far east as Ontario where another Liberal premier, Kathleen Wynne, is in even deeper trouble than Clark. A Clark victory would at least buoy depressed Liberal spirits in Ontario.

Anyone who has made a career in politics will tell you that two of the most difficult decisions involve timing: when to get in and when to get out. 

Of the two, the getting-out decision is often the more difficult. 

Canadians saw evidence of that back in the 1960s when John Diefenbaker, a former prime minister, could not bring himself to relinquish the leadership of the Progressive Conservative party. He challenged the party to throw him out, and it did.

Below is an op ed that I wrote but which never got published. I sent it to one big Canadian newspaper in the summer and they agreed to publish it. After waiting two months for it to appear in print, I asked permission to send it to another newspaper and the editor agreed. Another major Cdn newspaper agreed to publish it in September and then again sat on it for two months.

So rather than let it die a lonesone and ignoable death, I will publish it here. Enjoy!

Hon. Kathleen Wynne
Premier of Ontario
Queen's Park, Toronto

My Dear Premier:

I am writing to you today in my capacity as a befuddled voter in Ontario. My question is this: What the heck has happened to you and your Liberal government?

You were supposed to be rolling happily down the road to June 14, 2018 — the scheduled date of the next provincial election — but somehow you have lost your way, left the road and driven into a deep ditch from which you may not be able to escape.