Not willing to rally behind a Harper clone in Queen’s Park
To the Expositor:
Why Ontarians did not vote for Tim Hudak’s Conservatives.
Notice I said “for Hudak’s Conservatives” and not “for Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives.”
Well, much of the answer comes from the fact that many “progressive” Conservatives couldn’t rally behind the idea of little more than a Harper clone in Queen’s Park. Tories of the John Robarts-Bill Davis era and variety want their party back. They’ve seen what happens when Tories drop the word “Progressive” and sing a “Reform” mantra. They’ve seen enough of it in Ottawa to know it is not what Ontarians want any more than what the majority of Canadians from coast to coast to coast want or need.
Whether the Ontario Blue Machine will get it and return to the vintage “progressive” ideals that ruled Ontario during its forty year dynasty or simply stick to the wave of American Republican, Tea Party/Reform Party type “evil market-fundamentalist theology” that has little respect for any but the well-to-do who run the corporate boardrooms…has yet to be seen.
Whether Ontario’s truly “Progressive” Conservatives will be able to wrestle their party back from the clutches of the wolves in sheep’s clothing the so-called Conservatives who have overtaken the Ontario party’s headquarters, has yet to be seen. They have four years to figure it out, four years to rebuild their past respect for a province and a country built on a healthy balance between a solid and competent public service and a healthy and prosperous private sector. Enough of trying to build up the one at the denigration of the other.
Leave that to our neighbours to the south. We struggled long and hard not to be a simple clone of the USA and what’s going on there is not what this country needs. Nor is it what we want.
As for Tim Hudak, he should have jumped on the ship to Ottawa when his three fellow Ontario amigos did. Who knows, the two amigos who remain in Harper’s camp can put in a good word for him and maybe, just maybe, he’ll get a seat in the Senate. Birds of a feather…
Gary Champagne Spring Bay
