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"From the Left"
The 1998 Guelph Tribune columns
June 17, 1998
Tomorrow, NDP members from across Wellington County will assemble
at St. George's Church to choose their candidate for the next
provincial election. This kicks off the local campaign to bring
a measure of social justice back to Ontario. The three declared
candidates, Phil Allt, Elaine Rogala and Bruce Abel, all bring
a wealth of experience to this task. Allt and Abel are both high
school teachers and active members of their respective locals
of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF).
Rogala is a community activist from the rural area of the riding.
Their unique strengths make the outcome of tomorrow's nomination
meeting anything but certain.
The one thing that is clear is that our incumbent Tory MPP, Brenda
Elliott, will not be re-elected. She embarrassed her constituents
during her sorry term as Minister of the Environment, and has
been all but invisible ever since. A community as environmentally
committed as Guelph is unlikely to send her back for another kick
at the can. She knows this, and her local riding association knows
it. Speculation is that she will cite "personal reasons" for not
even seeking re-nomination. Then they will face the problem of
finding a credible candidate to run in her place. Although financially
healthy, with about $28,000 in their bank account, the local Conservative
Association is suffering from organizational and political ineptitude.
A bungled attempt to control municipal politics, ending last week
with the sudden resignation of Lynda Prior, has destroyed their
credibility.
Similarly, the Liberals locally are thrashing about in search
of a candidate. The only person to declare so far is former Tribune
columnist Maggie Laidlaw. If she is successful, her biggest problem
will be reconciling her own environmental and social positions
with those of Dalton McGuinty. The official Party line is that
the only thing wrong with Mike Harris is that he is going too
far, too fast. They don't disagree with the direction in which
he is taking the province. If the Liberal establishment has its
way, we won't have the chance to watch Laidlaw twist and turn
as she attempts to deal with this obvious contradiction.
With the local Tories in disarray, and after the local Liberals
turn their backs on a committed environmentalist and social activist,
the field will become wide open here. Regardless of which candidate
wins the nomination tomorrow, the NDP will have as good a chance
as anyone of sending the next member to Queen's Park. In the last
federal election, Rogala held onto the NDP vote in the face of
a general decline in support across the province. In the 1994
municipal election, Allt came within 75 votes of defeating Dan
Schnurr. Although untested in public elections, Abel has been
waging an enthusiastic campaign to win the nomination. Put any
of these three into a campaign, armed with the policies adopted
at the NDP's recent "Dialogue for Change" convention, and anything
can happen.
There was a time, back in the days of Alf Hales and Harry Worton,
when Guelph voters were famously loyal to the incumbent. Now,
things are different. Incumbents have a short political life expectancy
these days. On top of this, I can't remember a time when Guelph
sent the same Party to both Ottawa and Queen's Park. Those two
facts alone should give Abel, Allt and Rogala good reason to crank
up their campaigns for tomorrow's nomination.
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