Posts Tagged ‘George Smitherman’
Toronto Star: “Murray will succeed George Smitherman as the MPP for Toronto Centre.” Huh?
I am going to start by saying I don’t dislike Glen Murray. I heard him speak for the first time in 2003 about infrastructure and municipal governance in Canada and he made a lot of genuinely good points and appeared to ‘get it’. When he ran for the Federal Liberals in Winnipeg in 2004, I was hopeful he would win, because he seemed like the kind of guy you’d want in the House of Commons.
When he was feeling out a bid for Mayor – I was at least interested to see what kind of issues he would take on, and the approach he would offer.
But my piece isn’t really about Glen Murray, just how his candidacy is being developed and covered by the media.
The headline announcing he is running for the Ontario Liberals reads ‘Ex-Winnipeg mayor a cabinet shoo-in?’
In the same article there is a photo of Glen Murray with the following caption ‘Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray, smiles alongside Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion in this January 2004 file photo. Murray will succeed George Smitherman as the MPP for Toronto Centre.‘
The timeline for this is long and drawn out a bit. George Smitherman isn’t going to resign until February or March 2010 when he will officially announce his candidacy for Mayor. Once Smitherman resigns, the Premier has quite a bit of leeway in determining when exactly a by-election would happen. The earliest would be April or May 2010 – but could be June, July or August.
The ‘Cabinet shoo-in’ bit bothers me because it’s essentially saying to Toronto Centre voters – elect this guy to get closer to the action. The ‘Murray will succeed George Smitherman as the MPP’ bit is beyond presumptuous and again unfairly tries to influence voters in Toronto Centre to just accept the outcome being suggested.
Perhaps the most abhorrent part of this whole thing is the following ‘While he is not officially being handed the nomination on a silver platter, sources said at least one potential candidate was “being strong-armed and getting lots of pressure not to run.” Classy.
If a candidate is being set up as a Cabinet Minister in the making, a guy who has already won, and someone who can’t be challenged for the nomination – at what point are Toronto Centre voters involved in this process at all? So far, I count two Toronto Centre voters opinions being heard – Glen Murray’s and George Smitherman’s.
Rigourous nominations, hard fought elections and MPPs serving their local communities are all good things, and should be the focus of any provincial local election campaign. Nominations bring communities into the process and create an active, local organization of neighbours working to elect a candidate that was democratically chosen to represent their party on the ballot. Hard fought elections drive voter turnout, engage the public and require MPPs to work hard to stay elected. Engaged constituents expect results.
The Ontario Liberals and the Toronto Star should let the process play out in Toronto Centre and stop trying to influence unfairly.
4 Comments »George Jumps Ship, Sort of – Risks Run in With Law to Keep Paycheque
I write this as a resident of Toronto. I’m sure as President of Wind Concerns Ontario I will be providing comment on the impact of Smitherman’s departure on the renewable energy file later.
So George Smitherman decided today after eHealth, OLG and the royal mess up that has been the Ministry of Energy it was time to move on to see what kind of damage he could do in Toronto.
Smitherman being Smitherman has decided to turn the office of MPP for Toronto Centre into his piggy bank while he rolls out his campaign. There is a problem with his strategy and I want to point it out before I go any further. Smitherman is planning to file in March, so five months from now.
The law is very clear – you can’t spend any money when running for office in any municipal election without first filing your nomination. It’s not like a federal or provincial election where riding associations can spend outside the actual election period to get over the limit and run a longer campaign.
Just how Smitherman plans to be declared as a candidate and not file, and still expect to do anything is beyond me. He is running for Mayor – that means events, rallies, staff, polling – all things that cost money.
I get that he would like to keep his paycheque, but that doesn’t mean he can get creative with the municipal elections act to preserve a paycheque he will no doubt not be earning as he prepares his bid.
I don’t care what party you belong to – watch this and watch it closely. How will he run and not spend a penny before he files in March? No money means no website, no flyers, no room rentals, no events, no staff.
Does anyone honestly believe he won’t spend any money running for Mayor for five months? He also can’t raise money legally either.
Beyond the fact that I think he is walking into a situation that will make him look ethically suspect at best, his media stuff today demonstrated exactly why this is a bad idea.
Smitherman demonstrated duplicity in his first interview as a candidate.
1) Smitherman criticized Council for not rolling back their cost of living increase. He is a member of a government that voted to raise their salaries by 25%, even while the government was in deficit. No vote on a rollback has been planned.
2) Smitherman attacked the Council for it’s first instinct being to tax to solve it’s financial problems. McGuinty’s government has never seen a balanced budget in over five years in office, and has added tens of billions of dollars to the debt. Smitherman has headed up the two largest ministries, each which surely have relied on deficit financing. Unlike the Province which raises the taxes of our grandchildren to solve their financial issues, the City has to balance the books at the end of the year. As far as I am concerned both deficit financing of an operating budget and tax increases are the same thing.
3) Smitherman shot at Councillors’ sense of fiscal responsibility. That’s not a statement I will dispute, but this is the pot calling the kettle black. The 2.4 billion dollar Pan Am Games is a joint venture with all three levels of government, meaning Smitherman and his friends in cabinet are responsible for enabling Toronto to blow $800 million on sixteen days of sports six years from now. His Ministry will be funding much of the province’s share, just as they funded $400 million of a $1.2 billion streetcar order of which the City is on the hook for $800 million. Those are two projects where Smitherman has enabled the drunken sailors to spend $1.6 billion.
4) On referring to the Mayor’s chair as ‘a bully pulpit’. So much for ‘post-ideological’ governence. Smitherman is proposing to scare half of Council into doing what he wants as a means of governing. I doubt members of Council are going to be up for this, and expect and hope they will vigourously oppose him on the ground as they seek re-election.
Smitherman has enemies. He has attacked a number of constituencies in the City and province and what better opportunity than an election where the guy is vulnerable to respond.
It will be a very sad day for our city if Smitherman is elected.
I encourage everyone to look at the other candidates as they emerge and consider your choices wisely.
4 Comments »A Number Ontario Liberal MPPs May Not Be Smart, But Are Either Brave or Stupid
Yesterday over a hundred members of Wind Concerns Ontario rallied at the Legislature to call on the government to pass MPP Murdoch’s motion seeking a proper health study into the impacts of industrial wind turbine development on the health of residents. This is pretty simple stuff, something case law and Supreme Court hearings, and virtually all regulations except the Green Energy Act would recognize as being a reasonable step.
But because the Wind Industry has taken the ‘big lie’ approach to their product, they’ve decided to risk the whole lot in a legal and or political battle they frankly can’t win. They’ve asked Wind Concerns Ontario to seek to throw their baby out with their toxic bath water, instead of adopting international standards designed to protect human health and the environment. The Wind Industry’s reaction to fierce opposition was to cry to government they’ve been bribing with donations that are subsidized with our money, to strip citizens democratic rights so folks couldn’t get in the way of their projects.
It’s all failed horribly. Even they get it has. I’m sure George Smitherman and Dalton McGuinty got that memo too. Research is being done, moratoriums are going in place in other jurisdictions. As an example the Maine Medical Association is calling for a health study. Michigan has initiated a study and countless European countries have designed to recognize that these industrial machines are noise emitting and noise impacts health and therefore setbacks of 1.5km to 2km would protect folks. So you have folks doing research, and folks taking the precautionary approach and then you have Ontario’s bribed Liberal government not caring and taking the lies from folks who stand to make billions selling these projects into the grid on their word.
Residents have said repeatedly we’re not going away. The Ontario Liberal Party has begun facing protests, and those will continue. Candidates shouldn’t be shocked if local groups actively oppose their re-election or replacement with another Liberal candidate. All the wind money in the world won’t save you from a motivated, organized on the ground opposition.
The following Liberal MPPs inspired the title, because they’ve put themselves in a position where a fair comment is now ‘they voted to not protect your health because the Ontario Liberal Party stripped your rights to complain’
Arthurs, Wayne
Berardinetti, Lorenzo
Brown, Michael A.
Sandals, Liz
Van Bommel, Maria
Wilkinson, John
Each of these individuals were doing ‘house duty’ when the vote happened, all have active projects and opposition in their ridings and none stood up for their communities. There are other Liberal MPPs who couldn’t even bother to attend the debate. You may recall Margarett Best refusing to vote on the Green Energy Act – essentially ducking. She did the same today, even with voters from Scarborough Guildwood in the gallery hoping she would redeem herself a bit.
I am proud of everyone who came to Queen’s Park from our 39 groups in 26 counties. It was a weekday in the middle of the day, so many had to take time off work to be there and send the message we did. It’s the dedication of Wind Concerns Ontario that makes us such a strong force in Ontario, and as the days and weeks roll out ahead, we will continue strengthening our opposition and our attacks on the government’s position – until our voices are heard, a court puts them in their place or we defeat local MPPs who demonstrate they aren’t up to the job, simply by not doing it.
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