Farewell to Bill and Jim

Yesterday, Bill Graham announced that he would resign his House of Commons seat on July 2. Today, Jim Peterson announced that he would resign his House of Commons seat on July 12. I’m guessing that both these parliamentary veterans were asked to resign to make way for Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay to run in by-elections. But my concern is that the Liberals could lose one or both of these by-elections to the Conservatives. I’m particularly concerned about Willowdale, where the Conservatives got 29% to the Liberals’ 55%. In Toronto Centre I am concerned that the riding could go something other than Liberal because of continuing dislike of Bob Rae. The Liberals want all Liberal Leadership candidates to be in the House of Commons. There were initially 11 leadership candidates, 8 of which were MPs. 3 candidates, MPs Carolyn Bennett, Maurizio Bevilacqua, and Hedy Fry all dropped out prior to “Super Weekend” and all endorsed Bob Rae. MP John Godfrey was briefly in the Leadership race as well but dropped out in April 2006 before the race really started for health reasons. He did however participate in a leadership race debate in April 2006 and did well at it. It is therefore sad that after such a great start, health had to make Mr. Godfrey drop out. While I expect Godfrey could have been a great leader, he was born in December 1942. No offence to the exemplary Mr. Godfrey, but a younger leader may well have been needed to be able to take on Stephen Harper and form a future government. Not to say that Godfrey too would not have been capable of this, I’m just saying that someone younger may, I stress, may, have been a better choice. Mr. Godfrey also later endorsed Bob Rae.

There were 3 leadership candidates who were not MPs. They were Gerard Kennedy (my candidate!), Bob Rae, and Martha Hall Findlay. Kennedy is a former Ontario MPP and former Ontario education minister. Rae is a former Ontario MPP and a former NDP Ontario Premier. Rae left the NDP in 2002 over it’s rejection of free market capitalism (he referenced outgoing UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as an example of someone who has praised free markets) and over it’s lack of support for Israel. Bob Rae’s wife is Jewish. Rae is also of Jewish decent although he was raised an Anglican. Some say Rae was the first Jewish Premier of Ontario. After leaving the NDP, Rae slowly drifted his affiliation to the Liberals. In 2006, Rae decided he wanted to seek the federal Liberal leadership. He eventually lost to Stephane Dion. I followed Kennedy’s lead and endorsed Stephane Dion when Kennedy dropped out of the ballot. Rae was also an NDP MP from late 1978 to 1982 when he quit in order to become leader of the provincial NDP. The third leadership candidate who was not an MP was Martha Hall Findlay. She has never held elected office but came close to beating Belinda Stronach in 2004 when Stronach was a Conservative. In the leadership race, Hall Findlay was first to be eliminated and she endorsed Dion. Rae released his delegates and did not endorse either of the two remaining candidates, Dion and Michael Ignatieff. Ever since the leadership race has been over, the Liberals have wanted the 3 non-MP candidates to become MPs in order for there to be a stronger front against Stephen Harper’s government. But now that the next election might not be until 2009, these 3 politicians likely have started to become impatient about being on the sidelines and possibly remaining on the sidelines for a whole another 2 years before they can run in a general election. It is for this reason that I think the two retiring Liberal incumbents were asked to retire early to allow an earlier chance to get the seatless leadership candidates to enter Parliament in by-elections. Rae and Hall Findlay were already nominated in their respective ridings for the next general election. I expect that the two retiring political veterans obliged because they did not want to have to wait around another two years before being able to retire. Both Peterson and Graham announced their retirement at a time that a spring election was expected. I don’t think they were planning on the seemingly inevitable election to fizzle. Graham and Peterson likely were expecting Parliament to be dissolved this spring. I doubt either was betting on the Parliament lasting another two years as now seems probable. It is for this reason I think that both have just announced their resignation to allow for an early retirement and thus some new blood to be elected in their place.

Unfortunately this all leaves out my guy Gerard Kennedy. Under this current plan Kennedy remains on the sidelines until the next election which could be another two years. Kennedy decided to run in his old provincial riding of Parkdale-High Park against NDP incumbent Peggy Nash. I’m glad Kennedy is running there as he is just about the only one who could win this increasingly NDP riding back for the Liberals. However, this leaves Kennedy out until the next general election unless another seat opens up and Kennedy opts to run there instead. It previously seemed like a good seat for Kennedy to run in was York South-Weston. After all Kennedy represented much of the riding from 1996-1999. However this was based on the assumption that Alan Tonks (who was born in 1943) would retire. Since then Tonks has, however, committed to running again so the seat is not becoming vacated. This is on top of the fact that there are now doubts about how safe the seat is on the federal level given the recent NDP victory in the provincial York South-Weston seat. So I’m sad to say that for now my guy Gerard Kennedy is stuck out of Parliament.