Congratulations Obama

Congratulations to Barack Obama on winning a second term. Conservative pundits thought that was utterly impossible. Obama won 26 states and the District of Columbia. Only two states switched parties, with North Carolina and Indiana going back to the Republicans. Once again no President has won the election without also winning a majority of states since Jimmy Carter achieved this in 1976. I find that winning the election while winning only a minority of states is quite possible, but the way that votes nationwide swing from election to election makes this particular scenario unlikely. Obama again won all the Kerry states, all the Gore states, 9 out of 10 Dukakis states, and most 1992 and 1996 Clinton states outside the South. Obama is the first Democratic President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to win a majority of the popular vote in two elections. FDR won four terms, and won a majority of the popular vote in all four. Since then until this year Democratic Presidents have either been assassinated in their first term (John F. Kennedy), declined to run for a second full term (Lyndon Johnson), been defeated at their run for a second term (Jimmy Carter), or failed to win a majority of the popular vote for their second term or their first term for that matter (Bill Clinton). Presidents have been term limited since the 1940s to two terms when a constitutional amendment was passed limiting the number of Presidential terms. Many felt that FDR’s four terms went against the precedent set by George Washington when he declined to run for a third term and all other Presidents followed suit at the end of their second term until FDR ran for a third term in 1940. FDR ran for a fourth term as well in 1944 in the middle of World War II and won the narrowest popular vote victory of his Presidential career but still an Electoral College landslide. Sadly FDR only completed less than four months of his fourth term before dying suddenly. This paved the way for Vice President Harry Truman to preside over the end of World War II. This in turn paved the way for the famous Dewey defeats Truman headline when a newspaper in the 1948 Presidential election famously called the election incorrectly when in reality Truman had defeated Republican nominee Thomas Dewey. Truman’s victory was not anticipated because Dewey previously had a large lead because the Democrats had been suffering from an uneven economy despite the post-war economic boom. The Presidential term limit was brought in to enshrine what many saw as a sort of constitutional convention that had lasted for over a century. Because of the term limit Obama can’t run for a third term. I’m not sure what impact this has on the chances of the Democrats retaining the White House in 2016. The Democrats will need a new candidate who can take Obama’s appeal and get-out-the-vote machine with them. Romney’s campaign now admits that their internal polls were skewed Republican because that is what they thought the electorate would look like. I personally knew all along that the public polls had the composition of the electorate right. Republicans hoped that Romney would be like Reagan and defeat a Democratic President (Jimmy Carter in the case of Reagan) who was struggling with a poor economy. Of course this dream of Republicans didn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, the electorate is much more Democratic-leaning then it was in 1980. This fact is reflected in the strong support for Obama in the Northeast, Midwest, and west coast that was conspicuously absent in 1980 for Carter. Some have called Obama the Democratic Reagan. This is an interesting concept. It is true in the sense that both inherited a bad economy, both were unpopular during a large part of their first term because of the bad economy, both suffered mid-term election losses for their party in their respective first terms but both also managed to hold onto the Senate in the two respective midterm elections, and both then went on the win re-election to a second term. It can also be argued that ideologically Reagan and Obama complement each other, Reagan with strong conservative convictions on certain issues and Obama with strong liberal convictions on certain issues. So congratulations to Obama, now the hard work for Obama, the Democrats, and the Republicans begins.

Federal election results

It goes without saying that I am incredibly unhappy about this month’s election results. They really were quite horrendous. That being said, Harper’s brazen attempt to get a majority government by gutting the fixed election date law failed. But the Liberals did so poorly that Harper could have gotten a majority if he had not turned off Quebec voters by insulting Quebec artists. I am an Ontario voter but I couldn’t disagree more with Harper’s assertion that ordinary Canadians don’t care for the arts. I am very pro-art. I like Shakespearean plays, paintings, other plays, musical concerts, and whatever kind of art you can think of. I like certain mainstream television shows and some Hollywood movies, but with the exception of the few TV shows and movies I like, I prefer the “refined art” of the kind that the other parties defended against Conservative attacks during the election.

Now Jean Charest plans to pull a Stephen Harper and call an early election in his province in an attempt to get a majority. I have mixed feelings about this. Although I want Charest to get a majority, I hate early elections. I prefer how things are done in Ontario, when early elections occur very rarely. Ontario has not had an early provincial election since 1990. That’s the way I prefer it and I disagree with politicians of all stripes playing politics with election dates. Charest unfortunately is playing politics with election dates so I cannot on balance agree with his decision to call an election.

This leads to another interesting question. Elizabeth May failed to win a seat in the election. May has since vowed to win Central Nova in the next election and in the meantime promised to run in the first available by-election. But what if the first available by-election is Laurier-Sainte-Marie, Gilles Duceppe’s riding. What if Charest calls the Quebec election and then the PQ does incredibly badly. What if then Pauline Marois resigns the leadership. At that point I see no way Duceppe could resist for a third time going for the PQ leadership. At which point Laurier-Sainte-Marie would be vacant and there would be a by-election. Considering how poorly the Greens did in Quebec, would Laurier-Sainte-Marie really be an appropriate riding for May to run in?

I want to comment on what happened in Outremont in the federal election. This time New Democrat Thomas Mulcair won by 6 percentage points, a much smaller margin than in his by-election win. I even hear that the race sea-sawed back and forth between Mulcair and the Liberal candidate. While I’m glad to see the Liberals do better in Outremont than in the by-election, unfortunately the 33% the Liberals got is still less than the 35% the Liberals won the riding with in the 2006 election. It was also heartbreaking to see Eleni Bakopanos fail to regain Ahuntsic for the Liberals after leading for much of the night. However, the Liberals managed to retake Brossard-La Prairie with a new candidate after a recount. That puts the Liberals at 14 seats in Quebec, which is higher than the 13 won in 2006 under Paul Martin. No doubt this improvement of Liberal fortunes in Quebec is largely due to Stephane Dion’s stellar performance in the French leaders’ debate. It was also good to see Justin Trudeau elected in Papineau. However due to the narrow margin in Papineau, I think it likely that Dion’s excellent French leaders’ debate performance helped put Trudeau over the top.

By contrast however, the Liberals were sadly wiped out in English speaking New Brunswick. The Liberals did much better in French speaking New Brunswick and Dion’s French debate performance probably helped there. What was particularly amazing was that in Madawaska-Restigouche Liberal incumbent Jean-Claude D’Amours increased his margin of victory to several thousand votes over the 800 vote margin he had last time. In part this was due to a slight decline in the Conservative vote, but it was largely due to a substantial increase in the Liberal vote largely at the expense of the NDP. No doubt that some of this was due to strategic voting as a result of the near-Tory win last time. Also the fact that there was a new NDP candidate probably decreased the NDP vote as well. But part of it I am sure is Dion’s excellent French leaders’ debate performance. In addition, I have no doubt that Harper’s poor French leader’s debate performance hurt the Tories in Madawaska-Restigouche.

Sadly I fear Elizabeth May may never win a seat in Parliament. Her chances in a by-election are iffy and her chances in Central Nova are even more iffy. In addition, next time I’d expect May to have a Liberal opponent in Central Nova in addition to the Conservative incumbent. The whole deal about not running a Liberal candidate against May in Central Nova was entirely a Stephane Dion thing and I expect the next leader of the Liberal Party to run a candidate in every single riding as the Liberal Party traditionally does. The Green Party may not even get into the leaders’ debate in the next election because the Green Party no longer has a single MP in the House of Commons and having Blair Wilson was one of the main reasons that May was included in the election’s leaders’ debate.

I was glad to see the Tories wiped out in Newfoundland and Labrador. The NDP won St. John's East with about 75% of the vote and almost won St. John's South-Mount Pearl over the Liberals with the Tories at only 12.6%! In St. John’s East the Tories got a mere 9.3%! I, like all Liberals, wish the rest of Canada could have voted like Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m glad that at least some parts of the country agree that the Tories shouldn’t be in office. I would like to thank Danny Williams for single-handedly wiping out the federal Tories in Newfoundland and Labrador. The strange part is that Williams is a Progressive Conservative, himself a Tory! How strange that a provincial Tory was one of the Liberals best allies in the election.

To be honest, while I’m obviously disappointed in the New Brunswick Liberal results, they do not surprise me too much. English speaking rural New Brunswick is Atlantic Canada’s only Bible Belt so it is not surprising that the Tories do well here. Even English-speaking cities in New Brunswick are somewhat socially conservative so it is not too big a surprise that the Tories won Saint John and Fredericton and almost won Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe (it was probably the francophone minority in Moncton that saved the Liberals here). On a related note, Dominic LeBlanc from Beauséjour, New Brunswick has been the first to announce his bid for the Liberal leadership and I may support him. We need a new leader who can win back government, defeat Stephen Harper, and implement a centrist vision for Canada.

Leader's Debate

The other night there was a leader’s debate for the Ontario election. Unfortunately for Howard Hampton, he had a bad cold. This may have impeded his debate performance. The result of Hampton’s cold may have been that Hampton was less forceful than in two previous leader’s debates he was in. Nevertheless, Hampton still seemed to do ok. In my humble opinion, Tory could have done better. Also, in my humble opinion McGuinty did well.

That being said, I am VERY apprehensive about whatever Ontario post-debate polls may come out. I am VERY fearful they will show Conservative momentum because of how commentators spun the Ontario leaders debate. Almost all commentators spun the debate as a loser for McGuinty. This despite the fact that when I watched the debate, I saw that McGuinty did just fine. McGuinty was the only leader who was positive. The other two leaders were just continuously attacking McGuinty. Constantly being on the attack does not make you look like a Premier. Only McGuinty offered positive messages. Offering positive messages is how you look like a Premier, not by attacking constantly and not by playing footsie with the other Opposition leader. Interestingly, Dalton McGuinty’s quip that Howard Hampton and John Tory are HoJo is becoming something of a catchphrase. Unlike what Howard Hampton said, McGuinty was not in desperation to use the term HoJo. It was a joke, plain and simple. My deep concern is that people who originally thought that McGuinty won the debate when they watched it will change their minds and decide that Tory won the debate because of what the media said. This could have a devastating effect on the Liberal campaign. I have read a number of user comments on more than one website which said that McGuinty won the debate. I’ve also seen and/or heard occasional comments from Ontarians that their opinion of John Tory worsened because of the debate. I am just dreadfully scared of the pro-Tory media spin on the debate and the negative effect it will have on the Liberal campaign.

I also do not support John Tory’s idea of allowing booze to be sold at convenience stores. For one thing, it breaks with a VERY long tradition in Ontario. Secondly, it means less government regulation and therefore an increase in the likelihood of booze falling into the wrong hands. No I am not questioning the integrity of shopkeepers. No offence to shopkeepers, but I fear that this new lack of government regulation would increase the number of alcohol-caused accidents and deaths.

Tory MPP Bill Murdoch has announced that he would almost certainly vote against any legislation implementing John Tory’s faith-based funding plan. Tory simply dismissed Murdoch as a maverick when asked about this. But this is actually significant for a member of the Conservative caucus to so openly rebel against the party leader on this controversial issue. I don’t know whether Murdoch voting against Tory’s faith-based funding plan would get him kicked out of caucus. However, considering the position that the Liberals and NDP have taken on this issue, Tory’s faith-based funding plan could not be pushed through unless there were a Conservative majority government.

I am quite unhappy that Howard Hampton has said that for him to offer support to any minority government, the minority government in power would have to implement the entire NDP platform. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives could ever agree to implement the entire NDP platform. This would mean an incredibly unstable minority government. With this being Hampton’s position, the minority government could easily fall on the Throne Speech – just like at the federal level the government is threatened by a loss of confidence on the Throne Speech. Hampton making the demands he has made, I see no point in an Ontario minority government even trying to pass a budget. And how exactly is this minority government extreme instability supposed to get better under MMP if opposition parties continue to make such un-agreeable demands? For example, if the Greens get seats under MMP they could demand the abolishment of the Catholic school system in exchange for support of the government . That would be a complete no-go and could lead to MMP minority governments to be as unstable as ever. By the way, everybody these days seems to think that for this Ontario election, a minority government is a foregone conclusion. Despite the spin, there is just not enough evidence that a minority government is a foregone conclusion. Take the poll that showed the Liberals with a 9-pont lead. I think the last time a 9 point spread produced a minority government may have been never. I know that that particular poll is now out of date, but still it is something to keep in mind

I want to re-iterate one point – Dalton did far better in the debate than commentators gave him credit for.

Coming Throne Speech

I can’t deal with whether the federal government will fall on the coming Throne Speech. That seems too far away right now. I want to focus on the provincial campaign. There will be a lot of Throne Speech optics later. If we’re lucky, someone will find away to keep this government in power for now – Liberals in Ontario cannot have two elections so close together. I want this Conservative government out of office just as much as the next Liberal, but a 2007 election is not the way to do it. Bringing down the government only creates an election that the Conservatives could easily win with a minority or majority. Not for decades upon decades has the Governor General asked an opposition party to form government without an election victory for said opposition party. That just doesn’t happen anymore. If we could bring down the government in hopes of Dion simply being appointed Prime Minister on the spot, I’d go for it. But Governors General just don’t appoint new Prime Ministers on the spot following the loss of confidence of a government anymore. So it just is not a doable option. That is why we need to keep this Conservative government in power in the year 2007 and explore our options next year. That’s all the dealing I’m going to do on this topic for now.

But as a closely related aside I want to mention that Harper has been bold enough to say he won’t hold a vote on extending the combat mission in Afghanistan unless he thinks the government can win that vote. The implication is he may hold it eventually, as the current deadline of February 2009 comes close. But he will not hold such an early vote because he thinks he can’t win it. I seem to read signals from the government that the government was hoping certain Liberals would again break ranks and support the extension past 2009 in the same way that certain Liberals voted for the extension to 2009. I expect the government to be disappointed if they are hoping for this. Dion has more or less united the Liberals on this issue. In the spring there was a Liberal motion to end the mission in 2009. Individual Liberals did not break ranks and I wouldn’t expect them to in a future vote. We are now quite united on this issue. When it comes down to it, there cannot be an extension of the Afghanistan mission within the context of this current parliament. Harper would still need a majority government to push through such an extension of the mission. And even then, it would go against the type of “all-party consensus” that Harper has been promising.

Cabinet shuffle

Stephen Harper’s cabinet shuffle was mostly about selling the mission in Afghanistan and nothing more. Harper also moved the moderate Jim Prentice from Indian Affairs to Industry and put the more conservative Chuck Strahl into Indian Affairs. This change in Indian Affairs minister has frustrated Caledonia First Nations protestors (http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=23&id=81574). Yet I find it strange that by contrast it seems to have pleased Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Ramsay. Look at thus quote from the article I just cited:

Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Ramsay suggested the portfolio change shows the federal government considers First Nations matters a priority.

Ramsay said he's currently writing the new minister a letter outlining some of Ontario's priorities. Working closely with the federal government to implement the recommendations of the Ipperwash inquiry and resolving land claims such as the one plaguing Caledonia are among them, he said.

"I think we have a federal government that is very concerned about the aboriginal issue and has really showed some tremendous progress in trying to move yardsticks on this file," Ramsay said.


Why does Mr. Ramsay think that causing disruption on the Caledonia file by replacing ministers mean that the federal government considers First Nations matters a priority? These are words coming from a Liberal cabinet minister. I suspect he is only saying this to try to create a smooth relationship with his new federal counterpart, Chuck Strahl, and that if it were not for this he would not have said such nice things about the disruption being caused by the replacement of the Indian Affairs Minister. The Ontario government has often been critical of the Harper government, so I am still very surprised to see such positive words coming from a minister of the Ontario government. After all there is a lot Ontario Liberals could criticize the Harper government about regarding aboriginal affairs, starting with the scrapping of the Kelowna Accord. But again I don’t think Ramsay meant those praises and I think they were only for the purposes of good diplomatic relations.


My household has been recently receiving unwanted copies of the National Post due to a promotion that we do not want. On today’s National Post paper there was an editorial about Harper’s cabinet shuffle. I was shocked to see how blatantly pro-Conservative the editorial was, heaping much undeserved praise on the Harper government. I also find it interesting that some people are connecting this cabinet shuffle with a possible future election. While the shuffle IS all about the 3 ongoing by-elections in Quebec, it is important to remember that there is a fixed election date Bill in place that means in order to get a general election we’d need a non-confidence vote. The recent SES poll showed a significant drop for the NDP. So they aren’t ready to have an election. The Liberal numbers in the SES poll are stagnant. That is not enough to want an election. The Bloc has been the Conservatives’ coalition partner ever since the government came to power. The Bloc has no reason to withdraw their support now as polls show the Bloc would either lose seats (probably some to the Liberals, maybe a couple to the Conservatives), or keep all the ones they have. Polls do not show the Bloc gaining seats so the Bloc has no incentive to withdraw their support of the government. This means an election will not come until some time next year at the absolute earliest. By then any popularity boost by this cabinet shuffle would be all forgotten anyway. Even if sometime in 2008 the Bloc for some reason withdrew its support, the Liberals might try to keep the Tories in power themselves unless their poll numbers were going through the roof. But it’s more likely the Bloc’s support of the government will last throughout 2008.

There is also talk of proroguing Parliament and having a new Throne Speech in the fall. I’m not sure if this Throne Speech would occur on September 17 when the House of Commons is scheduled to reconvene or after that. I don’t want the Throne Speech occurring in the middle of the Ontario election because this would give an unfair advantage to the provincial Tories. The problem with proroguing Parliament is that it would kill at least temporarily Bills that have not received Royal Assent. This includes some of the government’s vaunted justice Bills that have yet to pass the Senate. There is some kind of procedure to bring back killed Bills that I do not understand. But proroguing Parliament potentially delays the passage of these Bills into law, and I thought the government wanted those justice Bills to become law as soon as possible. Proroguing Parliament would also kill the unpassable Bill to scrap the gun registry and the controversial political redistribution Bill that both Quebec and Ontario are against. Several other government-introduced Bills would die, not to mention countless private members’ Bills. If they want a Throne Speech, the least they can do is wait until their vaunted Bills are passed, unless the Bills’ purported importance was being overplayed for political gain. Nevertheless, proroguing Parliament is not a decision Harper should take lightly.

Davenport and Markham--Unionville

The NDP candidate for the provincial NDP in Davenport is going to be Peter Ferreira. He is Portugese and Davenport has a lot of Portugese people but I don’t know whether they would automatically switch their votes just because the NDP candidate is Portugese. The fact that he is Portugese is one of the assets he has if he wants to beat Tony Ruprecht. But his beating the well-established and well entrenched Tony Ruprecht will be difficult. The other problem Ferreira faces is that he seems to be the same Peter Ferreira who spent time as a Catholic school trustee in Mississauga, which is several kilometers from Davenport. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat on Mississauga City Council last November. On the election website for city council he says he has long lived in Mississauga. Therefore he seems to be something of a parachute candidate for Davenport and doesn’t seem too have many roots in the community in which he is running. It is for that reason that I would still give Ruprecht the edge.


On the electionprediction.com page for Markham—Unionville, somebody has gone and predicted a PC win for physiotherapist Ki Kit Li because it is a traditional Conservative seat as well as because of “strong credentials” for the Tory candidate. Here is the full quote, by someone called “Full Name”: “Considering that the by election of 2007 had one of the lowest number of registered voters voting, that this is traditionally a PC riding, and that there is a PC candidate that has strong credentials and has been an active member of the community, I would say that John Tory and his team will probably gain back this seat for the PC Party” To go from “strong credentials” and “active member of the community” to “probably gain back this seat for the PC Party” is a bit of a stretch. The Tories winning Markham—Unionville is always physically possible but “probably”??????? Full Name gave too far a certainty. There are several things to refute this post. I want to post them on the site but I can’t get the submission page to work. Firstly Full Name is not taking into account the federal results in Markham—Unionville. In the 2006 Federal Election, Markham—Unionville was in the top 5 of strongest Liberal results across the whole country. Markham—Unionville came out in 5th place out of 308 with 61.9% of the vote, one of only 6 ridings to vote more than 60% Liberal in the whole country. Secondly, Full Name fails to take into account Michael Chan’s roots in the community. Thirdly, about the by-election and its turnout, by-elections often have low turnout and Markham was no exception. One reason the turnout was low was no doubt the cold (though not snowing) weather. That being said, I do not see low turnout as a bad sign for the Liberals. In by-elections, those who turn out to vote are a lot more likely to be those who are not satisfied with the government and wish to vote against the governing party. We saw this occur significantly in York South-Weston, as well as to a lesser extent in Parkdale-High Park. Markham does not appear to be an exception to this rule. I’d say that this factor played out in Markham. Yet despite this factor the Liberals still easily beat the Tories. Also notable is that I was involved in the by-election campaign for the Liberals and did a lot of sign counting. The Liberals easily won the sign war (only counting signs on lawns) by a 2 to one margin. Some of the committed Liberals may not have voted on election day because it was cold out. Based on what I saw of canvass results as well, there appeared to be a largely Liberal result. So there is no questioning that that support for the Liberals was there and it was not some aberration due to turnout. Based on what I saw in the election campaign, it was a little surprising to see a result of 34.9% for the Tories. One may have expected a maximum result of about 30% but on election day it was a little higher than this. My theory is that the 34.9% result was because of the factor I mentioned earlier – those wishing to vote against the government have a higher tendency to vote in a by-election. So my guess is that a higher turnout would thus likely have seen a stronger Liberal result. The next factor Full Name leaves out is that if the by-election results are applied only to the new Markham—Unionville part of the riding, the results would almost certainly be higher for the Liberals and lower for the Tories because the new riding loses some of the strongest areas for the Tories to the new Oak Ridges—Markham riding. Thus in Markham—Unionville we may have seen something like Liberal 53%, Conservative 31%. By my theory an increased turnout would likely have expanded the Liberal margin further. So really the Liberals have some distance to fall before they lose Markham—Unionville. It would take a real Tory sweep and a humiliating disaster for the Liberals before they would lose Markham—Unionville. The Tories would probably have to take 45% or so of the vote province-wide for Markham—Unionville to fall to the Tories. So for Full Name to predict a probable win for the Tories at this point is, in my view, a little far from reality.


On one more point, I am tired of waiting for the provincial election. I wish I could already be helping out Michael Chan and rooting for Dalton McGuinty and I am tired of the suspense of having to wait for the provincial election to officially start.

Judgement Day in Manitoba

May 22, 2007 is Judgment Day in Manitoba. Manitobans go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new government. By the looks of it, incumbent NDP Premier Gary Doer is likely to be re-elected. Despite being a Liberal, I am quite glad if this is true. Gary Doer is a very moderate New Democrat who actually won his first term in 1999 on a promise of modest tax cuts. The Doer government is left-of-centre, but more in the sense that a Liberal government would be left-of-centre. I also like the Manitoba Liberals. But they are a distant third party that only has two seats in the legislature, which is not enough for official party status (something I think they deserve even with two seats). Going into the election, the Manitoba Liberals only have those two seats but have the potential to gain more. If the Manitoba Liberals win a total of three seats, they would still be short one to make official party status. I believe the winning government should be gracious and restore their official party status even with only 3 seats.

If I lived in Jon Gerrard’s riding or Kevin Lamoureux’s riding, I’d vote Liberal. Those two men are the two current Liberal MLAs in Manitoba. If I lived in a super-safe NDP riding, I would vote Liberal. If I lived in a riding where the Liberals finished second to the NDP last time, I’d choose to vote Liberal. But if I lived in a riding which is a tight fight between the Tories and the NDP, I’d vote NDP to avoid splitting the left-of-centre vote. This is all a moot point, of course, because I live in Ontario. I’d also vote Liberal if I lived in a super-safe Tory Manitoba riding like Tuxedo. Of course I would choose to avoid living a Tory seat.

Also of note is that even Liberals can occasionally get shortchanged by the first-past-the-post electoral system. In the 1995 Manitoba election, the Liberals received 23.73% of the vote resulting in only 3 seats. Currently there is something going on in the Manitoba riding of Wellington. There were allegations of signing up members without said new members paying their own membership fees leveled at incumbent NDP MLA Conrad Santos. As a result Santos was forced to drop out of the nomination and is now running as an independent. He will split the vote. I am hoping that Santos wins. He was in my opinion treated unfairly. He may well have done nothing wrong. If nominations had been protected, none of this would have ever happened. This is why I believe incumbents should be protected from nomination challenges. Another NDP MLA also lost re-nomination for no apparent good reason. Therefore I indeed think that incumbents should be protected to prevent messes like these. If Santos wins, he may well rejoin the NDP caucus. Mr. Santos is 72 and has served in the legislature from 1981 to 1988 and continuously since 1990. It is not fair that this long-serving member has been in treated this way. That he’s running again when he’s 72, even as an independent, shows how much he loves politics. He ought to be able to serve until he’s 82 or longer. What happened to him this year is totally unfair.


In conclusion I want to wish Jon Gerrard and Kevin Lamoureux good luck in their ridings for Tuesday. I also send good wishes to the Liberals in the election on Tuesday in ridings that they are not splitting the left-of-centre vote. I also wish Gary Doer good luck in his quest to win a third consecutive majority government on Tuesday.