By Pepper Parr
October 19th, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
November 17th could turn out to be a very difficult day for the provincial government.
Voters in the electoral districts of Ottawa-Vanier and Niagara West-Glanbrook will vote for new members of the provincial legislature in by elections.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne
This is not a popular government; voters get an opportunity to say how unhappy they are in by-elections without actually changing the government. The current Liberal government can afford to lose the two seats – what they can’t afford is the continuing slide in popularity.
Word of the by- elections first came from former provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin, the Progressive Conservative candidate in Ottawa-Vanier, who posted the date in a tweet then quickly removed it before the official announcement by Elections Ontario.
The Niagara West-Glanbrook seat was held by Tim Hudak who won it in 2007 with 41% of the vote. The riding has a just under 100,000 voters – of which 59% turned out in the last election.
Hudak could not convince the province to make him the Premier and so he moved on and is now in the real estate sector.
The Ottawa-Vanier by-election will replace former attorney general Madeleine Meilleur, who quit the long-held Liberal seat last summer.
These two by-elections will tell the government just how bad their situation is.
The next provincial election will be in 2018 – crunch time.
Related article: Road and bridge construction announcements follow by-election call.
Understatement of the year: “This is not a popular government”. No…it certainly isn’t a popular government, an the sooner the Premier and her entourage are dispatched to the political wilderness the better we’ll all be.
Andre Marin would be a terrific addition to the Ontario Legislature. He knows where many of the skeletons are buried, and he won’t be bashful about digging them up. Poor Kathleen’s blood pressure will go up about 50 points if Marin is elected.