Mr. Premier, we have two questions for you as we head into a February election.
Doug, do you know what winter is in rural Ontario? Dangerous, that’s what it is. It’s pretty easy to see you are a city boy from your decision to have an election in the middle of a Canadian winter. Like so many premiers before you, your eyes obviously have trouble seeing beyond the GTA.
Blowing snow in rural Ontario can be fatal. By choosing to have this election at this time of the year, you aren’t just being selfish; you are putting lives at risk, forcing hundreds of Elections Ontario temporary workers in rural areas to drive many kilometres, regardless of weather, for necessary pre-Election Day training.
It’s not like they can hop on a subway and get to their destination. Here in southwestern Ontario, many ridings are comprised of large geographical areas. In Northern Ontario, it’s even worse.
These are not places where you want to force people, many of whom are senior citizens, onto roads in inclement weather in the winter.
Yet you did. You have a majority government. You had an election date for next year. But that wasn’t good enough. Heck, you couldn’t even wait until after the expected federal election this spring.
No, you claimed you needed a fresh mandate to battle the threat of tariffs from the U.S. Really? The economic landscape could be drastically altered in 16 months’ time, you know, the date when the election was supposed to take place?
Then again, perhaps you are counting on Mother Nature to do her thing. Perhaps you want low voter turnout, because that’s what you are going to get. And that is never good for true democracy.
A second question: Can Steve Pinsonneault come out and play? Or speak? As a long-time Chatham-Kent councillor, Pinsonneault was readily approachable by local media, as well as concerned citizens. But once he became one of your MPPs, it’s as if someone put a gag in his mouth, or hid his telephone.
Thankfully, he did respond to our questions to our candidates, but for the most part, he’s been pretty quiet.
Quite often, people vote for the individual candidate in their riding, rather than for a party or its leader. Pinsonneault is a grassroots individual, a member of the Thamesville community for decades. Yet once he headed to Queen’s Park last year, it appears someone cut those roots out from under him, severing his phone line in the process.
