Thursday, August 30, 2007

Eglinton-Lawrence and Timiskaming-Cochrane

Two more ridings for your consideration:

Eglinton-Lawrence: Mike Colle does not deserve re-election. I say that as a Liberal. That does not mean Mike Colle won't get re-elected. Colle was the minister responsible for all that questionable spending in the immigration department. However, Colle has been in politics in the area for a very long time, first being elected to York city council in 1982. He knows how to campaign and he knows the territory.

The Tories are putting their hopes in Bernie Tanz. Tanz, a business guy, knows the territory as well as he ran to unseat Joe Volpe in the 2004 federal election. John Tory's religious schools promise will play with some parts of the riding's large Jewish population. However, many of the Jewish people here send their kids to local public schools or non-denominational private schools like UCC and BSS. The reality is that this riding is very Liberal and has taken in parts of equally Liberal St. Paul's in the redistribution.

The NDP will be a non-factor here but for the sake of disclosure their candidate is Karin Wiens.

Eglinton-Lawrence is infamous for representatives that drive the rest us nuts. Joe Volpe represents federally and half of the riding municipally is represented by the disgraced Howard Moscoe. The lone bright light is the well regarded Councillor Karen Stintz. Colle should be able to hold on, not on his own merits but because the riding is Liberal and doesn't seem to mind a little corruption in their politicians.

Prediction: Leans Liberal

Timiskaming-Cochrane: The North will present challenges for McGuinty. The North always presents challenges for the Tories. However, Timiskaming-Cochrane should be an easy Liberal hold. David Ramsay, the minister responsible for the North, was first elected here as an NDPer in 1985. He soon switched parties after he became revolted by NDP support for a strike of a union that included what he deemed to be essential personnel. Ramsay is well liked in the riding. He won last time with nearly three times as many votes as his nearest opponent.

The Tories have gone law and order and named retired police officer Doug Shearer as their candidate. NDP candidate John Vanthof helped kill the Toronto garbage deal in the local Adams mine. He certainly has credibility but I can't believe he has enough to defeat the long term incumbent.

Prediction: Safe Liberal

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear APIL, Again congratulations and 107 thanks for taking on this task.
Mike Colle deserves to have his ass kicked in this election.
Not only did he abandon common sense, he turned his back on the advice of his bureauocrats.
Dalton should have dumped him sooner and now he is going to cost who knows how much political capital to defend / distance themselves from Mike.
Mike is likeable BUT he is a lazy politician whose head swelled with a cabinet post and perhaps caused irreparable harm.
Having said that the whole issue would not have happened if he had invited that sleaze bag M. Prue to one of the give-away events. Petty politics was behind the opposition's reaction in the legislature.
Another example of the right thing for the wrong reason.

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