And: good-bye to good natured, outgoing former Leftenant Governor Lincoln Alexander.
by Geoffrey Stevens
Looking back, it seems clear that Dalton McGuinty would be carrying on as premier of Ontario if only his Liberals had won that darned byelection in Kitchener-Waterloo last month.
He would have his majority back. He be able to deal with the opposition parties from a position of recovered strength. He would be able to get his budgets passed without having to cut a deal with the NDP or Conservatives.
He would have been able to jam his controversial public sector wage freeze legislation through the Legislature without fear that it would bring down his government. He would have been able to get the explosive Hydro plant scandal off the agenda by appointing a judicial inquiry and burying the scandal there for a couple of years (as Stephen Harper did with the Airbus scandal).
McGuinty miscalculated, grossly. He misread the mood of the KW electorate.
He would have been back in the catbird seat, if not master of all he surveyed, at least master of enough to see his government through for another year or two. Perhaps long enough to enable the Grits to find their way again — and for McGuinty either to call an election on his own timing or, more likely, to retire from public life on his own terms.
But it was not to be. McGuinty miscalculated, grossly. He misread the mood of the KW electorate. The Liberals ran a woeful third in a seat they could have won. The jig was up. With blood in the water at Queen’s Park, the sharks closed in.
It would be hard to imagine any political leader essaying a messier exit than McGuinty. He has resigned as Liberal leader, but will continue as lame-duck leader of a lame-duck government until his successor is chosen early next year. In the meantime, the Legislature is padlocked. Stealing a page from that artful dodger, the prime minister, McGuinty has prorogued the Legislature for an indefinite period.
The Liberals, who have never chosen a provincial premier as their leader in Ottawa, need a new face with new ideas, not an old face with tons of old baggage.
The stated reason is to create a cooling-off period while he negotiates a resolution to the public service impasse. The real reason is to deny opposition members an amplifier with which to yammer away about the Hydro scandal while the Ontario Liberals hunt for someone brave (or foolhardy) enough to take over this battered and now discredited party.
So is McGuinty going to seek the vacant leadership of the federal Liberal party? Hah! Not a chance.
Why would the nine-year premier of Canada’s largest province want to lead the third party in Ottawa? Besides, he couldn’t win. The Liberals, who have never chosen a provincial premier as their leader in Ottawa, need a new face with new ideas, not an old face with tons of old baggage.
A personal note. Lincoln Alexander, who died last week at age 90, was one of the good guys of Canadian politics. He was a trail-blazer: the son of a railway porter and hotel maid, he braved considerable racial prejudice en route to becoming the first Black member of Parliament, first Black federal cabinet minister, first Black lieutenant governor in Canada, and the long-serving chancellor of the University of Guelph.
I got to know Linc in his days as an MP. He was invariably good natured, outgoing, utterly without pretense, and enthusiastic about whatever he was doing that day. I hadn’t seen him for a few years until one evening when the Globe and Mail was giving a black-tie dinner in Toronto to mark some forgotten (and forgettable) occasion. As Managing Editor, I was posted in the lobby of the King Eddy to welcome head table guests.
Linc was Lieutenant Governor then. This large black figure burst into the hotel lobby, peeled away from his uniformed escorts, rushed past the startled VIPs in tuxedos, grabbed my hand, beamed, and demanded, loudly enough to be heard in Hamilton: “Geoff, you old SOB! Why the hell have they got you dressed up like a penguin?”
For once, I was at a loss for words. That was Linc, and I will miss him.
About Geoffrey Stevens
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at the address below. This article appeared in the Waterloo Region Record and the Guelph Mercury.
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