...the Conservatives have high hopes for Lisa Raitt, president and CEO of the Toronto Port Authority, who they will unveil this week as the candidate to take on the floor-crosser, Garth Turner, in Halton.
Lisa Raitt will be "unveiled", and Halton's Conservative riding association will be barred from choosing their own representative. Furthermore, similar betrayals of the party grass-roots, according to Conn, are playing out in at least a dozen riding associations across the country.
Big deal, you might say, the Libs do it all the time. Well, yes, but nobody ever accused the Libs of being a grass-roots party. Do the Stephen Harper Tories intend to forfeit that title?
4 comments:
I can't imagine how they think anyone has a prayer against Garth. I don't live in his riding, but if he puts even 1/10th the effort into maintaining his riding profile as he does his online and national profile, he's got to be the one of the best-known MPs to the voters in his riding.
It's no coincidence that those who leave the CPC for the Liberals (Brison, Stronach, Keith Martin) do fairly well, while those who leave the Liberals for the CPC don't even dare run again.
This reminds me of when the Liberals put Deborah Coyne up against Jack Layton. A pointless waste of an otherwise (presumably) electable candidate. (Not that I mind when the CPC does it).
Yeah, I don't think Garth is going to have any trouble at all. He won here as a Conservative against the Liberal incumbent by only 2,000 votes - mostly I think on name recognition. As a Liberal, he should do much better - especially since there about 20,000 new residents here since then, mostly younger, mostly from very Liberal Toronto and Mississauga.
Besides, that, Turner's about as high-profile and responsive a candidate as you can get, he appeals to both Liberals and Conservatives (at least those who don't pray daily for his untimely death), and nobody here has ever heard of Lisa Raitt.
Now we just need to win all those other ridings.
So, you're fine with the LPC being an openly elitist-only, non-grassroots, top-down organization?
What's the point of joining?
My father was the deputy harbour master at TPA for 19 years and had the extremely dubious honour of working with Raitt. I can't even begin to tell you how poorly he was treated under her command. It was obvious they wanted a "Yes" man/woman in his place, something he was most definitely not. At one point he was forced to take a leave of absence while they investigated "allegations" against him which were dropped immediately when an employment laywer stepped in on his behalf.
After that things got worse and my father relished the thought of retirement, something he never got to enjoy when he died in 2006 of cancer just a year and a half short of his goal.
During his illness he continued to work, knowing his illness was terminal, until the end of 2005. Raitt promised one thing after another to assist my father and his family and failed on all counts. Even at his funeral she failed to show any sympathy and it was obvious she was just there to represent TPA.
After he died Raitt made employment offers to me, even going as far as to arrange an interview which was soon cancelled. She, to this day, has failed to explain to me why she has not returned any of my calls or lived up to the expectations for which only she had herself to blame. Needless to say, I almost certainly wouldn't have accepted any job offer from TPA after the way they treated my father but I hadn't worked for close to a year as I was my father's care giver, a fact Raitt knew only too well and she knew I needed the work.
I knew she was going to be a Conservative candidate but never expected it to be in my ward! I found out this morning driving up Trafalgar Road and seeing her signs.
Boy, I can't wait for the canvasers to come knocking at my door. Raitt wouldn't have the balls to do it herself.
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