ELBOWS UP FOR CARNEY, LIBERALS AND CANADIANS WHO’LL NEED LOTS OF ELBOW GREASE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com OPINION
Justin’ time. … They found him just in time.
That’s local Liberals who yesterday along with party members country-wide elected Mark Carney as their leader and Canada’s next prime minister later this week.
With elbows up all 343 Big Red ridings voted in his favour — including Parry Sound-Muskoka.
Setting the table for national federal election within weeks.
And with 2,822 provincial Liberals casting ballots for an in-name only candidate, who can tell how many Carney supporters are in these woods who could come to support the party with a name candidate to take on Conservative Scott Aitchison.
All with dreams of the Liberals’ glory days here when Andy Mitchell was MP (1993-2006).
A poll reported today showed the Conservatives still leading and could win a minority government with 156 seats and the Liberals 143.
But first an election.
Local Liberal party president Bill Condy his very hopeful it will be spring forward for them
“I do have a sense that we have an excellent chance of winning this time.”
He told MuskokaTODAY.com today: “We have no Idea yet how many of our members voted (Sunday), but I expect that a very high proportion of those who did vote, voted for Mark Carney. So much so, that I wasn’t too surprised with the disproportionate results.”
And “as for our own (federal) candidate, I should know soon who that will be.”
Ironically this transition of power comes with Justin Trudeau at his most powerful in months — since before his Dec. 25 birthday when he turned 53. But still nowhere near the Trudeau-mania he enjoyed in 2015 when he became PM and changed Canada for good.
This before Chrystia Freeland took him down with an email that one wonders how long she paused to re-think before hitting the send buttom. Maybe that crossed her mind when the leadership results were announced a supper time Sunday. But it didn’t look like it after she smiled broadly on receiving only 8 per cent of the vote compared to her friend’s 86 per cent.
The story of the year (so far) — which has provided running copy by the second and gluing news junkies and patriots to the TV — has been like riding a roller coaster without antacid.
No doubt driving Canadians Trump crazy.
Another irony is that it took a just in time auto pact to put the brakes on — if not alter — this course of history. It plays right in to the American dependence on car plants and further from climacteric climate changes.
To hear talk of the “47th” “49th” “51st” … it sounds like a quarterback’s cadence with audibles thrown in at the whim of a president whose mind-boggling reordering is depressingly threatening world order once more.
Digresssing for a moment and staying with the irony theme is this: Red vs. Blue parties in Canada — Liberals vs. Conservatives; and conversely since 2000 Republican vs. Democrat states.
As Mr. T. observed of his match-up with Zelenskyy, the Liberal convention too made for “good TV” — if you enjoy political blood sports in abhorring the aforementioned former while loving the latter.
As “conventions” go, the Liberal love-in was no parting of the Red sea as the departure of Trudeau ushered in Carney as the hair apparent — six years Justin’s senior.
United they stood — divided they will fall. Unlikely by yesterday’s show of support.
While Liberals celebrated Carney, a larger Conservative crowd was reported to have saddled up alongside their leader Pierre Poilievre elsewhere along the Rideau River at an equally raucous ‘Canada First ‘rally.
A great contrast for the heavyweight spring contenders.
While Poilievre was rowdy in railing against Trump, Carney was more cerebral and equally critical of the elephant in the continent.
Voters will have to choose between a career politician and insider or an outsider with an edge.
Carney — with an air of being highfalutin — said during the leadership campaign that most people don’t understand finances.
Fair enough. But when the rubber hits the road he’ll find in on his campaign bus, for Canadian voters the KISS principle still applies — as Trump’s results showed.
No doubt his past bank of governor positions in Canada and England hold him in good stead with the world’s monopoly players.
A CV that will ultimately separate the Canadian wheat from the American chaff.
Trump’s tariffs are because America is broke in more ways than one. It’s bank account is worse than mine.
As it’s said, follow the money — and show me the money.
Trump may have met his money match yesterday.
But Canadians will still need a lot more elbow grease — like “Mr. Elbows” Gordie Howe — to win our biggest game since the 4 Nations Cup.
Sing it Tony Bennett:
“Just in time
You found me just in time
Before you came
My time was running low
I was lost
The losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed
Nowhere to go
Now you’re here
And now I know just where I’m going
No more doubts or fears
I found my way
‘Cause love came just in time
You found me just in time
Then you changed my lonely life that lovely day.”
EMAIL: [email protected]
30 years of TRUSTED ‘Local Online Journalism’
SINCE MAY 20, 1994
Twitter: @muskokatoday, Facebook: mclairmont1
SUBSCRIBE for $30 by e-transferring to [email protected]
Mail cheque to MuskokaTODAY.com Box 34 Gravenhurst, Ont. P1P 1T5
And include your email address to get stories sent to your inbox
