By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON April 28, 2011 – Wow! Can these people every spend money. I lost track of just how many millions the four candidates for the federal seat of Burlington said they would spend on our behalf. A couple of time they even mentioned billions. They tossed off the numbers the way kids do when you’re teaching them how to play Monopoly.
Alyssa Brierley was there as the Liberal Candidate, David Laird there as the candidate for the New Democrats, Graham Mayberry as the candidate for the green Party and Mike Wallace as the sitting member for Burlington in the House of Commons and asking if the community would re-elect him. The candidate for the Marxist Leninist Party did not attend – a Chamber of Commerce meeting wouldn’t be seen as good ground to work for those who want a Socialist paradise. I wondered why a Marxists Leninist party would see Burlington as a place to run a candidate. Burlington ???, I asked when I first heard, had Randall Reef done that much damage to the water we drink?
Wallace lost a bit of weight during the campaign – one notch on his belt. Will he notch another election? This is Burlington.
During the all candidate event hosted by the Burlington Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by the Real Estate Association of Hamilton/Burlington, no one candidate moved the room any great distance. There were a couple of good shots gotten in by Brierley and Laird. Mike Wallace seemed to struggle a bit to keep up. Laird was the strongest speaker – he had his file down pat and delivered his opening comments without glancing at any notes whereas both Wallace and Brierley seemed to have to pause frequently to collect their thoughts. Had it been debate rather than the polite Q&A the Chamber of Commerce prefers, Laid would have led and been closely followed by Brierley. The thrust and cut of a debate is not where Wallace excels. Graham Mayberry was almost entertainment rather than an informative candidate.
The room of more than 150 people did like Brierley and they responded with a healthy laugh when Laird said that this was his “fifth” election and that he was at least “tenacious”. The Chamber had said “no walk-ins” but had you walked in you’d have found a seat.
The responses heard were based on the questions asked and while some were surely planted by the candidates it wasn’t that solid a business crowd.
Gave perhaps the best performance at the Chamber of Commerce All Candidate – if Burlington picks up on the national buzz for the NDP – he might – but this IS Burlington.
Graham Mayberry of the Green Party seemed to mumble at times and said that he didn’t really have a position on income trusts but that he would certainly like to have one. Wallace made it very clear that the Conservatives weren’t going to bring those things back. Income trusts allowed corporations to change drastically how they were taxed and had gotten to the point where they were shaking the very foundation of our economic system and how the government collects taxes from the corporate sector.
On Afghanistan there was one stunning surprise. Everyone was for getting us out of that situation with. Laird didn’t think we should have gone in in the first pace, Wallace said that it is now a NATO issue and we will soon become Peace Keepers. Brierley had us out in July and Mayberry didn’t see us as being there much longer. But not a word from a single candidate on the more than 150 men and woman who died in that country for a mission that not too many Canadians felt all that strongly about. The Supreme Sacrifice didn’t even get a mention and the absolutely disgusting manner the federal government is treating those who have lost limbs and will be in wheel chairs for the rest of their lives wasn’t brought up. The Legion has some work to do on the Lest We Forget campaign.
Laird did get in one of those tried socialist lines about re-orienting away from our Imperial” ways.
Graham Mayberry was different. He seemed to be having the time of his life and now knows that he wants an income trust. There will be quite a few Green signs out there – this IS Burlington but there won’t be very many ballots
The way the country is governed got covered pretty well. No one in the room stood up to applaud how well the House of Commons is run. Wallace explained that the difficulty would disappear if the Conservatives could just get a majority government, which Canadians clearly don’t want to give Stephen Harper. To his credit, Wallace didn’t drag out the canard about a “coalition” forming to become a government that wasn’t elected.
Brierley, the person at the table who best understands political science explained that Members of Parliament have to cooperate to get things done and that this isn’t the way the House of Commons works today. She got the first round of applause from the audience when she said “you earn a majority if you are honest with people” Laid just wanted the Prime Minister to stop lying.
In the last eight to ten days the New Democrats have surged forward in Quebec and appear to be taking away votes from the Bloc Quebecois, but do appreciate that what we are getting are the results of polls that are measuring a population that is going through significant change. The one thing we are learning is that they country does not like the way things have been going but isn’t clear on just who it wants to go with. Wallace touts the Conservative line that with a majority all this unsettling business would disappear – so just give us a majority to which Laird added – “I’d like a majority too and Mayberry piped in with “I guess it’s a bit of a long shot for us”.
The close to complete disgust from the Liberal, NDP and Green candidates over the government being found in contempt of the House of Commons was close to visceral. Brierley made the point that this was not a small matter and while Burlington is a conservative community one got the sense from those in the room that the community at large wasn’t proud of the way its government had behaved.
“We have a Prime Minister” declared Laird, “who manufactured his own defeat and then tries to convince us that it wasn’t all that serious. Contempt” declared Laird “is serious and then added that we have an economy that is going to get worse before it gets better” which was why he thought the NDP should form the next government.
Difficult to understand how a party with no experience running a national government and, experience they would rather forget running Ontario, now feels they can move in, take over and do a better job with the national economy.
Brierley brought some very positive energy to the campaign – was it enough? She has the potential to be another Paddy Torsney which would be a plus for the House of Commons.
On the aboriginal issue Brierley pointed out that the Conservatives cancelled the Kelowna accord which had very real and significant benefits for the Aboriginal community. Of course they cancelled it – it wasn’t their policy. Wallace did point out that Prime Minister had apologized to the Aboriginal people on behalf of Canada for some very real and long standing grievances.
Wallace got his only round of applause when he mention the really poor House of Commons attendance on the part of Michael Ignatieff. Jack Layton was the person who laid that beating on Ignatieff during the English debate. That was probably the point at which the focus of this election began to shift although no one saw it coming. The New Democrats have become ecstatic on the social media and nationally there is talk of an orange wave – but that sense of change wasn’t evident at the Holiday Inn Wednesday morning. Pretty sure David Laird is not giving up his day job or looking for an apartment in Ottawa.
The economy continued to be the focus of many questions. Wallace stressed how good a job the Conservatives have done with the budget but made no mention of the size of the deficit they have created. It is an understandable deficit – the spending had to be done to keep the Canadian economy afloat while we weathered a recession that we did nothing to create and could do very little about. The recession was the result of pure greed on the part of people working within the American housing market that came close to shutting down a world economy.
Brierley made an attempt to point out that the Liberals left the Conservatives with a surplus, which was true but, as Laird pointed out the Liberals handled their fiscal difficulties by cutting back spending significantly and shoved a lot of the cost of delivering services on to the provinces.
Brierley pointed out that inflation is much higher than anyone is admitting and that there is potential for economic turmoil. And there will be economic turmoil if Laird’s wildest dream comes true and there is a minority NDP government.
The session ended with each candidate being asked what their three top priorities were for Burlington. For Wallace it was working with groups, the city and region.; to be more effective and to stay focused on the needs of the city’s seniors. He did admit that he had not done as much as he should have in getting local business into some of the federal assistance programs.
Mayberry of the Green party said he was still learning, that the Niagara GTA highway was an issue he wanted to be on top of and that the infrastructure needed a lot of attention.
Laird pinched a large part of the Green platform when he talked of making sure Burlington was Green and clean and that we develop programs that would result in the exporting of green technology. He didn’t say the NDP would nationalize the banks – so that was a step forward.
Brierley was a little weaker with her closing than many expected. She covered all the bases; balancing the budget, attention to fitness and the arts and a good mention of the Family Pack the Liberals developed for the election but there wasn’t the energy that many have come to expect from this young woman with so much promise.
Each candidate was given 90 seconds to sum up their position and Laird said there were serious problems that have not been identified. “I have shown” he said, “that I have earned your vote.” David Laird has certainly worked hard and did everything a candidate is supposed to do and did it all rather well – but this is Burlington and it may well be the last city in the country to elect a New democrat.
Wallace – well he was Mike. He said he’d done a good job and would like to be re-elected.
Brierley ran though what the Liberals would do, said she would listen and give Burlington better representation in Ottawa. If she ever gets to Ottawa she will no doubt be a very good Member of Parliament. Will she make it this time? Far too many variables out there for anyone to really call this one. Had Brierley had more time and had she put down some roots in the city – she would have been given a much different look. However, many of those who did look her over really liked what they saw.
Graham Mayberry said he was “having a blast”. Said he was “wide awake”, and that’s “not usual for me at this hour of the morning and then added: “It’s crazy but you can vote Green”.
Keith Hoey, President of the Chamber of Commerce for the past seven years, said the Chamber of Commerce has been sponsoring all candidate events for all three levels of government since ‘close to the beginning of time’. It appears to be a part of that layer of civility the Chamber wants to see in place to make the city a good place for business.
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