Re: 'Lots unknown about impending PC leadership race', Editorial, The Guardian, March 20.Last week, in an editorial, you posed a question regarding the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party: "Well, what now?"
On Saturday, June 27, a new Progressive Conservative leader and Leader of the Opposition will be announced in a convention at Markham. Voting for the position will have taken place at locations across Ontario on Sunday, June 21 and Thursday, June 25. As on two previous occasions, every member of the party will be eligible to cast a ballot. (Members must be in good standing on Thursday, May 14).
In Parkdale-High Park, several hundred members will cast their ballots at a location that will be soon be chosen, but which will be accessible and in our neighbourhood. I have already begun a search for polling place volunteers.
A leadership vote will come none too soon. It was with great disappointment that we received the news of John Tory's resignation. John was no stranger to this riding; he attended events here on more than a dozen occasions in the last three years. I for one would have continued to follow him.
However, we now stand on the eve of a provincial budget, at a time when Ontario's unemployment rate is higher than both the U.S. and Quebec, and we're presented with an historic deficit in the guise of stimulus.
Yet since entering office in 2003, Liberals have increased spending by more than 40 per cent, with little to show for it. Contrast Premier Dalton McGuinty's six-year-old promise to stop burning coal with today's promise to build more windmills (but no distribution system). Contrast his promise to expand education spending with schools that are still crumbling (but have fewer students). And contrast his promise to create a knowledge sector with the harsh reality that the only jobs that have been created are in the public sector.
The 2011 election campaign has just begun.
Marshall Leslie,
President, Parkdale-High Park Progressive Conservative Assoc.