Uncertain times for Jack Layton's NDP

John Henry dropped almost a whole person in weight while successfully campaigning against incumbent mayor John Gray last fall in the municipal election. He covered a lot of ground over the two to three month campaign period and the hard work paid off with a mayoral victory.

Election campaigns take a lot out of the candidates and their volunteers be it at the municipal, provincial or federal level of politics. In order to be election ready it's best to be healthy because any campaign typically plays out like a marathon.

That's why there's reason to worry for the federal NDP. With an election a very real possibility in the next few weeks the party's leader, Jack Layton, is scheduled for hip surgery to repair a fracture. You may recall Layton is also undergoing treatments for prostate cancer.

Jack Layton

I've watched Layton in action before. As a former municipal politician in the City of Toronto it always amazed me at the amount of energy the guy had. He was the most easily accessible councillor for any reporter and he was everywhere in his riding. If there was a community event happening he could be found there. It was hard keeping up with the guy.

When he jumped to federal politics and became the leader of the NDP he took his enthusiasm and energy to another level and it paid off. Under Layton's leadership the party has made significant gains in the number of federal seats the party's won for the NDP. It could be argued Layton's been one of the best leaders the party's had since Ed Broadbent led the party.

But cancer and hip surgery has a tendency to slow a person down no matter what their energy levels. If the NDP, Liberals and Bloc defeat Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's budget later this month and the Conservative minority falls, will Layton be ready to hit the ground running to fight an election? I'm doubtful.

Layton's people are saying he's going to be back in the House of Commons for the budget on March 22. They're making his hip surgery out to be a minor operation. But when you're going to be forced to campaign across the country the question in my mind is this, will his hip hold out?

I wish him well in his recovery but know if an election does happen it will be the toughest one he's ever fought.

Dalton McGuinty's road to another broken promise

If you travel to Columbus you'll see many of these signs. If there was more room on the sign
it would have said, "Keep your promise Dalton and don't end Hwy. 407 at Simcoe Street"

I loathe Hwy. 407 but I have to admit I've driven on it many times.

The thought that my tax dollars paid for the highway and now I have to pay some Spanish-owned company highly inflated rates to drive on it is just wrong.

Fortunately the majority of my travels along Hwy. 407 were work related when I was employed in Toronto. Since 2005 I've been fortunate enough to work in the very city in which I live, Oshawa. The transponder has been returned and now I rarely think of the roadway.

While Hwy. 407 is not on the top of my mind these days the same cannot be said of the poor residents who live in Columbus, a tiny hamlet within the City of Oshawa situated in the city's north-west end. They've recently learned that Dalton McGuinty's Liberals will no longer be extending Hwy. 407 through to Hwy. 35/115 but rather stopping it at Simcoe Street. Translation, Columbus residents' quiet little piece of the globe will soon become a noisy, congested on/off ramp for the highway.

No warnings were ever issued by the government that this would happen, no public meetings were ever held beforehand, just an announcement a few weeks ago making it official. Sorry about your luck people but the government's broke, highway's going to end in your backyard.

This wasn't how it was supposed to turn out. A March 2007 agreement between the federal and provincial governments stated that Ontario agreed to complete the Hwy. 407 extension from Brock Road in Pickering to Hwy. 35/115 with construction slated to begin in 2009 and wrap up by 2013.

Yes, I realize it's completely out of character for the McGuinty government to renege on a promise. I was as stunned as everyone else when it happened. Not.

The fallout from this will not be good for the City of Oshawa. There will have to be some major upgrades to road infrastructure that were not forecast in the municipal budget. Given the new council's vow to spend our tax dollars more responsibly, tough decisions will have to be made. So Oshawa residents will have to do more with less thanks to a broken provincial promise.

The highway was promised to Durham Region because it's needed to ease congestion along Hwy. 401. Economically it just makes sense.

Would McGuinty have stopped the highway in Oshawa if we had a Liberal MPP here? Probably not. But we're Tory blue from Whitby through to Clarington so there's no worry of any incumbent MPPs getting turfed over the issue.  

It seems that every time we turn around the McGuinty government continues breaking promises under the guise of 'good government' (HST, Eco tax, Hwy. 407 etc.) and taxpayers keep getting inconvenienced.

For once it would be nice to see a promise made and a promise kept. Is that too much to ask?

A tough job to win, a tougher job to hold on to

It's deja vu in the Oshawa political arena.

Back in 2006 Julia McCrea ran and won for school board trustee with the Durham District School Board. Her victory was short-lived however, when it was discovered that she was ineligible to hold office as a trustee while working in education. She worked as a teacher in York Region but lived in Oshawa.

One would think her background in education would have served Ms. McCrea well as a school board trustee in Durham Region. It was actually one of the reasons I voted for her. But rules are rules and Ms. McCrea was forced out of office before she could be sworn in. A by-election was held and Michael Barrett was re-elected to take her place.

Fast-forward to 2010 and Mike Nicholson finds himself in a similar situation. He won a seat on Oshawa council but today he got word from the Toronto Transit Commission, where he works as a bus driver, that if he was sworn in today with the rest of his council colleagues, he'd be terminated from the TTC. As a result, only Mayor John Henry was sworn in. (Visit http://durhamregion.com/news/article/167108)

City councillors work part-time and make about $30,000. TTC workers make considerably more than $30,000 so it's not a job Mr. Nicholson wants to lose.

Mr. Nicholson says he  checked with the TTC before he ran for city council and got approval. He was even congratulated by his supervisors and colleagues when he won the election in November. Now the story has changed and Mr. Nicholson has until Monday to get the situation figured out. If he can't hold office while employed at the TTC will the City of Oshawa hold a bye-election to replace him or award the job to the candidate who placed one behind Mr. Nicholson in the election? I for one hope we have a by-election. Otherwise Maryanne Sholdra will once again be on council. What a disaster that would be.

The City of Oshawa's slogan is 'Prepare to be Amazed'. Given the way this situation is playing out the slogan is proving true, but not in the way it was originally meant.