Random Thoughts – Campaign Kick-Off, Council Circus and More
June 28, 2019
1. This week, I met and spoke with CPC candidate Krystina Waler at the opening of her campaign headquarters. She seems like a nice enough person and has an impressive resume, but I get the impression she’s going to fall apart like a cheap suit once she locks horns with Chris Bittle and faces the inevitable onslaught from the likes of Grant LaFleche. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s got a tougher exterior and more of a fighting spirit than what she showed on Wednesday evening.
1a. When she approached me, I didn’t know it was her until she introduced herself. She looks very different from the picture she’s been circulating.
1b. During her speech, she mentioned “compassion” twice. Given how that term has been co-opted so negatively by our far-left mayor, she might want to consider removing that word from her vocabulary until after the election.
2. Sandie Bellows introduced Waler and her self-serving speech which she devoted much of to whining over being “attacked,” ostensibly because she was a woman, really struck in my craw. No, Sandie, you weren’t “attacked” because of your gender. You were rightly criticized after the provincial election for failing to deliver in a riding that was ripe for the picking. They even elected a Conservative MPP in Kenora, of all places, and with a winning brand behind you, you couldn’t even garner more support than the obnoxious Jennie Stevens. And in any event, the evening was about Krystina Waler and her candidacy in the upcoming federal election. Not about you.
Her speech reminded me of how former MP Rick Dykstra handled his defeat. He was verbally beaten to a pulp by Bittle et al, yet when facing party members at the EDA meeting months after the election, he stood up and humbly accepted full responsibility. He didn’t whine, moan, groan, complain, bitch or blame others.
I understand that dealing with the slings and arrows that come with being in the public eye can be difficult. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to handle situations when things don’t go your way. Rick Dykstra chose the former. Sandie Bellows is choosing the latter. And it’s why I’m glad I didn’t vote for her for regional council.
3. Back in 2014, while on the campaign trail, then-mayoral candidate Walter Sendzik sold voters on a message of growth, opportunity and jobs. If my children have to leave St. Catharines to find jobs, my term as mayor will have been a failure, he said.
Today, he leads a council obsessed with virtue signaling, banning plastic straws, doling out “free” tampons, stopping homeowners from cutting down their trees and, most recently, banning circuses on city property. Not to mention subsidizing low-cost housing, a matter which isn’t even the city’s responsibility. And when he isn’t busy with such things, he spends the rest of his time shilling for his far-left extremist party. On our dime.
Oh, how times have changed. If only we had right-of-recall legislation in this country.
4. How bad have things gotten for the OaklandLas Vegas Raiders and the NFL, the once-mighty sports colossus, that they could not find a more worthy venue for a preseason game than . . . Winnipeg? When I first heard the idea being floated, I thought it was some kind of April Fool’s joke. But it’s no joke. The NFL really is going to Winnipeg. Part of me wants to laugh out loud. The other part of me is still shaking my head.
5. You have to wonder what kind of bubble the people at the St. Catharines Downtown Association are living in. Shops and restaurants are shuttering their doors left and right, you literally can’t give storefronts away, but while Rome burns, they’re proudly showing off the new logo and slogan they undoubtedly paid good money to have developed. At least the deck chairs on the Titanic are neatly arranged.
6. Pray tell, I wonder how the libertarian Maxime Bernier feels about Steven Fletcher, my former MP and his party’s candidate in the coming federal election, using his time as an MLA in Manitoba to push his morally repugnant forced organ donation bill. Methinks Bernier and his party need to do a better job of vetting candidates.
7. I don’t think I’m the only Conservative Party member who would be thrilled to see a palace coup in which Andrew Scheer was replaced as leader by a real conservative. Kind of what happened provincially to Patrick Brown. Without the sexual harassment allegations of course, something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone.
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