Random Access

Green Party candidate David Johnston got a good laugh at the all-candidates’ meeting at Clarkson Community Centre last night quoting that authoritative political muse, John Lennon.
After hearing another set of answers from his fellow candidates who are vying to become the next MPP for Mississauga South, answers that were long on polemics and short on specifics, Johnston said, “You say you want a revolution/We all want to see the plan.”
Then, of course, Johnston invited residents to go to the Green Party’s web site to see his party’s blueprint.
It was a clever twist in an evening that proved informative and entertaining, when the gloves finally came off.
The answers tended to be formulaic in the preliminary bout, when ratepayer panellists asked the necessary questions on provincial and riding issues. Having been cautioned by moderator Brian Hurley of the Park Royal Ratepayers not to debate among themselves, the candidates stuck to their policy manuals and their scripts.
But when Hurley sensed the growing impatience of the audience, and opened it up to public potshot .... er ... public question period, things got appropriately heated.
Tim Peterson’s ruddy complexion got a little more robust as he girded for another onslaught from the members of his former Liberal riding executive like the one he faced in Lakeview last week. But the incumbent didn’t demur a second and seemed to relish the confrontation.
When Tanya Zaritzky, communications director for the Charles Sousa campaign began to give him a mock job evaluation for his first term — aimed at highlighting his less-than-stellar 37 per cent attendance record in the House — Peterson couldn’t wait to answer. “I hoped all my life you’d be my boss,” he said, managing to suppress the wolf whistle.
The MPP scored his points – pointing out that it was Elizabeth Witmer who originally signed the death warrant for Lakeview Generating Station, not “Ontario’s greenest Premier ever” as Sousa referred to his leader.
With Peterson, there is no guile. What you see is what you get — a blunt, pro-nuke, floor-crossing kind of guy. A mini-Blenkarn who finally figured out he was at the wrong party.
Sousa was the well-versed, impeccably-dressed slick banker, who is so good at talking the political talk already that he makes people nervous. South residents are understandably reserved about his plan for a waterfront park at the site of Lakeview Generating Station. Especially after Peterson said last night that OPG staff sat in his office before his defection and told him the announcement to go ahead with a 900-megawatt station there was just being delayed because of the election.
The Liberal was ready for an-obviously anticipated question on why his riding association accepted funds from a principal in the proposed gas-fired Greenfield South station. Unfortunately the answer, essentially ‘We didn’t recognize his name’ rang hollow.
If there was a winner in the debate, it was the NDP’s Ken Cole. While the mainline guys sniped at each other, Cole stayed out of harm’s way and injected humour and realism.
His concluding statement was funny and pointed, suggesting Peterson and Sousa are both appealing to the forgetful voter.
“Mr. Peterson wants you to forget all the nasty things he said about John Tory when he was a Liberal and what life was like under Mike Harris,” Cole said.
“Mr. Sousa wants you to forget all the promises that Dalton McGuinty made and he wants you to forget that he forgot to keep them,” said the union executive.
“I would urge you to vote for someone who won’t forget who elected them.”