Whitby-Oshawa Tory MPP Christine Elliott wouldn’t put a number on the kind of support Tory leader Tim Hudak needs to survive as leader.
With the vote expected Saturday in Niagara Falls, the number most people are eyeing is 66.9%. That’s the number John Tory got in review after the 2007 election. Tory stayed on – only to lose a byelection in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock.
It’s the same number Joe Clark said was not enough in 1983. He called a leadership convention.
Elliott said she’s not supporting anyone in the hotly-contested race for president.
“I am neutral in that respect, because in my role as deputy leader I think that’s important that both Tim Hudak and I as leader and deputy leader will be working with whoever the members decide to elect,” she said.
“But they are all three great candidates.”
After losing an election in 1999, Dalton McGuinty got 81% support.
“We’re not really focusing on a number,” Elliott told reporters Wednesday.
“I think the important thing for us is to move forward after this is over and get to work on jobs and the economy,” she said.
And Elliott acknowledged that mistakes were made in last October’s election, but said it’s time for the Tories to move on. She said it’s time to stop, “looking in the rearview mirror.”
Her hubby, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has picked his guy for president.
“He has indicated that he is supporting Richard Chiano,” Elliott told reporters.
It’s unlikely Hudak will get 80% support. Tories are a cranky bunch at the best of times. They tend to be fractionalized and tribal – and grumpy. Indications right now are that he’ll get more support than Clark and Tory did. And that’s all he needs.
Well, that has to be the most bizarre press conference ever.
Tourism Minister Michael Chan and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan show up at a news conference at Queen’s Park to tell us Ontario Place will be sold off. Could be for condos. Could be for a casino.
We just have to trust them to do the right thing.
What’s not to trust? This is the government that brought us eHealth and the Ornge helicopter boondoggles. What could possibly go wrong with them selling off prime waterfront real estate?
Oh, wait a minute. That….
They arrived at the presser with no details of the plan. They seemed confused about which parts of the park will close. They couldn’t agree as to whether the Cinesphere would close or not.
John Tory, the guy who’s going to head the advisory panel wasn’t at the news conference.
It was, in short, a shambles.
Are the Liberals losing their touch?
I am so tired of boomers being blamed for everything.
Now, Prime Minister Stephen Harper talks about delaying the guaranteed income supplement for a couple of years.
Why do all politicians make it sound as if Boomers are just such a big problem?
Hello?
It’s our tax money that has kept you all afloat for the past four decades.
It’s our hard work and effort that has paid for the overly-generous benefits of people who are already retired.
Can you blame us for wanting the same thing?
Instead, what we get is this nonsense that there are too many of us, we’re getting too old, we are going to be too sick.
No, we’re not.
We are actually health conscious and in better shape than any generation before us.
The fact that successive governments squandered our tax money and didn’t save it for our retirement is hardly our fault.
So stop blaming us.
Haven’t been blogging for a while – just too busy with so much going on and keeping the column going.
Now I’m fired up, though.
William spoke in four languages in Yellowknife, greeting people in French, English, Dene and Inuvialuktun. language. Here’s what he said:
Thank you, Premier. Merci, Monsieur le premier ministre.
It’s great to be here north of 60. This place is what Canada is all about: vast open beauty, tough, resilient, friendly, peoples – true nature, true humanity. Thank you, Chiefs, for this heartfelt welcome – and thanks to all of you who have travelled such great distances to join us today. Catherine and I are deeply honoured.
We have been here just 12 hours, but we have already sensed the extraordinary potential and the irrepressible spirit of adventure that marks out the peoples of the Territories and defines this land. We are so excited to be here.
Mahsi cho. Quyanaq. Merci a tous. Thank you very much.
Mahsi cho is Dene.
Quyanaq is Inuvialuktun.
YELLOWKNIFE – Diamonds are a duchesses’ – and a duke’s – best friend.
And here in the gateway to the Arctic, Canadian diamonds dazzled the Duchess of Cambridge, as the Northwest Territories gave her and her husband a gift of some of the best quality diamonds in the world, all mined locally.
William was given a pair of cufflinks of platinum and pave-set diamonds. Kate was given a brooch. Both the cufflinks and the brooch are in a polar bear design that is the emblem of the NWT.
The chairman of mining giant Harry Winston said the gift is meant to represent the culture of the region with an understated yet intricate design.
“What we have attempted to do here is to stay away from using large, prominent diamonds, but instead to use something that is of intricate design that reflects the sort of design you see in the beadwork and the craftsmanship in the northwest Territory, so it is very much a gift that focuses on that,” said Harry Winston Chairman and CEO Robert Gannicott.
It took 250 man hours to create the two intricate pieces of jewelry.
There are more than 692 diamonds between the two pieces – 302 in the brooch given to the duchess and 390 in the cufflinks. The brooch stones are bigger than the ones in the duke’s cufflinks.
Gannicott refused to speculate on what the two sparkling pieces of bling are worth.
“It’s priceless, obviously, it’s priceless,” he laughed.
Kate told Gannicott that she liked the idea of the design and the smaller diamonds and the fact that the setting represented the beading commonly used on native clothing and shoes.
Here we are with the Royal Tour in Prince Edward Island. The sun is bright. The sky is blue. And all is well with the world. Just as it might have been with Anne of GG.
We’re here with the Royal Tour. It’s been a blast.
Off to see Will do search and rescue tomorrow.
According to one British newspaper, apparently the worst thing Kate could do on Canada Day, in Ottawa, is dress like a Canadian flag.
Hello. Look around. EVERYONE is dressed like a Canadian flag. She just did ti way more stylishly.
Will and Kate sparkled in their first full day of activities on their gruelling 9-day Royal Tour.
They took time to talk to people Really, really, talk to people. They chatted. They were kind.
Saturday, they’re off to the War Museum and a meet and greet with vets and war brides, then on to Quebec.
Oh, the emtions from the royal wedding. First, the music -from hubert Parry’s wonderful Introite – I was glad to his heart breaking Jerusalem, I thought my heart would break.
Jerusalem is my school song. As young people growing up post war, we all felt we all felt we were going to build a new Jerusalem. It would be place where our parents wouldn’t live through a daily boming Blits. We all dreamed of a world that would have learned its lesson from that past.
My parents lived in Enfield, in north east London. |It was famous as the place that built the Bren Gun and the Sten Gun. In fact, the joke growing up was that you never argued with anyone’s mom in my home town, because they could all put together a Bren Gun or a Sten Gun faster than any man.
It also made Enfield the target of heavy bombing from the Luftwaffe. My parents’ house had every window blown out by a bomb that landed nearby.
That’s why the flypast at today’s wedding was so emotional for me. My parents told me t was the Spitfire that won the Battle of Britain. Watching that plane make it up the Mall, you knew that all was well in London.
Who couldn’t choke back a tear?
Royal watchers will note that Princess Diana’s favourite hymn, I Vow To Thee My Country is not part of the service for the wedding tomorrow.
There had been great speculation that William would choose it. Probably would have been just too hard for him. It was sung at both his parents’ wedding and her funeral and would have been a tear-jerker for sure.
Safer to stick with Jerusalem.
Christina Blizzard 