Dear Editor:
Most of the citizens in the riding are probably unaware that the sitting federal MP, Cheryl Gallant, is being challenged for the Conservative Party’s nominee in the next federal election planned for June 2019. This is a first time this has occurred since Ms. Gallant became the Reform Party’s nominee back in 2000, some five elections ago. Healthy for the riding’s democracy I thought, when the challenger, Michael Coates announced his candidacy a mere two weeks before Christmas.
It hasn’t taken long for our riding’s experiment in direct democracy to begin a downward spiral into dirty politics, which in this party member’s view, is an all too familiar behavioural pattern for Ms. Gallant and her associates.
I’ll let you make your own judgment about the following facts.
As a Conservative Party member located in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, I was shocked to receive notification from the National Party Headquarters late last week, that the closing date for selling memberships for the first competitive Conservative nomination process in 20 years is Feb. 1. Yes, you heard that right, the challenger has less than three weeks to make his case to Conservative Party members in the riding and sell enough memberships to win. This, when the process only formally started days before Christmas.
This is stunning and absolutely ridiculous! We all know the election isn’t for at least another 15 months. Being somewhat skeptical, a conclusion one can draw from this is that the fix is in! The incumbent, who is in my opinion, the most unscrupulous person I have ever observed in politics, has likely put pressure on the right places at party headquarters.
As things stand now, I have no doubt the riding executive, undoubtedly all groomed by Ms. Gallant, will see to it that the nomination meeting will be scheduled in the north end of the riding on some snowy night in late February. This is a big riding! We all know it takes two hours to drive from one end of this riding to the other. To put people’s lives at risk to exercise their democratic right, just to satisfy the incumbent’s insatiable appetite to hold on to her fiefdom, is absolutely appalling.
The time line for the nomination process is without precedent. There’s simply no justification for it. Let’s take 90 days, not 30, and get this right. In a riding like ours, positive progressive leadership is an absolute necessity now more than ever.
J. Hugh Brownlee
White Lake,
County of Renfrew
