Posted by Greater Sudbury Northern Life
Toronto – The nastiest battle in Ontario politics is also the oddest — two of Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty’s ministers are fighting against the folks back home and it could cost their party a power base in the next election.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and International Trade and Investment Minister Sandra Pupatello, powerhouses in Windsor ridings for a decade, are in a feud with constituents that is unprecedented.
Politicians usually do their best to stay on good terms with the people who voted them in, knowing they will need them later.
The dispute started over a proposal to build a below-grade expressway through part of the city to speed cross-border traffic to a bridge to be built across the river to Detroit.
The two ministers favor a plan that would require less tunneling than the plan the city prefers and cost less, but the city and some others claim it will increase pollution.
Mayor Eddie Francis, who is not deterred by the big names, said the ministers, as representatives of Windsor, should want better for their city and are “declaring war on their own community.”
The Windsor Star says the two ministers are “putting the boots to Windsor” and it is unbelievable they would support a plan that would increase pollution
The newspaper called Duncan a “former Windsorite turned Toronto bigshot” a wounding description, because politicians like their constituents to believe they are the same, down home people they elected and have not succumbed to big city lures.
The newspaper suggested Duncan has grown big-headed as finance minister, hopes to take a second run at becoming Liberal leader, when McGuinty steps down, and no longer is interested in doing anything as parochial as helping Windsor.
This does not hold up totally, however, because a candidate for leader will not go far if he cannot win support even in his home area, and Duncan may merely want to demonstrate he is a tough finance minister who can save money.
Duncan has retaliated by demanding Windsor call off its “high-priced Toronto lawyers” and nothing could suggest to those back home their politician has kept his roots more than deploring Toronto and lawyers in the same breath.
Windsor also has one of the highest jobless rates in the country and the newspaper accuses Duncan and Pupatello of failing to speak for the city on this issue and being “pathetic and missing in action.”
It says New Democrat leader Howard Hampton and Progressive Conservative House leader Bob Runciman have spoken up for Windsor and Duncan and Pupatello should give them part of their pay.
Duncan also is at odds with city council because he refused to write a letter supporting its request for provincial funding for tree research and explained a minister cannot be perceived as supporting a project in his own riding.
But ministers are seen promoting projects in their ridings every day and Windsor councillors are asking why they bothered to elect Duncan and Pupatello, if they cannot put in a word for their home areas.
The two ministers, and Pupatello particularly, also are getting a rough ride for travel expenses that rival the Queen’s. The newspaper scoffed the minister leaves Windsor, where many are desperate because they cannot afford food, to rack up $100,000 travel expenses in a year staying at the world’s most expensive hotels and this is “a long way from bagging groceries at the A and P.”
The mayor said he is able to talk with Pupatello, “although with her hot Italian blood on one side and my hot Lebanese blood on the other, these can be very heated discussions.”
But Francis and Duncan have been reported as “barely on speaking terms” and the mayor said constructive contact with Duncan has been severed. “He’s disengaged and this wall has come up and I don’t know where it comes from.”
Such rifts between MPPs and constituents are almost unknown and the Liberals should try to patch this up soon – the constituents do not sound in a hurry to forgive and forget.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
