Author:
By PATRICK MALONEY, Free Press Reporter per jfh
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 22:21:07 05/03/03 Sat
Author Host/IP: d150-99-156.home.cgocable.net/24.150.99.156
Saturday, May 3, 2003
'I live in the wrong part of Canada'
Alliance candidate Marian Meinen faces byelection fallout over a letter calling Ontarians 'unthinking masses.'
By PATRICK MALONEY, Free Press Reporter
STRATFORD -- Published comments made last year about Ontario's "unthinking masses" have come back to haunt the Canadian Alliance candidate in the Perth-Middlesex byelection just over a week before the vote.
A letter printed in the Calgary Sun last September, signed by Marian Meinen, drew gasps and guffaws from a crowd of nearly 200 when it was read aloud at an all-candidates meeting in Stratford.
It also has injected a new issue into the race as advance polls are held this weekend.
One Stratford resident said yesterday word of the letter spread fast and the reaction she saw wasn't exactly pleasant.
"Why should we tie our can to her?" was the general attitude of people who spoke with Margaret Wade, a self-styled Tory.
After initial silence at Thursday's all-candidates' meeting, after local Tory campaign manager Clark Stratton read aloud the letter, Meinen said she didn't recall writing it.
But campaigning yesterday, she said she was the author and was upset at the time over the state of things in Ottawa -- a feeling she no longer has.
"I was very disillusioned by the fact we were (facing) more years of the Liberal regime," she said. "I do think I was rather cynical. I think people will realize we all get cynical once in a while."
The letter was sent to the Calgary Sun in response to an article about the Kyoto Accord on climate change, with Meinen noting western newspapers are the only places to get "decent commentaries" on the issue.
"Jean Chretien just wants to do what's politically expedient -- as usual -- and as usual the unthinking masses in Ontario are in agreement," the letter read.
"I think," it continued, "I live in the wrong part of Canada."
Meinen was nominated as the Alliance candidate more than a month after the letter was published.
Exposure of the letter, rooted out by Progressive Conservative researchers, will add steam to Tory candidate Schellenberger's efforts, Stratton said yesterday.
"It's probably added even more momentum to our campaign. I was pretty shocked when I saw it."
Though the 100-word letter will likely take some of the wind out of Meinen's sails, Liberal candidate Brian Innes said he sees it as a "momentary setback -- not a fatal blow."
Some may consider dredging up a six-month-old letter at a public forum dirty politics, but Stratton said he had no qualms about making the discovery public.
"Unfair politics is taking something out of context or making up a story. I simply read a letter she wrote. I don't see how that's dirty politics.
"I read word-for-word what she had written. I think that's a pretty fair thing."
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
|
Feedback: 
