Gerard Kennedy: Western Sensibilities to the Rescue

OK, let’s give Gerard Kennedy some credit: He is saying some interesting things so far in the Liberal leadership race. To bad all his pronouncements so far have been as shallow as a reflecting pool.

Kennedy seems to be focussed on breaking out of the Toronto power-base of the Liberals. Not a bad idea considering that all of the leadership contenders with the exceptions of Brison and Fry hail from there. Thus came his recent announcement that he would be moving to Quebec for the summer:

Liberal leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy is moving from Toronto to Quebec for part of the campaign in a bid to show he’s serious about reconnecting with the province.
“We look forward to doing that as a way to allow me to do a lot more grassroots things in Quebec,” says Kennedy.

This got a chuckle out of me. Quebecers are generous, but not generous enough to embrace a Torontonian who proclaims himself a pure laine Quebecer after a summer French immersion course.

Then came this:

Gerard Kennedy, one of eight Toronto-based candidates for the Liberal leadership, says he’s willing to consider seeking a federal seat in western Canada.

But Kennedy is casting himself as a quasi-western candidate who can finally lead the Liberals to their long-sought breakthrough in the West.

“I think part of what I’m bringing (to the leadership race) is a sensibility from the West, if not residency.”

First: It is incomprehensible that an Ontarian Liberal cabinet minister from Toronto could bring anything resembling a “western sensibility” to this leadership race. The fact that Kennedy thinks he could do so says quite a bit about how he views the region.

Second: The Pas is not the west. It’s Manitoba; it exists in limbo between east and west. It’s Ontario-lite.

Third: If Kennedy is so gung-ho on representing a western perspective, maybe he should run in a Calgary seat. Calgary is, after all, the “Heart of the New West”; what city could be more receptive to Kennedy’s refined western sensibilities.

And Calgary West still has an MP by the name of Rob Anders. The name should be familar to you because Liberals have sworn up and down in every election since 1997 that they would defeat Anders, with little success. But esteemed westerner Kennedy should have little trouble dispatching Anders. Hell, the empathy generated between Westerner Kennedy and the voters of Calgary should convince him to run in Calgary Southwest against Stephen Harper.

Or not. Maybe this is just another Ontarian who will not, cannot, conceive of the idea that Canada is not just a bigger more spread out version of the city of Toronto. That’s too bad, because the Liberal Party is already full of them.

ht: The Phanton Observer