Sandra Pupatello

Friday, January 25, 2013

Friday, January 25, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, January 25, 2013

Province’s political fate is in the hands of Grit delegates

Ontario’s political fate is now in the hands of some 2,300 Liberal delegates as they gather this weekend at Maple Leaf Gardens to elect Premier Dalton McGuinty’s successor.

Campaigns were escalating the war of words Thursday in what increasingly appears to be a two-woman race between Windsor West MPP Sandra Pupatello and Don Valley West MPP Kathleen Wynne.

Wynne, who trails slightly, was underscoring that she would recall the legislature Feb. 19, while Pupatello doesn’t yet have a seat.

Voting on the first ballot begins Friday when registration opens at 9 a.m. and continues until 11 p.m.

The delegates will gather along with the candidates and the media in the upper level hockey arena in the newly renovated Mattamy Athletic Centre at the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Once voting is open, they will head downstairs to the gymnasium to cast paper ballots that will be counted by hand.

Early results will not be announced until 12:30 p.m. Saturday. That’s because the Liberals want Friday night reserved for a 90-minute tribute to McGuinty, party leader since 1996 and premier for more than nine years. On Thursday, in a shot at Pupatello — who does not yet have a seat but would run in Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s Windsor-Tecumseh riding in a byelection expected Feb. 28 — Wynne’s campaign co-chair said the new premier must hit the ground running in a minority legislature.

“Kathleen Wynne is ready to govern from day one with no extension of prorogation, no distractions, and no delays,” said John Wilkinson, a former cabinet minister, who will likely be Wynne’s chief of staff if she is premier. (Source: Toronto Star)

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Wednesday December 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday December 5, 2012

Dwight Duncan has warning for next Ontario Liberal leader

Tim Hudak asks Santa ‘Dwight Duncan’ to keep labor restrictions

A confidential report says Dwight Duncan has always been admirably frank as finance minister. His finger-wagging, however, is usually aimed at Tory and NDP rivals across the floor.

Now fellow Liberals are bearing the brunt of his bluntness.

In the race to replace Dalton McGuinty as premier, Duncan is watching warily from the sidelines, preparing his own exit strategy from provincial politics. And fussing over his fiscal legacy:

Après Dwight, le deluge?

“I don’t intend to go silently into the night,” he told the Toronto Board of Trade during a PowerPoint show outlining doomsday scenarios for Ontario’s fiscal future:

Tory tax cuts would add billions to the budget deficit and undermine government programs. NDP tax and wage hikes would imperil the economy.

But Duncan was also sending a clear message to the seven candidates vying for the Liberal leadership. The winner of the January convention will automatically inherit the premier’s office and dictate the terms of the next budget.

A few are straying from the party line by second-guessing the teachers’ dispute. Some candidates are hinting they would have handled the unions differently, deftly avoiding any imposed deals.

While they waver, Duncan disdains pussyfooting. He stressed Monday that the controversial Bill 115 must be deployed to ensure total payroll costs do not increase. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Friday November 9, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday November 9, 2012

Sandra Pupatello to run for Ontario Liberal leadership

Sandra Pupatello enters the Ontario Liberal leadership race 

The two front-runners in the Liberal leadership race are both staking out the political centre, with one saying her “mantra” is jobs and the other pledging to rebuild relations with the province’s teachers.

Sandra Pupatello, a former member of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet, jumped into the leadership race on Thursday, saying she plans to make the economy central to her campaign.

“I’m about jobs,” Ms. Pupatello said at a news conference in Toronto before heading to her hometown of Windsor for her official launch. “It’s going to be my mantra.”

Ms. Pupatello, 50, and former cabinet colleague Kathleen Wynne, 59, are the two leading contenders to replace Mr. McGuinty, who is stepping down after nine years in office.

Ms. Pupatello enters the race with the support of two cabinet ministers – Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, a long-time friend, and Bob Chiarelli, Minister of Transportation and Municipal Affairs and Housing. Mr. Chiarelli plans to hold an event in Ottawa on Friday for Ms. Pupatello. Also supporting her are Teresa Piruzza, Liberal MPP for Windsor West, the seat Ms. Pupatello held until last year, and former Liberal MPP Pat Hoy.

Ms. Wynne is also attracting caucus support, with Labour Minister Linda Jeffrey, Attorney-General John Gerretsen, and MPPs David Zimmer and Mario Sergio endorsing her.

Ms. Pupatello said that the eight years she spent in cabinet, holding down the economic development and trade portfolio, and education before that, leave her ideally positioned to focus on job creation and to put the province in a strong fiscal position to support health care and education, as well as to have an impact on social problems. (Source: Globe & Mail)