10.15.2012 05:41 PM

Dalton

He is my captain, and I will follow him into any battle. I’ve been with him for more than a decade, and he’s got me (and plenty of others) for the next decade, too. If he needs us.

But my reaction? I am so sad to see he and Terry go. Very, very sad.

But in every sunset is a potential sunrise, no?

51 Comments

  1. steve says:

    I have seen them come and seen them go for forty years
    and very few where people I trusted to do what’s right
    For the people they represented.
    Dalton McGinty was one of those.
    His investments in the right things
    are his legacy. Education, green power.
    Sure in the short term windmills and solar panels
    can not compete with coal, let alone gas.
    But despite the cost can anyone say continuing
    with pollution in a denser world is a good plan.
    Let alone if we are actually harming the worlds thermostat
    with our actions. It was political mistakes on this
    file, not policy mistakes that probably made him fall on his sword.
    In doing so he brings us back to the whole idea of accountability
    something our current political system treats as an obstacle instead
    of a pedestal. Good for you Dalton, Good for you stepping up to the plate
    and saying I screwed up, and I can not go to the public and say trust my judgment again.
    On education he was 100% right. The citizens of a country or province make it rich
    not the government.
    But making sure every scrap of potential is developed is the job of government.
    Not everyone has a great parent, even the richest people push their prodigy down dead ends.
    All day kindergarten is a investment in people instead of the beaucraqcy of social work
    and the Justice system.
    Farewell Dalton you severed us well. I see nothing in the opposition that could carry your briefcase.

  2. David_M says:

    Knock me over with a feather.

  3. Adrian says:

    Is it too late to run for federal Liberal leader? Since he said he’s staying on until a successor is selected.

    • Sean says:

      No it isn’t. Not at all. It is also not too late to consider running for a Federal seat, with the obvious implication that he is 9th inning grand slam cabinet material.

  4. Craig says:

    He’ll be back. He’s too good to just fade away.

  5. Chris P says:

    WK what is the reason?

  6. GFMD says:

    He’s been maligned mostly unfairly, but he probably couldn’t pull another election out of his hat. This – and Hudak staying on – is their best chance for the next election.

  7. !o! says:

    Wow. this is certainly news. I don’t know what to make of this at all.

  8. Eenusch says:

    Dalton will be moving with the gas plants to a neighbourhood near you.

    • Paul says:

      I find it disgustingly hypocritical that the government claims that those gas plants were moved because the local residents “didn’t want them them there.”

      I’m sure people living in rural areas don’t want giant windmills placed 500 meters from their homes either, but F- them, right? They don’t vote Liberal, after all…

  9. Mark says:

    So, when is he going to announce for the federal Lib leadership?

  10. bigcitylib says:

    Hear hear. I guess the timing rules out any run for the LPoC leadership?

  11. michael hale says:

    Prime Minister Dalton McGuinty

  12. Central Ontario says:

    Leading your team into battle for four general elections requires a lot of commitment and energy. A fifth campaign wasn’t and isn’t in the cards.

    There’s a good reason Sir Charles Tupper is unique in history.

    Well played Dalton, well played. In a time of “leaders” playing the wedge card and divide and conquer, McGuinty rarely took the bait offered by those who sought to divide rather than unite.

  13. frazworth says:

    “No doubt, nothing is perfect; certainly, nothing is complete……the day may dawn when fair play, love for one’s fellow-men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.”….It may not fit but at least I tried to use a Churchill Speech for this occasion – my undergraduate degree at work!

  14. Mike Masotti says:

    I would like him to run for the federal liberal leadership. I believe it would make the race interesting. A coronation for any leader is not helpful. I would like to see how Justin can compete against McGuinty

    • reformatory says:

      Huh your kidding right? The man is so damaged.. what use would he be to the Federal Liberals. When the Energy Fiasco is over and the dust settles, this man will be tarnished. He was cornered and had no choice.

      The only bone I’ll throw him is after 2 terms + 1 year, he less polarizing than Harris – but the Ontario electorate is none the less sick of him and happy to see his back side.

  15. JohnQ says:

    Not a fan of McGuinty. Never was and never will be. I say that because to me, a biased observer for sure, and everything that follows needs to be taken with a big grain of salt…

    His decision to step down, just as the going gets tough for Ontarians who are confronted with what appears to be out of control public sector spending, seems like a complete failure of leadership. Maybe when the facts come out in the next few days we will learn that he has personal reasons to need to resign. If so fine, I still don’t agree with his policies, but at least it would explain why a leader would quit in the middle of the battle…

  16. Sean says:

    First thought: He’s got to be in the best shape of any former premier in history. 57? Are they kidding?! The guy looks almost 20 years younger. Remarkable also because of all the stress and anxiety of the job. Whatever his secret is, he should bottle it and take it to Dragon’s Den. While I type this, I suspect he is eating a bag of carrots, while running the treadmill.

    Second thought: Can we imagine what the media would have been saying if this was announced a month ago, b/4 Trudeaumania 2.0?

  17. DanO says:

    A very good premier. He can hang his hat on his many accomplishments. I wish him and his family the best in whatever the future brings.

  18. Domenico says:

    Any chance he is interested in federal politics?

  19. Justin says:

    Shocked, I must say.

  20. Derek Pearce says:

    Your last line is a good way to put it. Ontario has been very lucky to have such a calm and steady hand on the wheel these past several years. I’m sad to see him go too. Also, I must devilishly say he’s thrown quite the spanner in the works for the oppo parties and I love him for it! Let’s see Hudak critique the Libs during their leadership race for doing what is Tory orthodoxy– curbing public wages. He’ll look sillier and just plain sillier as time goes on, getting more and more pretzel-shaped.

  21. Marlowe Johnson says:

    One wonders if you and your crew will ever admit to making mistakes. there are a few that come to mind.

  22. Mulletaur says:

    No sunrise will follow Dalton’s departure. Only darkness. Darkness, and Mordor.

    • sharonapple88 says:

      Yeah, that’s sort of what I’m dreading. I mean there’s Huddak and there’s Horwath… neither of which appeal to me.

  23. blueblood says:

    Good Riddance! What seemed a promising career now is left in shambles. He sold out to special interests like all politicians do.

    Like Captain Schettino, who left the sinking Costa Concordia, so to does Captain McGuinty. He was cornered, had no choice, the writing was on the wall. The only sad thing is the conservatives don’t have someone strong to take over, and McGuinty left a mess for his successor to deal with.

    When Sorbara left.. the writing was on the wall.. everyone knew this weasel would follow.

  24. Jon Evan says:

    How I wish our Liberal Premier in BC would have the courage of Dalton to do the wise thing and resign!

  25. Marlowe Johnson says:

    Warren,

    While you seem hellbent on censoring any POV that doesn’t conform with the narrative that you’re trying to construct, let me offer the following observations, as someone who has been privy to fairly high level policy discussions in the McGuinty gov since 2005:

    – as with most govs, most of the energy in terms of new, aggressive policies petered out after a couple of years (i.e. by 2007).

    – the great recession was a game-changer that made the Lib cabinet even more timid than they otherwise would have been.

    – they deserve real credit for the coal closure/fit program, but equally real criticism for caving into NIMBYism, and the mandarins at OPG, OPA, etc.

    – they also deserve credit for pushing the feds to give Ontario it’s fair share after shouldering the lion’s share of confederation’s burden (oh wait, that sounds too much like a Mulcair line doesn’t it?)

    – they had a deeply dysfunctional cabinet for the last 5 years (i know from experience) and much of the blame for this dysfunction rightly belongs on the doorstep of the premier’s office.

    – with their backs to the wall (electorally speaking) they caved into NIMBYism and cancelled 2 power plant projects at significant cost to the tax payer.

    – faced with a deficit they decided, against the advice of a well respected economist they themselves commissioned, to unilaterally impose new terms of employment on public sector workers, who collectively make up 12% of the working population. they called these terms a ‘wage freeze’ despite the fact that any intellectually honest reading of the terms clearly showed that the terms constituted substantial cuts.

    – in the aftermath of these latter 2 decisions the liberal party found public support for their government at unteneble levels (i.e. 20% of the vote pre-release of power plant closure documents).

    Now I realize that you style yourself as the uber-strategist of the Liberals in Canada, but I admit that I’m at a complete loss on the strategy here. How does cancelling power plants (at a cost of at least $1.5 billion when you take into account the transmission upgrades that will be necessary when they are relocated) combined with a dishonest attack on public sector workers (remember that they all agreed to a wage ‘freeze’) translate into a winning strategy?

    • tory says:

      AMEN

      Finally someone with the stones to speak truth to power. Hello… Where you been hiding. Everybody else seems to be angling for an agenda or another. Everybody’s selling something or the other. The world needs more people like you my man!

      • Marlowe Johnson says:

        Warren,

        Thank you for posting my comments. I know you’ve got other demands on your time but when i saw that my comments hadn’t made it through after the other 30 i began to wonder 🙂

        A few of other thoughts FWIW.

        Just to elaborate on what I said above. the power plant ‘deals’ bled support from the ‘bluedog’ liberal electorate. the dishonest hardline against public sector works bled support from the ‘red’ liberals. what you’re left with is a core group (i.e. 20%) that will support the party no matter what. It strikes me as a woefully inept bit of political calculus. now maybe warren has better insight into the electoral mind than I do (and I freely admit that may be true) but WTF?

        For the record I’m someone who ‘really was’ a lib supporter for the last ten years and it galls me to see the level of dishonesty and craven behaviour that the libs have sunk to. i expect that from the cons and the ndp to a lesser degree, NOT the Libs. in my own little fishbowl view of the world, what distinguished McGuinty — for all his warts — was his relative commitment to honesty with the electorate. once you toss that out the window in favour of machiavellian electoral calculus (i’m looking at YOU Warren) you’ll inevitably get squeezed by your opponents on both sides. IOW honesty and credibility are the core components of the libs brand. once you lose either of those…

        Warren. Please. Please talk to the mandarins and do some serious soul searching. We need a vision thing.

        as an aside i blame 30+ years of bad haircuts on Dalton and his father. in the early 80s McGuinty Snr. relocated his riding office to my barber shop at the corner of Kilborn & Virginia in Ottawa. Haven’t had a good haircut since 😉

        now it may seem petty but it’s not like i have a lot of hair left at this point…glory days…

        • Jill says:

          I agree wholeheartedly with MJ here. I voted for McGuinty twice even though my instincts run NDP, precisely because he seemed to be a genuinely honest politician with a clear commitment to health and education. The third time he ran, I had a particularly strong NDP candidate in my riding, and a particularly weak one for the Liberals. The Libs were also making noise about falling into the austerity fallacy. What he’s done with Bill 115 is unacceptable and smacks of the worst kind of politics. While I agree with WK’s caveat re: the relative significance of byelections, the Libs haven’t changed message since KitWat. What has happened to a leader who seemed genuinely in tune with hard-working Ontarians in both sectors? It’s beyond my pay grade to know, but if I were to guess I’d say that when you travel in the upper echelons for long enough, sooner or later the arguments you hear in those tiers start to make sense. They’re cogent, reasoned, and wrong. When Liberals start propagating, and defending, Charter breaches, it’s time for a major party rethink.

  26. Don says:

    The worst premier in the history of the country, not just Ontario.

    • Jon Adams says:

      Huh. Y’know, in my lifetime I remember Bill Vander Zalm, Don Getty, Grant Devine, Bouchard and Parizeau. If I didn’t know any better I’d swear you were prone to hyperbole.

      • James Hanna says:

        Bouchard wasn’t a bad premier, by a long shot. Certainly Vander Zalm and Getty. What about Frank Miller? Bob Rae?

        And dipping into history, you can’t beat Alberta’s John Brownlee, Canada’s home grown sex scandal which managed to wipe his party from the electoral map.

  27. Dan says:

    McGuinty was doing a lot of good. I think he got out slightly passed his expiry date. But he leaves a minority government to the next Liberal leader to take over.

    I’ll be interested to see how leadership candidates address the topic of austerity. Who’s side are they on?

  28. Fosgrove says:

    Won’t miss him at all…..it will take decades to undo the damage him and his government have done. Adios Dalton…..hope I don’t see you again for a long long time.

  29. tory says:

    When the going gets tough – grab your wife and run!

  30. ed_finnerty says:

    who replaces him

  31. Michael S says:

    Falling on one’s sword is the honorable way to change the channel.

  32. Timmy Horton says:

    Just as predicted on this site last month! (comments – 13 Sept – “teachers, taught”).

    Wonder if WK or anyone else on the election campaign team would admit that their cynical decision to save a couple of Liberal seats in Mississauga and Oakville has ended-up, in effect, costing McGuinty his job. And to top it off, it’s also forced him to prorogue! Something that caused liberals to foam at the mouth a couple of years ago. Must be tragic for liberals, but deliciously ironic for his opponents.

    Anyway, for those Monty Python fans out there:

    Brave Sir Dalton turned and ran away,
    Bravely ran away.
    When danger reared its ugly head,
    He bravely turned his tail and fled.
    Yes Brave Sir Dalton turned about,
    And gallantly he chickened out.
    Bravely taking to his feet,
    He beat a very brave retreat.
    Bravest of the brave Sir Dalton.

  33. DB says:

    The prorogation thing stinks to high heaven and makes it pretty obvious that he’s only doing this to escape the contempt motions on the gas plants. Don’t know if much of a leadership challenge could be forged from that kind of stain.

  34. DO says:

    He survived and thrived a long time — and from the west coast I can’t see if he overstayed his welcome. I just hope if he is thinking of going for the federal position that Warren remembers the result the last time candidates for the leadership let their own personal ambitions plant seeds of discontent and ideas for the opposition to mulch on. Don’t do the devil’s work for them, WK!

  35. CQ says:

    With the current provincial deficit estimated at -14.4 Billion (up from last year’s revised -13.3 B) today was ‘a walk in the (Ontariariari -) Owe’.

  36. billg says:

    I dont agree with the man on many things, but, he was the best of the bunch, and, has political instincts that are off the charts, and, he was a Liberal in Ontario when it wasnt cool to be a Liberal, that says something about the person. I cant see him entering the Federal race, his Ontario approval rating is now lower then Jean Charest’s was before he lost, which happens when you’ve been the Preem for 9 years and you’ve just asked the PS and the Teachers to be reasonable for the next few years. I’m not a Liberal, but, Dalton was hard to dislike.

  37. James Bow says:

    Just thought you’d like to know, Warren: I heard this here first.

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