October 15, 2008
After being abandoned by their police force and government in 2006, Caledonia residents awoke today to learn that their neighbours in Simcoe voted to damn them to 4 more years of suffering with an MP who is perhaps the most useless and apathetic in the history of our Country.
Thousands of people dared to believe that their voice could make a difference by voting for Gary McHale, but Simcoe which has not yet suffered at the hands of Native terrorists and a crippled OPP voted to hand the status quo another term and a gold plated pension.
The atmosphere was electric throughout the whirlwind 5 week campaign, and even those who didn’t believe that Gary would win were certain that Finley was about to get the most well deserved boot to the political rear end in the history of the riding.
Her contempt for the average voter couldn’t have been more obvious as she sat at the Simcoe fair with RCMP body guards, and bolted out the side door after nearly all of the debates that she actually showed up at. Her “buyout” for tobacco farmers couldn’t have been any more obvious a bribe, and the way she ended every speech by saying she hoped we would vote for Stephen Harper showed us that even Diane Finley wouldn’t vote for Diane Finley, but through the extreme apathy that the average voter clearly has toward the desperate plight of their neighbours, she was able to squeak out a narrow win.
To those who actually voted for Finley, I truly hope that one day you have need of her assistance so that through her hide and seek approach to politics; you can see that she cares as little about you as you do about your tormented neighbours in Caledonia.
To the roughly 5000 people who stood tall with Gary McHale in this election, be proud of yourselves and don’t stop daring to believe that your voices can and will make a difference.
Jeff Parkinson
JeffParkinson.ca 
If 4080 of the 4821 people who voted for McHale, would have voted for Hoskins, who had a legitimate chance of winning the riding, Finley would have gone down to defeat. For those in the riding, especially the Haldimand side of the riding, the riding politics far outweighed the National political scene, and when considering the fact that the Federal Liberals were obviously never going to win, I am left wondering, why on earth did you, and even Gary, not throw your support behind Hoskins, giving us the chance to actually replace Finley? You are very quick to blame the residents of Simcoe for ensuring Finley won, but have you even considered that McHale’s taking the protest vote away from Hoskins was the real reason we are stuck with Finley for 4 more years?
One thing was made abundantly clear by the election results. With the bulk of the Liberal seats coming from Toronto the LPC was revealed to be a regional metriopolitan rump party. This is where their leaders and policy comes from and the rest of canada rounly rejected the crisis/crusade/economic politics of this “Toronto party”.
They will install a new leader, from Toronto< and try to reinforce Toronto-centric policies and they will continue to languish in the opposition benches until they return to the inclusive civil libertarian liberalism of Laurier and King.
Hi Jeff,
Great post – as usual. Those 4,821 people who ‘stood tall’ with Gary have every reason to be proud of using their vote to say, ‘ENOUGH!’ I applaud them all.
As for Gary, I was proud to watch him in court today as he presented a ‘smoking gun’ email from Fantino that proves the Commish instructed his officers to target Gary for arrest before the investigation into the Dec 01/07 smokeshack attacks had even begun. It was enough to convince the judge to order the Crown to turn over to Gary ALL Fantino communications from Dec 01-07, 2007. A Hamilton Spec reporter saw it all, check your Spec tomorrow.
Two days after an exhausting election campaign Gary McHale again stood tall in a Hamilton courtroom on behalf of all of us to expose OPP rot and corruption at the very top. Canada is better today because of Gary McHale and because of all those who stood with him – including you.
Regards,
Mark Vandermaas
Ah where to start.
Jeff you’re assuming that had Gary not been in this race, all of those disenchanted with Finley would have went to the Liberals. I disagree as at least some of them are conservatives at heart and would have gagged on the idea of voting Liberal. You ask why I did not support Hoskins and the answer is simple. I have witnessed what the Liberals have done to Caledonia at the provincial level and have no reason to believe that Hoskins would have been any different. Hoskins may have started out with good intentions, but in the end he would have had to tow the party line and no party wants to touch this. I guess you can blame those who didn’t vote for Dr. Eric for Finley being re-elected if you want to sir, but I’m going to put it on the shoulders of those who actually voted for Diane Finley.
Mr. Bastard I will have to see the Liberals install someone from outside Quebec as party leader to believe it.
I’ll be heading out in search of the Spec today Mark as this is the beginning of a new chapter for justice and some very bad times for Julian. I certainly stand with you in applauding all who dared to stand up with Gary against the apathetic and useless establishment.
The “smoking gun” email from Fantino was indeed an awesome document to behold as it was clearly written by someone who believes he’s living in a parallel universe where those who terrorize the town are peaceful, money grows on trees, pigs fly, Fantino has hair, and we were to blame for the violence that hospitalized us before the investigation had begun.
Jeff