Kathleen Wynne to become Ontario’s first female and openly gay premier

[UrbScotty]

Source: National Post

Long-time MPP and McGuinty cabinet minister Kathleen Wynne will become Ontario’s next Premier after Liberal party delegates elected her on a third ballot, following a day of drama that saw her pick up late support from Gerard Kennedy and Charles Sousa.

Ms. Wynne’s victory foils a number of trends. She is the rare party leader from Toronto, where she represents the riding of Don Valley West, and she will become the province’s first female premier and also its first openly gay premier. Supporters of Sandra Pupatello, who was beaten on the final ballot, had said the Toronto factor would work against Ms. Wynne, and the incoming Premier provided one of the day’s biggest surprises when she addressed the question of her sexual orientation in her morning speech to delegates, saying Ontarians wouldn’t be troubled by it.

“It has been a remarkable night,” Ms. Wynne said after the results were announced just before 8:30 local time. She thanked her campaign team, her children and her partner, Jane Rounthwaite.

Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/26/kathleen-wynne-ontario/

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. Its quite an accomplishment for her, and certainly a first.

But she'll have an uphill battle since the Liberals aren't too popular now. Fortunately for her, Ontarians are election-weary and all of the parties coffers are low. Not sure she'll survive a general election.

[UrbScotty]

13. She does have some time

The next election isn't until 2015, correct?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

14. Well she's going to have to pass a budget

by the fall of this year. If either of the opposition parties feel that they can afford, and win an election than all they have to do is vote in non-confidence against it triggering an election.

[Posteritatis]

3. Should we start referring to the prime minister as president as well?

Oy.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I disagree - they are not directly elected

They head the party in the provincial parliament, and thus the executive. There's no need to modify the term that Canadians use.

[DissidentVoice]

8. Canadian governmental differences

Head Of State:
USA: President of the United States (elected)
Canada: Queen Elizabeth II (hereditary monarch) appoints Governor-General (Canadian national) to represent her in Canada on advice of Prime Minister of Canada

Head Of Government:
USA: President of the United States (elected)
Canada: Prime Minister of Canada (elected; leader of majority/coalition party in the House of Commons)

State/Provincial Level Chief Executive:
USA: State Governor (elected)
Canada: Lieutenant (pronounced "lef-tenant&quot -Governor, appointed by the Governor-General; Premier (elected; leader of majority/coalition party in provincial legislature)

Legislative:
USA: Congress - House of Representatives, Senate (both elected)
Canada: Parliament - House of Commons (elected), Senate (members appointed by Queen/GG until age 75)

Civics lesson over.

[Trascoli]

4. Canada is sure first in many catagories

They must be praised for this one.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Johanna Sigurðardóttir Prime Minister of Iceland, 2009. Head of State, much higher office.

This is a first for Canada, not for the world at all....

[ponsheki]

11. It's true Iceland deserves credit for electing Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

But Iceland is a country of 320K people--Ontario is a province of 13 million with 5.5 million in metro Toronto alone. Kathleen will govern over more people than any other openly gay elected official in the world!

Thank you Ontario for making history!

[Ken Burch]

5. Good for her...it would be nice, though. if she'd end the right-wing economic and spending policies

her so-called "Liberal" party is enacting, for no good reason, in Ontario. If she's going to follow her predecessor's example and keep governing like Mike Harris, this milestone won't end up meaning a hell of a lot.

[DissidentVoice]

9. The Liberal Party of Canada isn't really "liberal"

It's to the left of the Conservative Party, but not nearly as far as the New Democratic Party (as I'm sure you know ).

The Liberals are roughly analogous to the DLC in the Democratic Party, but the Conservatives aren't nearly as far to the right as the U.S. Republican Party.

If I were Canadian I'd probably vote NDP.

[Posteritatis]

10. The provincial and federal parties can often be quite different as well

The constitutional setup here is fairly strict about which levels of government can directly manage which things - for example, provincial governments technically have zero say in foreign affairs or national defense, while the federal government (somewhat more technically) doesn't get to be involved in natural resources or education. As a result, a provincial Liberal or Conservative party can sometimes have a fairly different focus than its federal equivalents do.

I still wouldn't vote for the Conservative party in my province (and in fact helped vote them out a few years ago), but I find them dramatically less odious than the federal Conservatives, mostly because they haven't bought into the Republican attitudes quite as badly as the party has at the federal level. (Also, somewhat more cynically, the federal conservatives have active disdain for my part of the country as a primary aspect of their worldview, which results in their butting heads with their provincial partners somewhat regularly.)

Beyond that it can be hard to pigeonhole the Canadian parties relative to the American ones. I would say that a lot of our federal Conservatives are, in fact, trying to steer as far right as the Republicans in the states, owing to so much GOP involvement in the last few elections and the Conservatives' leadership since '03 explicitly setting itself up as the pro-American party, though they aren't quite there yet. The main interests of the other parties are somewhat more hit and miss about aligning with American equivalents, though; something like the NDP simply doesn't exist down there in any relevant manner, for example, and until their recent collapse the Liberals occupied a kind of king-of-the-hill niche that I don't think American politics has ever really had.

[Ken Burch]

16. "Dramatically Less Odious"-wow, THAT would be a great campaign slogan.

Then again, aren't the Conservative Party that governs Canada and the provincial Progressive Conservative parties that contest for power on that level entirely separate organizations?

[Posteritatis]

17. It depends on the province in that case too

Some of the provincial conservative parties have restructured themselves along the line of the federal conservatives ideologically, and others are trying to remain similar to the Progressive Conservatives of the pre-Stockwell Day era. Generally speaking, someone who's active in one of the parties at the provincial level backs them federally as well, though there's exceptions.

Ontario or Alberta conservatives tend not to be far off from the federal ones; Nova Scotia's PCs aren't terribly different than they were a decade or two ago, and the previous conservative premier of Newfoundland, ah, made no secret whatsoever of his hatred of the federal conservatives.

They're interrelated all over the place, but officially they are basically separate creatures, owing mostly to the constitutional separations between the two levels of government.

[DissidentVoice]

19. Ontario and Alberta Tories

I live within walking distance of the border with Ontario and go over quite a bit...though not as much since wannabe fascist CBP take it upon themselves to selectively bully US citizens coming back to our own country from Canada, treating us like shit for just going to Canada. Thank you, USA Patriot Act.

I rarely have trouble with Canadian customs ("where ya goin'?" "any firearms or pepper spray?" "any tobacco?" "No? OK, have a good day&quot ...it's coming back that sucks.

I don't know much about the Ontario and Alberta Tories directly, since of course I'm not Canadian (sigh), don't live there (unfortunately!) and can't vote there. I do remember that Mike Harris' Conservatives came to power in Ontario about the same time that we had the 1994 Gingrich sweep here, but Jean Chretien's Liberals were still in power nationally.

I have never been to Alberta but from what I have been told, politically it's the most like a U.S. farm/oil belt state...quite conservative. I do remember something about former Premier Ralph Klein wanting to institute user fees for health care and having private clinics at some level...again I don't know specifics.

[Ken Burch]

15. Well said. The Liberal Party had some good things going in the Trudeau era.

But they don't stand for ANY of those things now.

[tomm2thumbs]

12. Breaking down barriers is important -- good on her

Hopefully a trend

[Ken Burch]

18. Yeah, it's good that the barrier has been broken down.

Canada still needs to have its first First Nations, Metis, or "visible minority" head of government, among other things.

[DissidentVoice]

20. Her sexuality isn't even an issue as far as I'm concerned

Her sexuality is just part and parcel of who and what she is as a person.

If I were an Ontario resident/voter, the only thing I would concern myself with is what she could do for the people in her province in keeping with the Canadian ideals of "peace, order and good government."

Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased that Ontarians thought she was the best person for the job and she can be justly proud of what she's achieved. I congratulate her. But I think she should just be looked at as Kathleen Wynne, Premier of the Province of Ontario...who just happens to be a lesbian.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

21. Technical point

She wasn't elected by Ontarians in a general election. She was elected by the Liberal party to replace McGuinty.

I think the Liberals had a real problem between their 2 front runners because Pupatello was out of office, and is a corporate stooge at a time when many people are resentful to the corporate realm, and Wynne who might be able to leverage her past as a school board trustee to smooth over the Liberal's recent Bill 155 fiasco. But the teacher's union claims they won't forget, and in fact had 25,000 people protesting outside of Maple Leaf Gardens (barely mentioned in the news).

I personally agree that her sexual orientation should not matter one iota, but its not going to help a party thats already in trouble. A poll conducted on the eve of the convention showed that the NDP would win the popular vote but loose the electoral vote to the Conservatives if an election was held now.

[DissidentVoice]

22. Point taken

However, I wasn't aware there was a difference in popular/electoral vote in Canada. Does Canada have something like our (stupid) Electoral College?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

23. well sort of

we don't have ideal equal representation here. Many ridings are geographically based and don't adequately factor in population density. So some underpopulated rural ridings reliably elect conservatives to represent their cattle and fruit trees. Gerrymandering happens here too, though not on the rampant scale of the US.

[DissidentVoice]

24. At least it isn't voting for someone you HOPE will vote the way you want

That's what we have with the (stupid) Electoral College.

I live near the border, and the ridings nearest me (Sarnia-Lambton, Chatham-Kent-Essex) do seem to have gone Conservative, both federally and provincially...kind of odd with all the auto workers in Windsor and chemical workers in Sarnia...