The last time we all went to the polls was for the Federal election way back in the fall of 2015, when the 10 year old Steven Harper led Conservative government was tossed out in favour of the Liberals under Justin Trudeau. This year the 14.5 year run of the Ontario Liberals, during which time Dalton McGuinty was elected 3 times and current Premier Kathleen Wynne one time, will be on the line on June 7th. Riding redistribution, which came into effect federally in that 2015 election, will be mirrored at Queen’s Park after this coming election. Lanark Frontenac Lennox and Addington Conservative MPP Randy Hillier will be contesting the new Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston riding against Amanda Pulker-Mok of the Liberals, Anita Payne of the Green Party, a still un-named NDP candidate, and perhaps other independent or small party candidates who may come out of the woodwork in the run up to the election.

Our readers in Addington Highlands will be part of the new provincial riding of Hastings, Lennox and Addington (HL&A). Former Conservative Federal Member of Parliament Daryl Kramp, who lost the Federal election in the HL&A riding to Mike Bossio in 2015, was chosen last August as the Conservative candidate in the new provincial riding, and has been campaigning ever since. The other parties have not selected candidates as of yet.

While the local election will not heat up until the writ period, which starts in early May, on a provincial level the contest has been under way for at least a year, perhaps longer.

The thinking as recently as 3 months ago was that the Liberals were headed to certain defeat to the Conservatives, but the polls have tightened since then. We will be watching the provincial election over the next few months, reporting as the candidates surface for the various parties, and trying to get a sense of how riding redistribution will affect the local race.

In the 2015 Federal election, The Lanark Frontenac Kingston riding went to Scott Reid, the long serving Conservative Party incumbent from the former Lanark Frontenac Lennox and Addington riding. While Reid’s margin of victory decreased from earlier elections, that could have been more a reflection of dipping Conservative Party fortunes nationally than the impact of riding redistribution. In Frontenac-Hastings, the riding swung from the Conservative to the Liberals, leading to a surprise victory for Mike Bossio over Daryl Kramp.

We will look at the candidates as they are announced and will provide coverage of the local election in May and early June, when we will publish profiles of the candidates and will hold all candidates meetings at two locations.

The municipal election will be the subject of our attention at the Frontenac News over the summer and into the early fall. There will certainly be a good number of current council members who will be running again, and a smaller number who will be stepping away from municipal politics at the end of the year. The first thing to watch for after May 1st, when the nomination period opens, is whether any current members of council decide to take a run at the incumbent mayors in Frontenac County. If any do it will open up the council vote and create a more competitive race overall. And if the previous election is any indication, running for council as an incumbent can be anything but a sure thing. In Central Frontenac the last time around, only two of the 7 incumbents who sought re-election kept their place. An incumbent lost in each ward, as did the sitting Mayor, Janet Gutowski. The other townships were not as volatile, but there were hard fought races in many wards, and in the mayoralty races. We will also be closely watching Addington Highlands. If Reeve Henry Hogg does indeed step down, the race for Reeve will be pretty wide open, and it will be interesting to see if any of the current members of council decide to step up to the plate.

We began our early coverage of the election this week by polling incumbent heads of council (reeves and mayors) as to their intentions. We will continue to report on the intentions of current members of council and others who are ready to declare their candidacy as they come forward over the winter and early spring. After May first we will report on nominations as they are submitted in the townships, and our coverage will swing into higher gear after nominations close on July 27th. In the run up to the election we are planning to hold all candidates meetings in each ward where our paper is delivered, as we have done in the past, and we will profile the candidates in September and early October. We will also look at the issues that will be contested in the election, from development pressures in South Frontenac, to the septic inspection issue in Central Frontenac, to the fallout from the rebuild of the township office and the onset of the One Small Town initiative in North Frontenac. The underlying issue of taxation and service levels in all townships is another concern will will address in our coverage.

Randy Hillier has said and done a lot since he stopped working as an electrician for the federal government, donned red suspenders and formed the Lanark Landowners Association (LLA). With the LLA he learned how to get attention, whether by driving tractors through the streets of Toronto or Ottawa, by ridiculing absurd regulations about sizing farm fresh eggs, and flouting deer hunting laws in Lanark County for local farmers.
The LLA liked being politically incorrect, and Randy Hillier knew his audience well, and there were times when he said things that may have acceptable to some audiences but were frankly intolerant, unacceptable to the general public.

Then there was the Dombrowsky email. As President of the LLA, Hillier emailed a photo of a dead deer with a group of hunters. Under the photo the caption read – Leona. He sent the email to MPP Leona Dombrowsky.  Dombrowsky sat on the email, then released it months later on the eve of an LLA protest in Toronto. Hillier never apologised for sending the email. He only said that it appeared Ms. Dombrowsky did not share his sense of humour.

This all took place over ten years ago, and Hillier has since left the LLA and their affiliate the Ontario Landowners Association, joined the Ontario Conservative Party, won a nomination battle had has won election as MPP three times. He ran for the leadership of the Party against Tim Hudak among others and lost, and has served as critic for a number of portfolios. He still rails against the system, but does so more and more effectively. Time has changed him as well. When his daughter faced a severe domestic abuse situation which led ultimately to his own house being set on fire, he shared that experience at Queen’s Park advocating for tougher laws against sexual violence. He has been a thorn in the side of Ontario Hydro, pushing his constituents interests against unfair and illogical billing practices. If indeed the Conservative Party takes power in the next election he will be expecting a cabinet posting, and good luck to a party leader who tries to bypasses him. We may yet see see how a politician who has made a career of opposing things can be a positive force for change.

It was surprising then, after all this time, that last Friday night he retweeted a photo of NDP leader Andrea Horwath wearing a hijab and no shoes while sitting with an imam in a mosque in her riding after the mosque had been vandalised. The tweet had been posted along with the following comment: “meet Ontario NDP leader @AndreaHorwath bare foot and dehumanized with head gear, as she submits to the will of a Muslim male”. In his re-tweet Hillier added his own comment: “That’s quite the image looks like she swallowed Cheri’s message hook line and sinker.” The reference to Cheri is likely about NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo who stood up for Muslim rights at an anti-Donald Trump rally in October.

What exactly was Randy Hillier thinking? How does attacking the MPP from Hamiton for doing her job support the interests of the citizens of Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington by? Tapping into anti-muslim sentiment serves no public purpose. Is he saying that Andrea Horwath should have refused to meet the imam because of the Hijab?

To make matters worse he made a second error in judgment, an equally foolish one, claiming that retweeting something is not the same thing as endorsing it.

Things were going from bad to worse.

Then, just as the story was starting to get traction on a provincial level, he tweeted out the following on Saturday evening: “without reservation I regret my tweets of Friday Night, being offensive is not in my nature and I’m sorry. Posts have been deleted.”

There you have it. A textbook apology. He admitted that he had been offensive, expressed regret and said he was sorry. No ifs, ands or buts.

In the current political reality, a good apology is an impressive thing.

Those old red suspenders, after a day in the sun, were back in the closet.