by Randall Denley
Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, January 26, 2006

Despite all the happy talk about working with Mayor Bob Chiarelli, Ottawa's new Conservative establishment is clearly shopping for a candidate to replace the mayor in this fall's election. They have quietly pulled their support from Terry Kilrea, and are looking for a more electable replacement.

Expect former Ottawa-Orleans Conservative candidate Walter Robinson to rear his well-groomed head sometime soon.

Conservative Joe Varner was Kilrea's campaign chairman, but he has left that post, saying "there were some disagreements over how the campaign was going."

If Varner is out, it means the new establishment is out. Varner, who ran provincially for the Conservatives in 2003, is married to Lisa MacLeod. She's seeking the Conservative nomination in Nepean-Carleton in the Ontario byelection to replace John Baird. MacLeod has worked for Baird and Pierre Poilievre; she ran Poilievre's federal campaign and is his executive assistant.

Kilrea "isn't necessarily the party establishment's candidate," Varner says. "It doesn't mean they won't support him, but he won't be their first choice."

So who would be?

"Walter would certainly be in a strong position," Varner says.

Robinson wanted the job badly last time, but decided against running. Seeking the city's top job is an expensive proposition that means months without paid work. It often means giving up your job altogether. That's a difficult thing to do if you have a family and a mortgage. With his Conservative friends now in government, Robinson could safely anticipate a nice federal job if he doesn't get in as mayor.

Robinson is young and bilingual and has support in the east of the city. Put that together with the strong federal Conservative vote in the west end, and the situation starts to get interesting. Look at the margins of victory in some of the federal races. That doesn't necessarily translate into support for a conservative candidate at the municipal level, but it sure looks like fertile ground.

Robinson is probably best known as the former federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

You won't get a much better tax-fighting credential than that, and rising taxes will be much on voters' minds this fall.

Robinson has certainly kept up his profile. You might have seen him pictured in this paper, celebrating Royal Galipeau's win in Ottawa-Orleans.

Robinson also helped Bob Monette win his seat on city council. For a guy who's not in politics, Robinson has a pretty nifty website that tells you plenty about his background and views.

Robinson says the mayoralty is "not on my radar screen today, but I'm watching things develop with great interest."

Liberals have dominated all three levels of government here because of their strong local machine, Varner says. "They roll it over, campaign after campaign. Others have taken a lesson from that."

The local Conservatives do find themselves somewhat in the unfortunate position of Dr. Frankenstein. Kilrea seemed like a good concept when Conservative voters helped give him life, but now there is no way to stop him from continuing to terrorize the villagers. Or in this case, getting their votes.

Varner acknowledges that Kilrea has "a substantial core vote people would be concerned about."

Kilrea says he doesn't care who else enters the race. He describes himself as a non-partisan candidate, trying to get elected on his own merits. That's tough to do. Municipal politics is supposed to be non-partisan, but a mayoral race is almost impossible to win without the organized support parties offer.

Where does all this leave Alex Munter?

The former city councillor says he is still deciding whether to run and has no firm date for a yes or no. He says he has always gotten along well with new Ottawa Conservative kingpin John Baird and points out that city council is like a perpetual minority government. A successful mayor has to be able to work with people of different views, something he was good at as a councillor.

Munter made a political slip during the federal campaign when he acted as a middleman to supply The Canadian Press with a story damaging to Stephen Harper. It made the media aware of some eyebrow-raising statements Harper made in an old speech to an American conservative group. The Martin campaign was behind the story and CP was unhappy that Munter didn't acknowledge the connection.

He concedes now it was "an error in judgment," but says he was driven to work against Harper as a natural outcome of his own campaign to legalize same-sex marriage.

Varner says Munter's action "pretty well made him radioactive," but it's not so clear that municipal voters will see it the same way. There is a strong Liberal-NDP vote in this city and they might well want their guy at City Hall to help fight the horrors they believe the Conservatives will bring. Fear of a Conservative in the mayor's chair could cause those Liberal-NDP voters to seek a more dynamic champion than Bob Chiarelli.

One thing we know for sure: The local Conservatives want to get into the game and that has the potential to make the race for mayor very interesting.