Orleans Weekly Journal
Published: Friday, October 17, 2008 Much work to do following election Tuesday’s re-election of Royal Galipeau as our MP should put to rest the fiction that his victory in 2006 was some sort of fluke or aberration. The challenge now is for partisans across our riding to come together and work with our MP (and MPP and councillors) to address the key issues of economic development, transportation, health care access and building a stronger and safer community. To start I commend Mssrs. Godbout and Maillet along with Ms. O’Dell for putting their lives on hold and putting their names on the ballot. In turn, each of their families should also be thanked for supporting them through a difficult and trying 38-day campaign. I would ask all campaigns to finish their cleanup this weekend and take down all lawn and arterial signage. Returning to the issue of working together, the one schism that was clearly revealed during the campaign was the issue of trust between our returning Conservative MP and some Liberal-dominated community organizations. For his part, just has he did in 2006, Galipeau campaigned under the “blue” banner but now returns as one of the most ferociously non-partisan MPs in our House of Commons. Yes, many organizations in our community are dominated by those who have most often voted and/or openly worked for various Liberal candidates at election time. Given that this riding, for the longest time, has been mostly Liberal in its politics at all three levels of government, it is only natural that those who are active partisans are also inclined to serve their community in other volunteer and benevolent capacities. To be blunt, instead of fighting with each other based on party affiliation, let’s view it as a testament to political diversity, put down our partisan tools and put on our community hats, shall we? If we are truly to move forward as a community, everyone must put a little (or a lot of) water in the proverbial partisan wine. Our challenges are too big for petty partisanship. We are one of the largest urban communities in Canada – 120,000 strong – with one of the lowest local employment bases. More of us commute to work by car or bus than any other part of our city. We are also dramatically underserved in terms of local health care facilities with the continuing challenges faced by the Orléans Urgent Care Centre – despite welcome news on future provincial plans and funding – symptomatic of larger issues which need to be addressed in a co-operative federal-provincial-municipal manner. The other issue for us, our children and our environment is the dumping of municipal sewage into the Ottawa River, think Petrie Island contamination. To our Galipeau’s credit, he moved quickly to convince his colleague, the federal environment minister, to commit $33 million to a lasting infrastructure solution to address this problem. But Galipeau must keep this issue top of mind with John Baird or whoever fills the environment portfolio in Stephen Harper’s new Cabinet. In short, there is much work to do. = = = = = Comments can be sent to Walter Robinson at orleansouttakes@transcontinental.ca. |