S.R. Laugher ’s Sept.27, 2007 St.Catharines Standard letter, “One word can be used to describe Jim Bradley” mentions my Sept.5 letter “Where’s St. Catharines arena money?” I got a laugh from Laugher’s summary describing Bradley - in Laugher’s own words - as a “useless twit”. But the point is, Bradley hasn’t answered the question, has he? The point is that Bradley seems adept at saying one thing, doing another. The point is there’s another, more accurate, word that can be used to describe Jim Bradley’s last four years in a majority government: Ineffective.
Bradley was in cabinet during two of the most untrustworthy governments Ontario has had, David Peterson’s and Dalton McGuinty’s. Bradley is best when blustering righteously from the sidelines, like in 1999, when he was smugly calling the sitting government’s environmental initiatives "laughable". (Welland Tribune, Oct.22, 1999) Yet by 2007, Greenpeace, no less, was calling the Liberal’s meagre climate-change funding "laughable". (St. Catharines Standard, Mar.23, 2007)
Ontario's Environment Commission reported in Oct. 2006 that McGuinty's Liberals drastically neglected and mismanaged environmental protection. The Sierra Club gave Ontario's Grit government an 'F' on climate change in 2006. Bradley and his Liberals broke their major promises to close all of Ontario's coal-fired plants by 2007, and threw their credibility away along with their written pledge not to raise taxes.
Laugher touts Bradley, saying “he’s Elvis”! Will we see a side-burn-sporting Bradley livening up his performance at the next debate by wearing a hip rhinestone cape and studded bell-bottoms, belting out a rousing rendition of ‘Are you lonesome tonight?’, with the ironic (for us) lyrics: ‘But I’d rather go on hearing your lies, than go on living without you’?!
Seriously, Elvis permanently ‘left the building’ two months after Bradley’s election way back in 1977. Bradley’s statist, big-government attitude should also have been left in the ‘Trudeaupian’ 70’s, where it belongs.
Bradley has certainly had his glory days in public service, but don’t weep; unlike about 450,000 Ontario pensioners, he made sure he got his million dollar pension unlocked.
It’s only humane to put this tired “champion” out to pasture.
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