Fair minded Ontario PC members should vote for Patrick Brown...

In legal circles you'll sometimes come across the expression 'fruit from the poison tree'.  

In the Patrick Brown case the poison came from a story that came out January 24th from Bell Media news outlet CTV.  I'm not going to rehash it in detail, the story was such a piece of yellow and slanderous journalism in my opinion that it doesn't warrant further scrutiny.  Besides, everyone already knows the details. Patrick Brown's lawyers have served notice of a lawsuit, so we'll leave the courts to deal with that.

Were it not for that story, the Patrick Brown led PCs would have been preparing for an election in June with the polls showing them poised to unseat the Wynne Liberals handily.  

Patrick had taken the helm of a party which was pretty much decimated after the last election.  Once debt ridden with only twelve thousand odd members the party was now poised to romp at the ballot box in June.  Membership grew under his watch to somewhere in and around 200,000 and the war chest was full, he'd done an amazing job.

Patrick Brown, described by both fans and foes as a tireless workaholic had brought back the Big Blue Machine.   

But then he was hit by a truck, the words CTV on the side.  No Good Samaritans came to his assistance though, quite the opposite in fact.  Instead his fellow party members wished him luck in clearing his name, then started picking his pockets as he lay bruised and bleeding at the side of the road.  

This leadership race should never have happened.

Do I expect the other candidates in the race to drop out all of a sudden?  Sure, (sic) that will happen.  Right after all the businesses that profit from polluting our lakes, streams, air and soil decide to clean things up.  

You know where I'm going with this, the Carbon Tax.  Nobody likes taxes.  

But do we get upset when our neighbour who constantly drives 30+ km over the limit gets hit with speeding ticket after speeding ticket?  No, slow down we tell him.  If someone gorges on donuts and potato chips all day while sitting in front of the TV, do we feel sorry for them when they complain about a sore back?   

Our lead footed neighbour might try to enlist our support, the fat friend might want us to help pay for his or her liposuction...but a simple change of behaviour is all that's needed.  

And its the same thing with businesses in Ontario that profit from polluting, being environmentally responsible is expensive after all.  What incentive is their to clean up anyway?  Bottom line profits are higher doing things the dirty way and to heck with being conservative when it comes to our water, air and land. 

So those that will pay want those of us who would get a 20%+ tax cut to be upset.  That won't work on me, if you don't want to pay the carbon tax, then stop polluting, I'll take the money in my pocket thank  you very much.

Who knows, maybe that's part of the reason why Patrick Brown was hit by that truck.  He's done an unbelievable job fighting back, but only Ontario Party members can bring him all the way back.  I don't know how many Good Samaritans there are in the party, but I'm hoping there's a few.  

If you're still not willing to make him your first choice, at least have him second.