Cornwall ON – June 13th local SD&SG provincial Liberals will be deciding who will be replacing popular long term MPP Jim Brownell. Mr. Brownell is retiring to spend more time with his family especially in light of his
health issues gets to play eminence grise to a crop of three candidates to take his place.
Leading the way is former City Councilor for Cornwall, the largest city in the riding, Mark A MacDonald.
Mr. MacDonald, who lost his bid to be mayor of Cornwall this year has made this nomination an interesting race. He’s been said to have sold more memberships for than both of his rivals with estimates being that the local membership has ballooned to over 1000 since the contest began. Mr. MacDonald apparently has been making inroads with local immigrant community members.
The trick for Mr. MacDonald will be whether those people vote for him or not on June 13th.
In the Conservative run off that saw Mayor Jim McDonell win we were told that he did not sell as many memberships as his rival.
Pat Finucan has been very busy politically. He was a chief cog in Mayor Kilger’a re-election and while not confirmed is apparently the choice of the former MPP.
Mr. Finucan, a long time Liberal, was also dean at St. Lawrence College and has been very active with environmental issues in the area and is part of the cultural mapping exercise recently held by Cornwall and the United Counties.
He defines himself as a fiscal conservative as well.
Denis Sabourin rounds out the contenders. Mr. Sabourin was recently working for MP Larry Bagnell who lost in the May Federal election. He’s worked for Mayor Kilger while Mr. Kilger was MP.
Denis ran as the Federal Liberal candidate in 2008 and while not winning did receive more votes and a higher percentage than this year’s candidate Bernadette Clement. He has the most political experience of the three choices, but has failed to ever win an election at the provincial or federal level.
The former school board trustee also has worked in media including his stint as pundit on The Political Round Table on Seawayradio.com.
This is going to be one of the more interesting contests provincially as it looks like Elaine MacDonald will be the candidate for the NDP and the splits could play a role. Ms MacDonald will be the only female candidate and there is issue that the Liberal and NDP vote could split allowing the Big Blue Machine locally to run up the middle and steal the seat.
What do you think area viewers? You can post your comments below.
