Photo: Goldie Ghamari, Carleton MPP-elect, during a debate in May. Photo by Barry Gray.
Canada’s newspaper of record, the Globe and Mail, was so dithered over the poor choices on display for the Ontario general election, it chose not to endorse any particular party or leader.
Instead, the paper’s editorial for the election urged electors to vote for good local candidates.
“So if you are lucky enough to have a local candidate who embodies integrity and principle, we encourage you to support him or her,” the editorial says. “The representatives you choose will need to be strong to hold the next premier to account. Who do you trust to do so?”
An established international trade and business lawyer, Ghamari is a strong woman with all the qualifications to be an effective representative at Queen’s park. Certainly, as words written in the Ottawa Citizen by Randall Denley in 2016 put so well, she’ll be an improvement over the ineffective former MPP Jack MacLaren.
But even with her strong mandate, there is plenty of skepticism about her leader and Ghamari will have to work hard to bring confidence to citizens of Carleton that their government is effective and bringing the change they want.
As well, in this diverse rural-urban riding, she will have the challenging task of bridging a wide variety of needs and issues.
There are many in Stittsville and Carleton who didn’t get what they wanted on election night and have made that clear on social media. But we should all wish Ghamari luck in executing the office she’s been given and hope she will do it well.
We should hope she is able to solve problems and be accessible to her constituents.
And most of all, we should hope she will fight for Carleton — even if that means standing up to her party at times.
Because just as voters can put a politician into office, they can also take them out.