One of the most important things the province does, with regard to the city, is set the ground rules for urban planning. So the chairman of city council’s planning committee would know a fair bit about the minister of municipal affairs. Especially when he’s a former president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, deeply concerned with how towns and cities across Ontario get along with the provincial government.
In this case, it’s Alta Vista Coun. Peter Hume we’re talking about. And premier-to-be Kathleen Wynne, who was minister of municipal affairs until she quit Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet in November to run to succeed him.
I caught Hume in the hall this week and asked what he thinks of her. His full answer: “She’s a nice lady.”
I hesitated.
“Nice lady,” he repeated.
It’s a contrast to Peter Hume talking about the then-new Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty in 1996, in a Citizen story by Tom Spears:
“Some politicians are very dogmatic, and if I’m a Conservative and he’s a Liberal, you don’t really get along all that well,” says Peter Hume, a regional councillor whose ward overlaps with McGuinty’s. “He kind of transcends that and looks for what’s best for the community.”
Hume said McGuinty isn’t a grandstander, just a guy who pitches in –“rolls up his sleeves and gets to work,” he says — to solve problems.
Getting paramedics in Ottawa-Carleton. Sitting down to mediate disputes over green space. Backing the local push for regional reform when it might have been safer to dodge that debate.
Hume was so impressed he wrote in his newsletter that Ottawa South residents should give McGuinty their support. Is it enough to make a Conservative like Hume vote for McGuinty?
A long pause. “I stick to my party,” Hume says, “but I’d probably be sorely tempted.”
Hume’s said publicly that he’s not interested in running in Ottawa South when McGuinty vacates the seat.
