By Cecilia Nasmith

The leadership race for the provincial Liberals is about two months away, but former Queen's Park colleagues Lou Rinaldi, Jeff Leal and Joe Dickson hosted their candidate – out of the six in the running – at a Wednesday riding association event at the Carpenters' Hall in Port Hope.

Rinaldi, former Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP, was declaring his choice with a Del Duca T-shirt.

“If it wasn't for Steve, the 407 wouldn't be finished today,” he said.

“And he got shovels in the ground for the Go expansion to Newcastle.

“He's a really committed person. As we go through the rebuilding process, I think he has got the capacity to do that and become Premier.”

Rinaldi also commended Del Duca's efforts to insert at least one leadership debate into the string of them taking place that would be hosted in a small town of fewer than 25,000, even if his attempts did not work out.

“Steven Del Duca has as work ethic second to none,” former Peterboroug MPP Leal said.

Citing his work as the former Minister of Transportation and Minister of Economic Development and Growth, he recalled how the Mississauga-Brampton South MPP had landed three of the biggest investments in the food-processing sector in the history of the province (including a zero-carbon chicken processor in London).

Del Duca – who at age 46 has been active in politics for about 30 years – thanked his hosts for their support and their mentorship (and Rinaldi for his accomplishments as caucus chair), and singled out hard-working former Northumberland-Peterborough South MP Kim Rudd who, he predicted, will continue to serve her community with distinction.

Though all five – Del Duca, Rudd, Rinaldi, Leal and former Ajax-Pickering MPP Dickson - were defeated in their respective elections, he continued, “Politics is not always fair. Politics does not always deliver a just or appropriate result.”

As he has travelled to more than 140 communities over the past year, he has been building up to the March 7 selection of the party leader at Mississauga's International Centre, as well as to the June 2022 provincial election.

On the road, Del Duca hears concerns about the policies Conservative Premier Doug Ford is implementing. For him, Ford's actions in two areas have personal meaning through his two daughters.

Eight-year-old Grace has become concerned to the point of tears about where the environment is going. Twelve-year-old Talia is less concerned about the education system she is inheriting, but it troubles her father mightily.

By the time of the next provincial election, Talia will be in high school with its larger class sizes, fewer teachers, mandatory on-line courses (to be required even in communities where there is no high-speed broadband) and the general decline that will result in the quality of education she receives.

“I refuse to accept that my daughter should have her entire high school career undermined and damaged if we don't get the job done and defeat Doug Ford,” Del Duca said.

As for Grace's concerns, he continued, Ontario has a premier who is a climate-change denier to the point of spending millions of taxpayer dollars in court fighting Federal carbon-tax policies and manufacturing stickers maligning the measure.

Though he decries the whipsaw trend in politics – where the first thing some incoming governments do is set about undoing the actions of their predecessors – he did admit his intention to reverse Ford's actions that have made a good education less attainable at all levels. He is proud of the free-tuition policies for low-income earners the Liberal government enacted and hopes to remind Ontario residents of the similar kinds of good-education policies that were in place June 6, 2018 – the day before Ontario's last election.

“My first order of business is to restore funding and programming as they were then, at all levels.”

As for the environment, “I have ideas of how Queen's Park can work towards a real plan.”

Del Duca acknowledged that the students of today are experiencing real angst over the threats to the environment.

“They don't want to hear a lot of key messages. They don't want to hear a lot of garbage. They want to know there is a real plan and that someone is taking them seriously.”

One of the challenges is that the Conservatives are raising more money than Liberals by a factor of six to one. Another is the selection of 119 candidates in ridings without a current Liberal incumbent (including Northumberland-Peterborough South).

Another challenge he hears everywhere is that he is a leadership candidate without a seat. Del Duca said his focus will be on winning the leadership, and he will be hoping to recapture his original seat.

Meanwhile, he issues a challenge to his fellow Liberals to remain idealistic while operating without illusion.

“We will have to find a way to forge a coalition of individuals, groups and communities that want to be part of that winning formula, and we will have to get a platform of compelling ideas that convince people we deserve their trust.”

The stakes are too high to leave it to someone else, he said, particularly since the NDP failed to prevent a Ford majority.

A lot of hard work lies ahead, no matter which candidate prevails in March.

“I think the first thing we have to do is show up and show up again and keep showing up, and keep talking. But I refuse to surrender any political real estate to Doug Ford and his friends.”