[RCO]

( an odd situation is brewing in Carleton Mississippi Mills , where a challenger is trying to replace longtime mpp norm sterling thru a hostile takeover of the riding association and eventually thru a nomination meeting , and this has not happened before very often at provincial level from what i have heard . )

DEREK DUNN
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Nov 26, 2010 - 4:00 PM
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0 .PC executive rallies troops to support Sterling
Letter says challenger attempting a ‘hostile takeover’

WEST CARLETON - The local PC party executive is in panic mode, sending a letter to party faithful about a “hostile takeover” in the works by a former Ontario Landowners Association (OLA) president.

The letter extols the abilities of 33-year veteran Norm Sterling, MPP for Carleton-Mississippi Mills, and links challenger Jack MacLaren to another former OLA president, the far right-wing MPP Randy Hillier.

Penned by riding association president Steven Lewis, the letter doesn’t break the party’s constitution, but MacLaren said his supporters intend to replace the existing executive. He is upset over the delay of the riding’s 2009 annual general meeting, among other stonewalling tactics. The association has been forced by provincial officials to hold its annual meeting next week.

“We are not surprised we’d run into mild resistance. They haven’t been following the rules and we have,” MacLaren said. “It’s not appropriate what they are doing, but it just shows they’ve erred in their judgment by calling me a friend of Randy’s. He is pretty well thought of.”

MacLaren said he has signed up 700 members to the party, which if true would virtually ensure he wins the nomination for next fall’s provincial election. Sterling is privy to the numbers and said MacLaren has about 350. Sterling won’t say how many he has signed.

MacLaren said the PC party must move further to the right to embrace small ‘c’ conservative principles in both the social and economic realms.

He compares the local move to supplant the riding’s old guard with the Tea Party’s attempt to move the U.S. Republican party further to the right and the Wild Rose party’s attempt to pull Alberta politics in the same direction.

“All across the western world countries are willing stand up a little more. I am willing to fight for my culture and heritage and what my forefathers fought for,” MacLaren said.

However, MacLaren also called PC leader Tim Hudak a “good leader” who is keeping his cards close to his chest. He looks forward to Hudak defending conservative principles as the race grows near.

Sterling said MacLaren holds no allegiance to the party after supporting the Green party candidate in the last election.

“This is political opportunism. He thinks this is the easiest way into the legislature,” Sterling said, adding that he hasn’t heard of an incumbent or entire executive in a similar situation.

Lewis called MacLaren’s plan to defeat a sitting incumbent and a riding executive almost unprecedented in the Ontario PC party.

“It’s very, very unusual. I think it’s only happened once before,” Lewis said. “It’s kind of a bully thing to do.”

He said members will decide if the letter is inappropriate or not; his concern is fielding the best candidate for the Kanata, Stittsville, and surrounding areas.

The annual meeting is set for Dec. 1 at Scared Heart High School in Stittsville.

http://www.yourottawaregion.co.....t-sterling
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[RCO]

Nevil Hunt
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Dec 01, 2010 - 11:26 PM
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1 .Norm Sterling-backers take round one
Challenger questions party’s commitment to democracy


Norm Sterling-backers take round one. PC party members look over their ballots during a heated annual general meeting of the Carleton-Mississippi Mills riding association tonight in Stittsville. While most annual meetings are dull affairs, tonight's vote brought out roughly 700 members, who decided the riding's executive board for the coming year. The slate of 14 candidates preferred by MPP Norm Sterling carried the vote. Nevil Hunt

CARLETON-MISSISSIPPI MILLS - In a divisive battle some compared to a rigged Latin American election, Carleton-Mississippi Mills MPP Norm Sterling saw his preferred slate of candidates elected to the local riding executive late this evening.

Former Ontario Landowners Association president Jack MacLaren put forward 14 names for the riding association’s board, only to see Sterling’s slate of 14 names elected during the riding’s drawn-out annual general meeting at Sacred Heart Catholic High School in Stittsville.

MacLaren is now preparing for the riding’s nomination meeting, expected in March or April. If MacLaren wins that vote, his name will be on the ballot as the PC party’s candidate in the provincial election next October, effectively ending Sterling’s 33-year run as MPP.

Tonight was round one, and MacLaren’s supporters came away claiming the match was fixed from the start.

MacLaren said the party’s head office denied membership to many people he and his supporters signed up as party members. He put the number of disputed members at 150.

Metroland Media spoke to multiple people who showed up to vote, only to find out their names weren’t on the list of eligible members. MacLaren said the disqualifications targeted only those people he or his supporters signed up as party members.

“The Progressive Conservative party thinks democracy isn’t important in this riding,” he said. “We didn’t even know the format of the meeting until we got here.

“We had to find out from (PC party headquarters) in Toronto when the meeting would be. They did everything they could to be unco-operative. It’s a goddam farce.”

Because the riding’s incumbent board members decided the meeting’s agenda, Sterling had a chance to speak to the roughly 700 party members before they voted. The riding association president, Steven Lewis, also spoke, thanking all the incumbents by name, while the challengers were not given a chance at the microphone.

When the voting process was explained, many people were confused and tried to yell out questions over the noise of those departing the auditorium to vote. Volunteers friendly to the incumbents handed out ballots bearing the names of the Sterling slate. Voters had to write in the names of the challengers or use a printed handout of the MacLaren slate as their ballot. The MacLaren team’s printed handouts ended up being in short supply.

MacLaren said the uncertainty worked to Sterling’s advantage.

“I think a lot of people left (without voting) because they were confused by the ballot,” he said, adding that the important battle is still ahead. “We’re going to carry on, and we’ll be a little wiser. It’s interesting that (the incumbent board) got more votes than they have members.”

The riding executive didn’t release the exact vote count, but a number of scrutineers provided numbers that indicated Sterling’s preferred slate won by 356 to 203 votes.

Both camps will now have a few months to sell party memberships in an attempt to garner the majority of the votes at the spring nomination meeting that determines which of the two men’s names goes on the provincial election ballots. The date of that nomination meeting has not been set, but residents of the riding must become PC party members at least 30 days prior the meeting in order to be eligible to vote.


http://www.yourottawaregion.co.....-round-one
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[RCO]

MPP denounces rift in Tory caucus
Sterling blames Hillier for failed bid to steal riding association from him

By Lee Greenberg, Ottawa Citizen December 3, 2010 The provincial Progressive Conservative party is struggling with an insurrection of rural libertarians with a "very narrow and right-wing agenda," says west-side MPP Norm Sterling, who is blaming fellow Ottawa-area Tory Randy Hillier for a failed bid to steal his riding association out from under him.

Sterling, the MPP for Carleton-Mississippi Mills, has been in the legislature for 33 years and been a senior minister in multiple Progressive Conservative governments at Queen's Park. He wants Hillier, a three-year MPP who made his name in the rural-rebel Ontario Landowners Association, to sign onto the Tory team or else walk out and start a party of his own.

"I believe that (Randy Hillier) should either fish or cut bait," Sterling said Thursday. "He should either be a member of the team or he should step outside the team and run as an Ontario Landowner under his own party label."

Last winter, Hillier's friend Jack MacLaren announced he was gunning for Sterling's seat in Carleton-Mississippi Mills. MacLaren is a former president of the Ontario Landowners Association who succeeded Hillier in that position.

MacLaren's challenge began Wednesday with an attempted wholesale takeover of Sterling's riding association executive.

The challenger's slate lost the vote by a sizable margin, which Sterling puts at 356-203.

Despite the victory, Sterling is upset by what he sees as a challenge fomented within his own caucus. He said Hillier's office was helping Mac-Laren sell party memberships, and thus votes in the riding-association election, in the run-up to Wednesday's meeting. "He's very much involved," Sterling said.

Sterling called Hillier and MacLaren "political opportunists."

"They want to use the good name of the Progressive Conservative party to push their very narrow and right-wing agenda into the provincial arena," he said. "They don't believe in conservation authorities, they don't believe in milk marketing boards, they go so far as to say let's abandon our planning laws in the province of Ontario."

Sterling says an "uncomfortable" rift has now opened up within caucus, given Hillier's continued desire to unseat him and others.

The 68-year-old lawyer and engineer says the landowner faction is threatening to go after Tory MPP Steve Clark's riding association in the hopes of gaining the party's nomination in Leeds-Grenville.

Three MPPs -- Clark, Lisa Mac-Leod and John Yakabuski -- were all present at the pivotal Tuesday meeting at Sacred Heart High School in Stittsville.

When informed of Sterling's comments, Hillier refused to respond and declined a request for an interview. His office referred the Citizen to party leader Tim Hudak.

"Unlike the Liberals, our party has an open nomination process for all ridings, including member-held ridings," Hudak said in a statement. "We are proud of our commitment to this open, democratic process -- even though, from time to time, it can be challenging. Randy Hillier and Norm Sterling are hardworking, respected members of our caucus. I've spoken to both Randy and Norm and we agree that our team is united and focused on one goal -- defeating Dalton McGuinty."

However, Sterling's comments indicate the two sides are far from united.

"I really believe the party has to deal with this issue," Sterling said in an interview Thursday. "You can't be wasting your energies on annual (riding association) meetings. I understand in a nomination meeting, if someone wants to run against you that's fine and dandy. It's part of our process. But to take over our organization when you haven't really been part of it and turn it into the Ontario Landowners Party under the name of PC? That shouldn't take place."

The Landowners' moves in Eastern Ontario are an apparent attempt to pull the party further right.

MacLaren, who refused multiple requests by the Citizen for an interview, recently told Metroland Media he was mimicking a Tea Party-style movement within the provincial PC party.

"I am willing to fight for my culture and heritage and what my forefathers fought for," he told the news organization.

Sterling rejects MacLaren's ideology.

"I want to run for a progressive conservative party. I don't want to run for a right-wing party. That's not what my riding needs. They need a representative who is modern, rational and reasonable in their representation."

The fight is a sign of a long-predicted rupture caused by Hillier's role in the party.

As co-founder of the Lanark Landowners Association in 2003, Hillier gained attention through numerous public standoffs and acts of civil disobedience. He led a tractor blockade on Highway 401, clashed with provincial inspectors at an Eastern Ontario sawmill over regulations on sawdust disposal and later faced off with OPP and federal food inspectors -- using a front-end loader -- over a dispute at a chicken farm.

He also sent an e-mail with an image of a dead deer, which the message named after a Liberal cabinet minister, to Liberal officials.

After organizing against former leader John Tory in 2008, he launched his own unsuccessful bid at to lead the Progressive Conservatives, finishing last in a four-candidate race ultimately won by Hudak.


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/n.....z1757qwXjE

[cosmostein]

Hudak's control over his party is on par with Iggy's.

[RCO]

( the bizare race continues in carleton mississippi mills , although no date has been set for a nomination meeting yet so we may not know final outcome for a while )


Jan 10, 2011 - 3:28 PM
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0 .Sterling fights back with membership drive
MPP mounts membership drive in effort to save seat


MPP fights back. Norm Sterling

It appears Norm Sterling is heeding the advice of at least one conservative critic, opting to fight back with actions instead of words.

The Carleton-Mississippi Mills MPP is in a battle for his political life against rural activist Jack MacLaren, who is challenging Sterling for the riding’s Progressive Conservative nomination in the lead-up to next fall’s election.

It would prove a humiliating end to a highly successful 33 years at Queen’s Park should he lose, but Sterling claims to have the numbers on his side, if not the support of some other Conservatives.

Sterling, a centrist, was given a dressing down in a Globe and Mail letter to the editor, penned by Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington Conservative MP Scott Reid.

In the Dec. 6 letter, Reid claims Sterling neglects constituents who seek his help, unlike friend and fellow rural activist Lanark, Frontenac-Lennox and Addington PC MPP Randy Hillier.

Reid added that Sterling attempted to have Hillier tossed out of the PC caucus for quietly supporting MacLaren’s bid to have the local riding executive overthrown. And, finally, he wrote that Sterling should be selling more party memberships – which will ensure the nomination – rather than sling mud in public.

Sterling declined comment on yet another unusual twist in the PC family fight, but his assistant did offer one word in response to Reid’s letter: “petty.”

He also mentioned that Sterling has sold many memberships since the nasty brawl first spilled into the public realm through yourottawaregion.com, this newspaper’s website. Sterling’s camp says it has sold some 900 memberships.

In early November, MacLaren’s camp claimed to have sold 700 memberships, though Sterling – who as the incumbent is privy to the numbers – flatly denied it, saying MacLaren sold more like 350.

LIBERALS RESPOND

Meanwhile, the party’s grassroots supporters say Liberals are enjoying the spat and will use it against them both at the riding level and province-wide when the election race heats up in earnest after next summer.

Some have complained that PC leader Tim Hudak should have spoken early and decisively to quell the dust-up. Others say local Liberals are scanning the riding in search of a star candidate who can paint the riding red.

However, there is very little Liberal presence to be found either in reality or on the web. A one-page website offers a phone number which goes to voicemail and a full inbox.

One of the few Liberals available to speak about the PC feud is 2007 candidate Megan Cornell. She said the riding is not a “Conservative fiefdom” and berated both the media and pundits for taking an interest in “sideshows” rather than highlighting issues such as overcrowding at Kanata schools, support for the high tech industry and creating what she calls a “health hub.”

As for the fear that a star candidate will step forward, those concerned that it may be West Carleton-March Councillor and Deputy Mayor Eli El-Chantiry need fret no more.

El-Chantiry, a well known right-leaning Liberal supporter, said he is elated to have won his third race at the municipal level and doesn’t plan to leave for a higher level of office.

“Honestly, I’m so proud just to be re-elected. I like what I’m doing,” he said. “Maybe one day, but not today.”

Careful to preface his comments regarding the infighting as coming from a resident and voter,

http://www.yourottawaregion.co.....ship-drive