Last Updated on: 21st April 2015, 04:50 pm
Last week, when the election was over, the news was filled as it always is with reactions from winners and losers. Reporters caught up with various candidates to hear about what went right, what went wrong and what the future may hold. All of Guelph’s major candidates and even some of the fringe ones got their moment in the spotlight the next day…all, I should say, save one. And if you’ve been paying attention, you already know which one.
On election night, nobody had heard from Marty Burke. the Mercury tried repeatedly to contact him then, the next day, the next day and probably the next. I’m a little behind since I’ve been busy and away, so they could still be trying to locate him now for all I know.
But amazingly, Burke wasn’t completely silent. He may have shafted the big newspaper, but the Tribune found him, or perhaps he found them. At any rate, they published portions of an email he sent in, and boy oh boy. For a guy who claimed to have wanted the job of MP and used to serve in the military, he sure comes off, for lack of a better term, like a complete pissy pants whiney baby.
:Burke says city worse off without him” says the headline, so right away we’re not starting off on a good note. And shock of all shocks, it only gets worse from there.
While local Conservative candidate Marty Burke is pleased with the overall results of Monday’s general election, he’s feeling sorry for Guelph and the choice its voters made.
“The pity for Guelphites, unfortunately, is that their already weak voice has been diminished further in Parliament. Backbench MPs in last place parties have difficulty getting glasses of water, let alone getting things done for their riding,” said Burke in a statement emailed to the Tribune on Tuesday.
“Canada’s so-called natural governing party has been reduced to a small rump – dead last in the parliamentary pecking order,” he said of incumbent opponent and victor Frank Valeriote’s Liberal Party.
He also went on to blame the Green Party’s drop in the polls here for screwing him out of a win, completely glossing over the apparent failure of the not showing up and campaigning while sounding like a douchey scripted guy when he did speak strategy he’d been using.
Again I must say, good for you, Guelph. We might be represented by a 3rd party backbencher, but at least he’s a 3rd party backbencher that has represented us well, had the guts to show his face and take questions, and probably would have taken defeat with head held high instead of like a sobbing child.
It’s nice that Marty Burke feels sorry for Guelph, but we don’t need his pitty. He didn’t win, so we’ll be just fine.
