Media reports abound today that Dr Hedy Fry will be the next to leap into the Liberal leadership race, Please tell us it ain't so, Hedy.
There are a few individuals whose candidature could do the party more harm than good and Fry is one of them. She will be ridiculed by the opposition for her one-time fantasies about racists in northern British Columbia but her other indiscretions will also subject her to attack from within and outside the party. For a party that needs to rebuild nationally, and especially in rural Canada, Fry presents the image of the most narrow minded urbanite for whom Canada does not exist outside Ottawa and the strict confines of Vancouver's "west end".
The media coverage I have read today (Globe and Mail and National Post) fail to mention Fry's worst indiscretion and the one that kept her out of Jean Chretien's cabinet for so long. Not forgotten is her falsification of HIV/AIDS patients' drug insurance claims to defraud insurance companies and obtain costly HIV drugs on other persons' accounts. While her admission to falsifying the records allowed her to escape criminal charges and retain her medical licence, it did not erase the ethical breach and Fry has never really apologised. In fact, she used it as a lever to gain support in a part of Vancouver that was ravaged by HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 90s, suggesting she favoured her terminally ill patients over big, bad, rich insurance companies. But in doing so, she advocated that the ends justify any means.
It is noted, today, that Hedy Fry is considered a "giant killer" for her defeats of Prime Minister Kim Campbell and, more recently, Svend Robinson. Given the challenges that Campbell faced in 1993 from public antipathy to the legacy of the Mulroney government and from the necessity that she maintain a national campaign while losing her seat in Vancouver, Fry's victory was no great accomplishment. In 2006, Fry was running against an equally flaky confessed criminal who, even the left-leaning voters of Vancouver Centre could not abide. Vancouverites saw Fry as one last hope to keep the CPC and Stephen Harper from a majority government and chose her over the socialist.
The Liberal leadership race needs more contestants from outside the Greater Tronto Area and, it's arguable, more females, but there is no benefit to anyone in Hedy Fry's candidature.
There are a few individuals whose candidature could do the party more harm than good and Fry is one of them. She will be ridiculed by the opposition for her one-time fantasies about racists in northern British Columbia but her other indiscretions will also subject her to attack from within and outside the party. For a party that needs to rebuild nationally, and especially in rural Canada, Fry presents the image of the most narrow minded urbanite for whom Canada does not exist outside Ottawa and the strict confines of Vancouver's "west end".
The media coverage I have read today (Globe and Mail and National Post) fail to mention Fry's worst indiscretion and the one that kept her out of Jean Chretien's cabinet for so long. Not forgotten is her falsification of HIV/AIDS patients' drug insurance claims to defraud insurance companies and obtain costly HIV drugs on other persons' accounts. While her admission to falsifying the records allowed her to escape criminal charges and retain her medical licence, it did not erase the ethical breach and Fry has never really apologised. In fact, she used it as a lever to gain support in a part of Vancouver that was ravaged by HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 90s, suggesting she favoured her terminally ill patients over big, bad, rich insurance companies. But in doing so, she advocated that the ends justify any means.
It is noted, today, that Hedy Fry is considered a "giant killer" for her defeats of Prime Minister Kim Campbell and, more recently, Svend Robinson. Given the challenges that Campbell faced in 1993 from public antipathy to the legacy of the Mulroney government and from the necessity that she maintain a national campaign while losing her seat in Vancouver, Fry's victory was no great accomplishment. In 2006, Fry was running against an equally flaky confessed criminal who, even the left-leaning voters of Vancouver Centre could not abide. Vancouverites saw Fry as one last hope to keep the CPC and Stephen Harper from a majority government and chose her over the socialist.
The Liberal leadership race needs more contestants from outside the Greater Tronto Area and, it's arguable, more females, but there is no benefit to anyone in Hedy Fry's candidature.
