Letter: Liberals unworthy of Andrew Olivier

I am not a Liberal, far from it. But as of late, I am quite happy not to be.

The story surrounding the Glenn Thibeault-Andrew Olivier affair should make Sudburians take notice.

On one hand, we have Olivier, who was offered a job in exchange for standing down from what, ostensibly, was an open nomination process. Olivier was within striking distance of the Sudbury MPP seat in the recent provincial election.

Most importantly, he seemed to be a man of integrity — I was impressed that he seemed to be in politics for the right reasons, even if his party was, in my view, misguided.

Olivier has proven himself to be the man of substance and integrity that our city caught a glimpse of during the election. Olivier claims that on three separate occasions, he was offered a patronage position to stand down and allow our esteemed federal NDP MP to seek the provincial Liberal nomination. He refused.

He first refused Gerry Lougheed Jr., and then the premier herself. On balance, there seems to be little motive for Olivier to lie about any of this. Olivier bucked the wishes of the powers-that-be in the Liberal Party locally and provincially.

Those powers probably did not count on Olivier, a man who doesn’t treat politics like a game of chess, but rather as the noble pursuit that it should be.

On the other hand, we have Glenn Thibeault. By all accounts Thibeault is an honest and hard-working guy. But his judgement should be fundamentally questioned on his floor crossing, and his involvement with the Wynne Liberals.

How can Thibeault feel comfortable associating himself with people who will pay people off to rig a nomination? How can he feel comfortable simply stepping over Olivier, taking him to be a casualty of the chess game? He should have to stand up and justify what happened to the people of Sudbury.

In many ways, if you contrast Olivier with the other players in this sordid affair, he is too good, too principled for the party whose nomination he was seeking. Perhaps that is why they wanted him to step aside in the first place.

Mark Mancini
Sudbury