Kathleen Wynne

We folks here in Ontario have just gone through a leadership contest to choose a new boss for the ruling Liberal Party, which has been in power under Premier Dalton McGuinty since 2003.

McGuinty started well, with a big lead in the legislature (still less than half the votes though), but a series of missteps, blunders, and wasted money, led to him losing his majority by one seat in the 2011 election. He bought off a Conservative, hoping to win her seat, but lost the by-election to the NDP. Swimming in scandal and self-doubt, he suddenly resigned in mid-October and prorogued the Legislature, which resulted in the just-concluded leadership race.

Sandra Pupatello, a centre-right candidate like McGuinty, but with more personality, sat out the last election and so could claim to have clean hands when it came to most of the scandals. But she also lacked a seat in the Legislature and would have had to lean on someone in her party to resign so she could run. There was also the prorogation problem. Pupatello said most Ontarians didn't care, but waiting another three months for the Legislature to sit was seen as a problem. However, she had the most votes going in, and in fact led on the first two rounds of voting.

But then a surprising thing happened: weaker candidates, and the party brass, shifted to the close second-place candidate, Kathleen Wynne, on the third ballot, making her the eventual winner.

Kathleen Wynne is an interesting choice for the Liberals. A Toronto school board trustee prior to entering Ontario politics, Wynne did do so in a big way, defeating Conservative cabinet minister David Turnbull in 2003 and Conservative leader John Tory in 2007. She was minister of Education, Transportation, and most recently, minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. She is gay and from Toronto, two factors that most of the "experts" saw as points against her.

Since winning the Liberal leadership, she has been saying all the right things: reaching across the aisle to the leaders of the other two parties in the Legislature, Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath; meeting with the teachers' leadership with whom the Liberals have had a stormy relationship the past year; speaking out on Toronto's crippling traffic problems; and pledging progress on social issues.

So far she has raised the Liberals slightly in the polls, but it's been only a week and she won't face any big issues until after she takes power officially on February 11. She laughed-off Conservative attack ads on the radio, and seems inclined to make peace with the NDP's Horwath. But the NDP has much to fear from a re-energized Liberal party, and might not be willing to play along. And there's still the ORNGE and the power station brouhahas to be gotten through. How she handles these will determine whether she wins the next election, or is an opposition leader.

Hey, It’s Been a While

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Almost six months since I wrote my last blog post. I'm still having trouble with this darn keyboard. About one typing error for every five words, in fact. And my left foot gives me problems. And when I get excited, I can't remember words. But other than that, I'm doing great.

I exercise about an hour and a half to two hours a day.

The atrial fibrillation diagnosis I had in July has held up and I tolerate the medication well. It turns out that atrial fib is related to sleep apnea so I've been getting sleep tested and fitted for one of those machines. It's very quiet though: the cat sleeps on my chest while it runs. So life goes on.

But I've also been busy in other areas of my life.

Late November saw us on a road trip to Savannah, GA. It's some place I've long wanted to see. We took three days to drive down and three days to drive back, since I'm not driving any more. That was hard at times.

We toured the old, historic city; drank in its bars, ate in its restaurants; and stopped in Myrtle Beach for some early Christmas shopping on the way home.

And then at New Years, we flew to Los Angeles for the wedding of my cousin's oldest son. The weather was in the 60's Fahrenheit and we also took my mom for the occasion. We saw my uncles and the ocean. The Atlantic and the Pacific together in little over a month. It was good.

So this post is keeping a promise I made last Friday evening, that I would get back to writing my blog. I checked the stats on it earlier today and was surprised that, on average, eight people a day are still visiting it. Can't let my loyal readers down, can I?

Making Progress

Well, it's been almost exactly two months since I had my stroke, and I'm feeling a lot better.

About half the days I don't nap anymore, but I still sleep at least eight or nine hours each night. I'm going to the Whitby Hospital for therapy once a week and making progress there, too. Mostly we work on problem-solving such as math or "executive-decision making". That's all about planning and organizing activities.

Two weeks ago, I had a very busy week: I saw six doctors in four days. I was pretty tired for several days afterwards. But what I found out was that (probably) the reason for my stroke was "atrial fibrillation". That means that, instead of pumping blood, the top two chambers in my heart were mixing it around, but only occasionally. This can lead to the formation of strokes. We discovered this in my cardiologist's office. He put me on a blood thinner right away. A neurologist that I saw in Toronto the following week confirmed this.

I still have to go for an MRI, and that's on August 10. Then it's back to my original neurologist in Oshawa the first week of September for a reading of it. But if everything is clear, I should be well on the mend by then.

One sad thing that I learned in all of my visits to the doctors was that I can no longer drive. This, believe it or not, is a result of the stroke that I had four and a half years ago. That one affected my vision and my eye doctor told me about it only then. He thought someone else would have mentioned it before now! So, he says, from now on, I'm a passenger.

But, I'm alive and well, and that's the main thing right now.

Follow me on Twitter: @AeneasLane

Having My Stroke

When I had my stroke, at first I didn't realize what was happening to me.

I woke up that morning and started to try to complete my exercises with my left foot, which I had hurt several months before and for which I had been receiving physiotherapy.

But I had serious trouble with those exercises and I woke up my wife. She could tell I was having trouble. She asked me some questions and called an ambulance.

When they arrived, they assessed me and decided to take me to the hospital.

The whole time, I remember feeling slightly out of phase. I was aware that I was in trouble, but not terribly concerned.

Follow me on Twitter: @AeneasLane

A New Beginning

Three and a half weeks ago I had a stroke.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, and with help and support I'll make it back.

For those of you who've offered me help and support, thank you.

Follow me at: Aeneas Lane