SHELBURNE, Ont. – For 21 years, this was Perrin Beatty country, a Progressive Conservative fiefdom like few others.
He was elected at age 22 in 1972 as MP for Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Simcoe, re-elected five times, became a senior cabinet member under three Tory prime ministers and a potential party leader.
In 1993, Beatty fell victim to voter anger at the Conservatives and rise of the Reform party. The Liberals won the riding for the first time.
Beatty lost by almost 2,000 votes to chicken farmer Murray Calder. Later, the Liberals appointed Beatty as CBC president with a mandate to oversee sharp cuts in the budget of the public broadcaster.
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In this election, Tory candidate Eleanor Taylor does not mention his name.
She worked for Beatty for 12 years and yet her promotional material says only that she worked for “a federal MP.” Later, she names the provincial Conservative with whom she worked.
It is a part of history that Calder says is key to his re-election chances.
“I don’t have to talk about that,” he said in an interview. “I stress my record. But I do not deny I need an opposition split again to win. I would say the Conservatives and Reform are running even this time. That’s fine with me.”
For Reform candidate Dave Davies, a former sheep farmer and local school board trustee, the campaign is based on promises of budget cuts and making MPs more accountable through voter recall.
But he concedes the legacy of voter anger against the last Conservative government, represented by Beatty, may be a bonus for him.
“I hear from voters that the Conservative candidate was a staffer for Perrin Beatty and I hear that targeted as a negative,” he said. “I’ll take the protest vote but I’m not trying to motivate it.”
