Your name is Erin O’Toole. You are a patriot. And a damn good soldier. You are also doomed.
You had aspirations to lead the country to greater glory. Your party betrayed your ambition. You are a political leader with no future to speak of—until now.
The facts as they are (as of this writing):
The prime minister has been relocated. First, the story was his kids were sick with the plague. When that story didn’t wash with the great unwashed, the truth became known that a security nightmare was responsible for his heading for the hills (or wherever).
You are Erin O’Toole. You have been trained to lead in a fog of uncertainty. And escalating events on Parliament Hill look to be getting out of hand. Ugly truths are making themselves apparent when a crowd gets whipped up, a gun goes off, screams all around, and next thing you know there is a ‘situation’.
Erin O’Toole this is your moment. History will remember you – not as the leader of a failed political party, but as the man who called upon an angry mob, faced them square, and led the country away from the kind of events plaguing our neighbour to the south.
Think of it this way:
There are two forces in a dark room. You, Capt. O’Toole and an angry mob. In the middle of that dark room, separating you from them is a table. On the table: a knife and a burning candle.
What happens next is up to you, sir.
We recommend you blow out the candle.
This column is the consensus opinion of the writers Donna Kennedy-Glans & Don Hill. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to BEYOND POLARITY — scroll down on your phone or tablet, or look to the right in the panel beside this post. Enter your email to FOLLOW, a wheel spins, hamsters get fed.