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BY NEAL OZANO
GERALD KEDDY’S CONSTITUENTS HAVE
CASHED HIS GIANT NOVELTY CONSERVATIVE
CHEQUE.
The “no good bastards” of South Shore-
St. Margarets — a riding of few immigrants,
10.3% unemployment, and made
up of almost 20% seniors — sent him back
to the House of Commons with a 2,866vote
plurality over the NDP’s Gordon Earle.
But it was the five-term MP’s supporters
who really got their money’s worth at a
rented house in Bridgewater that served
as Gerald’s campaign office; the open bar
led to all sorts of shenanigans.
Judy Streatch, former Tory MLA and
Keddy’s ever-lovin’ wife, had to boot a gaggle
of youngsters from the bar, one of
whom might have been expert driver and
ice cream connoisseur Jordan Streatch.
After shoving out the kids, she leaned into
Gerald and said she had already twice told
ELECTION 2011
the whipper-snappers to keep their hands
off the booze.
The kids stood, shifty-eyed, away from
the bar, knowing their weasel-ways
wouldn’t get by a woman who snuck
Starbucks coffee and Perrier onto her
Community Services Department expense
account in 2008.
Later in the night, Keddy’s supporters
called for the privatization of the CBC when
their technical crew, with reporter Paul
Withers in tow, took their giant big screen
TV away.
Mothercorp had used it for the broadcast,
but took it away just as the Tories hit
their 155 majority number, leaving 60 Tories
over 60 howling at the perceived affront,
rather than accepting that none of
them was smart enough to bring a TV of
their own.
Fat mouths had all sorts of smart things
to say that night; the same fellow who
called for the CBC’s head also com-
Judy & Gerald
at party campaign
central.
South Shore Tory TV tragedy
mented, “Oh, he beat his sister!” when two
B.C.-based East Indian candidates with
obviously different last names came onto
the CBC’s news feed.
The atmosphere at Gordon Earle’s NDP
campaign office, earlier, was decidedly
different. Nobody was drunk, and everyone
was reservedly optimistic.
While trying to fish my door lock open
with a coat hanger outside Gordo’s election
party at the Bridgewater Legion, a reformed
Conservative offered to help.
“I used to be a big supporter of Gerald,
but I lost faith in him,” said the man, in his
60s, continuing the work of scraping all
the paint off my doorframe.
“That’s why I came here.”
It seemed to be a theme at Gord’s party
— people who felt Keddy let them down.
“Keddy refused to help me several
times,” said another man, wearing a Dexter
Construction hat.
neal@atlanticfrank.ca
MAY 24, 2011 FRANK MAGAZINE 7