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Re: Letter to the editor, Why I'm voting for Gordon Prentice for deputy mayor, Oct. 16, 2022
Why I’m not voting for Gordon Prentice for deputy mayor: Newmarket is a great and safe place to live. We have amazing walking trails, great local facilities, and a vibrant downtown area. This is due in large part to the town councils of the past 20 years, councils of which Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor Tom Vegh was a part. I have lived in Newmarket for over three-and-a-half decades and I have witnessed Newmarket coming into its own first-hand.
I will not vote for Gordon Prentice in this election because I think he has shown himself to be fundamentally unfit for the position of deputy mayor and regional councillor. Mr. Prentice offers no positive vision for Newmarket’s future. What few ideas he does present are not good. Does Mr. Prentice not understand that GO Trains fall under provincial jurisdiction? Does he not realize that ridership cannot currently support trains every 15 minutes? Does he not realize that stopping traffic on Davis and Mulock four times each hour will seriously impact traffic on those routes?
Mr. Prentice has an unhealthy obsession with his opponent, Mr. Vegh. On his blog, he photoshops Mr. Vegh into images with tyrants. He also uses violent language to describe hypothetical interactions with Mr. Vegh (the word eviscerate means to disembowel).
Mr. Prentice consistently casts Mr. Vegh in the worst possible, often unfair light while also explaining away his own expenses scandal during his time as an MP in the U.K., where he expensed household cleaning supplies and groceries to his Parliamentary office. Oddly, despite the standards he sets for others, Mr. Prentice was unavailable to comment on his expenses when asked by his local U.K. newspaper. Mr. Prentice has not shown himself to be trustworthy or forthright.
I have had my own personal interaction with Mr. Prentice and it was, frankly, very strange. At my door, he didn’t offer me any positive reasons to vote for him. Instead, he was singularly interested in being able to put a campaign sign on my lawn. I did not allow the sign but I can imagine other residents allowing one to simply have him leave their doorstep.
I would suggest “going on Google and checking out Gordon Prentice Newmarket Ontario”. There you will find an axe-grinding blogger less interested in continuing the growth we’ve experienced here in Newmarket over the past two decades and more interested in slinging mud and engaging in tabloid-style politics. We should not be giving any oxygen to Mr. Prentice’s style of politics here in Newmarket, let alone rewarding it with our votes.
William Dyer, Newmarket
