Townsman, 1991-02, Page 5Paul Klopp sits in his constituency office that's so new he doesn't have a desk.
Innocents
in Queen's Park
Rookie MPPs discover
the realities of being in power
By Keith Rovlston
September 6. 1990: It's hard to
tell if that low rumbling heard
across the province of Ontario is an
undetected earthquake, the hoof-
beats of the advancing "socialists
hordes" or the bodies of Tong -dead
Liberals and Tories rolling in their
graves. By the morning of Sept. 7,
however, the reality is beginning to
sink in: Ontario has elected a New
Democratic Party government for
the first time in its history, turfing
out the Liberals who seemed too
invincible when the election cam-
paign started only weeks earlier.
Nowhere were the shock waves
stronger than in western Ontario,
the former stronghold of the Liberal
government. In the four counties of
Bruce, Grey, Huron and Perth only
Bruce's Murray Elston represents
the Liberals in the new legislature.
In Huron and Perth where two
pillars of the party, Jack Riddell and
Hugh Edighoffer retired with the
calling of the election, the NDP is
represented by two excited, fresh-
TOWNSMAN/FEBRUARY-MARCH 1991 3