Campaign Promise Countdown: 2 Down, 2 to Go

Battery plant runs down - Peterborough Examiner - Ontario, CA.

It's no wonder voters are so cynical.

As The Peterborough Examiner reported on Saturday, the battery plant that Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro announced with much fanfare five days before the federal election in October appears to have run out of charge. Some of us with non-battery powered crystal balls had predicted this outcome right from the get-go -- proof that it pays to invest in a crystal ball with a power adapter.

And it appears quite certain that the commuter train to Toronto -- another key part of the Del Mastro platform -- won't be running between Peterborough and Toronto anytime soon. The only train between Peterborough and Toronto that's even pie-in-the-sky at this point (see this November 28, 2008, Metrolink map showing that Peterborough isn't a priority for them now or anytime soon) is a route that would go via Orillia -- not exactly a convenient route for commuters looking for an alternative to the car.

But Del Mastro isn't about to see half of his campaign promises go up in flames three months after the election. (That would only leave him with his promise to change the Canadian constitution to safeguard landowner rights against government interference (a pretty tall order, that); and his election-eve announcement of a flashy plan to build a resort on Little Lake (one that might bode well for his family's tourism-industry RV business, but that isn't necessarily the best use of this key piece of land, given the kind of innovative approaches that other communities are taking to community planning these days). Del Mastro is denying that the battery plant idea is dead and he's insisting that the train is still a comin'. He's either the most optimistic man in Peterborough or....

I'll let you fill in the blanks.