Thank God for Glen R. Murray.

• Author: Atkins, Michael
• Position: PRESIDENT'S NOTE

I can hear the gnashing of teeth from Sparks Street in Ottawa to Ouellette Avenue in downtown Windsor. Yes, that would be the MPPs for the Liberal Party of Ontario. The cabinet ministers would add genuine fear to the grinding of teeth. Glen Murray has no support from his cabinet colleagues in his quest to be leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario. None. Nobody. Nada.

It gets worse. He has no support thus far from one Liberal member of Parliament. None. Nobody.

Ya gotta be special to get no support from anyone you have worked with.

Now, he 's not alone in the sparse official support category Eric Hoskins, someone I like and have worked with (a charity named War Child), only has a couple of caucus supporters thus far but he is new to the game. He is sort of a younger Gerard Kennedy (although they are actually the same age), both three years younger than Glen. Eric needs to get beat up a bit before he emerges in a few years older and wiser. Gerard just seems older.

But I digress.

Glen is unpopular for a number of reasons. First of all, he cut his political teeth elsewhere. Although born in Montreal, he was a social activist in Manitoba for years and went on to be a councillor in Winnipeg and then a popular twice-elected mayor of Winnipeg. He started to believe what people were saying about him because in 2004 he resigned as mayor and ran for the federal Liberals in Manitoba. People prefer their political leaders' ambition to be more subtle. If I lived in Winnipeg, I would never vote for him again either. You finish what you start.

After losing the federal election, Murray moved to Toronto and burrowed away on various projects until he got himself elected to the provincial Liberals in 2010.

Glen's value to us in Northern Ontario is that he is an outsider, a sort of safe rebel. As a former mayor, he gets the need to delegate power to be effective.

The other day at the Thunder Bay Liberal leaders debate, he legitimized 100 years of griping by stating clearly that Northern Ontario should have a regional government that would make decisions on a range of policies that included job training, transportation and electricity prices. I would add to that taxation policy, a variety of resource-related policies, and yes, the spring bear hunt.

His competitors...