Gerard Kennedy for Prime Minister

Linda Diebel, a reporter from the Toronto Star put forth a candid look at Gerard Kennedy. The article discusses the more personal side of running a campaign. Linda includes very close and private thoughts of those working on the campaign across Canada about Gerard.

`These were people who ... were going hungry. This was not supposed

to happen in Canada'-Gerard Kennedy, Liberal leadership candidate

He is seen as ambitious. The theme runs through commentary about him from friends at Queen's Park. Good friend Terry Sweeney says, "From the first day I met him, I said, some day this guy is going to be prime minister."

Staffers work tirelessly because he never takes a break. He micro-manages. Seven provincial cabinet ministers are backing Kennedy for the leadership, but Toronto Star columnist Ian Urquhart recently asked why 25 others aren't. He found a man described as a "loner" and prickly as a "cactus."

Yet many point to his kindness and the value he places on friendship. Sweeney, now a pharmaceutical industry analyst, talked Kennedy into coming to Toronto in 1986 to take over the Daily Bread Food Bank. "He's an artist, he thinks creatively and he can micro and macro-manage," says Sweeney. "He cares deeply about people and he has a clear sense of right and wrong."

Of every reason one could choose a candidate for Leader of the Liberal Party and for Prime Minister of Canada, the one feature that should dominate is, the want to make life better. Gerard shows that his primary focus is on people, and bettering their lives directly. Linda Diebel goes on further by illustrating the motivation and evidence of Gerard Kennedy's actions:

About 75 Liberals were crowded into a little house in East Van when Kennedy walked in. "So what's the value for politics of all this food bank experience?" came the first skeptical question. Kennedy talked about his 13 years with food banks in Edmonton and Toronto, for the most part as executive director. Children going hungry, three-day-old bread, tears, humiliation, family breakdown, parents yelling at their kids. He talked about it all.

"What is the relevance?" he's said to have asked. "It taught me a lesson, and I can promise you I will always fight for a basic level of human dignity."

Gerard Kennedy's intent is to make life better for Canadians and the world, he has acted in the past corresponding to that intent, and he will continue as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.