Is the axe falling on Lisa Raitt?

Will she be canned from Pork Authority or tapped as a Tory MP candidate?

By Frank Touby –

Is the Toronto Port Authority’s top gun, Lisa Raitt, about to be canned by her reportedly split board?

Or is she about to be parachuted by the federal Tories into a riding and take the place of Loose Larry Cannon, the current disgraceful character occupying the seat at the Ministry of Transportation?

Informed sources tell The Bulletin the port authority’s current 6-member board are equally split over puttng the axe to Lisa’s pretty and competent head. That means the City of Toronto, which has indicated it will name a member to the legally 7-member board, could carry the swing vote. That won’t happen until November. But the city, which doesn’t want to recognize TPA, has decided to fill its designated seat to keep the feds from filling it with a lackey.

The port authority—a former federal Liberal boondoggle and pork barrel—has become a Tory pork barrel. Losing millions upon millions of tax dollars each year and earning the label Toronto Pork Authority, it owes Toronto millions of dollars in back taxes (or equivalent) and is a leech on city taxpayers.

Sources tell The Bulletin that it’s possible Lisa, hails from Cape Breton, could be placed on Tory tickets in that region or in Oakville, Ont., where she lives. If elected, she’d no doubt get the transportation portfolio so unably handled by Loose Larry. Then she could take vengeance—should she be so inclined—on the TPA members who gave her the axe (and a golden parachute.)

The TPA has failed to announce a date for its 2008 annual general meeting, always in warm weather, which opponents look forward to as a festival of laughs. It’s there that stoic Lisa manages to retain her dignity while posing the TPA as a legitimate and less-than-useless siphon of taxpayer funds. It’s a miniscule seaport, with a main cargo of sugar and road salt.

There’s sure to be a comedy this season as well. TPA must hold an AGM sooner rather than later. The ringmasters just haven’t settled on a date for the laughfest.