You’d be hard-pressed to go anywhere in Brockville, Ont., and find someone who doesn’t know who Steve Clark is. The career politician has served Leeds-Grenville as MPP for over 20 years and before that, he was the mayor of Brockville.
But a lifetime of politics could be completely undone as Clark deals with the aftermath of the Greenbelt scandal, over which he resigned on the weekend.
“Yeah, it is a surprise to me,” Marcel Frigault said. “I wasn’t aware of any circumstances that would lead to it, but I guess when any MPP does resign it’s certainly not a usual event.”
“He should have done it with dignity, earlier,” Mariko Boag added.
“We hate what they’re doing to the Greenbelt, having to develop it all and trying to pull dirty tricks and trade-offs and things like that,” Joanne Daley said.
While some were shocked by the news and others were relieved to hear that Clark would be stepping down, others in Brockville were quick to jump to the defence of the longtime politician.
“I support Steve all the way, 100 per cent,” David Tidbury said. “I don’t think Steve did anything wrong, I think he’s doing the honourable thing by stepping down.”
“I believe he made a mistake, probably not knowing what the other guy is doing,” Dimitru Starca added.
“Like I said, he’s probably the fall guy. Ford should have something to do with it, too, because he is in charge,” Mike Spas said.
“I question if he’s the only one that should be doing it. There’s probably other people who should be taking a fall,” Andrew Ross said.
Kingston and the Islands MPP and Ontario Liberal Leadership candidate Ted Hsu says Clark stepping down should be the beginning of a bigger domino effect leading to a public inquiry.
“So that witnesses can be called to testify under oath, and so that we could force the production of documents like emails to get to the truth,” Hsu said.
Global News tried to reach Clark at his constituency office but was told by staff that he wouldn’t be taking any media appointments.
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