The Wynning card

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Christmas card this year bears not your usual photo. Typically, there’s the elected member, a cheerful and long-suffering spouse of the opposite sex, a couple of cherubic kids, and the requisite Golden Lab. In Wynne’s case, this first family is like no other ever seen in Canada. In addition to Wynne’s two daughters, a son, son-in-law and two granddaughters, there’s also her female spouse, Jane Rounthwaite. The two women have been married for eight years.

It would have been oh so easy for Wynne to have used instead a portrait of herself or a still from the Liberal Party TV commercial that shows her running, alone, on a backroad. “Here are things most people don’t know about me,” says the opening line of her voiceover. Well, we knew about the gay marriage, and we were okay with that, but still, I must admit that the Christmas card did make my eyes pop.

What a refreshing change has been wrought in Ontario where eons of elected officials have hewed to custom. Now, if we could just get good government – of whatever stripe. That would be a nice change, too.