E.R. Campbell said:
There's a rumour floating around out there ~ it surfaced on TVO's The Agenda and Paul Wells of Maclean's said, almost immediately, no way, José ~ that Prime Minister Harper will offer Olivia Chow a prestigious appointment that will allow her to advance her own social agenda: say Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
Here's what The Agenda's Steve Pakin had to say on his TVO blog:
"Here's the "something else." David C. Onley's tenure as Ontario Lieutenant-Governor is coming to an end later this month. Lieutenant-Governors are appointed by the prime minister. I'm told Chow has been offered the job by Prime Minister Harper.
In truth, it's a very clever offer. Chow is a terrific "people person," and would do an excellent job as LG. She would also make history as the first lieutenant-governor of Asian descent (although not the first female LG. That was Pauline McGibbon, appointed in 1974).
If Chow accepted the appointment, that would dramatically simplify Ford's efforts to win re-election, since Tory, Stintz, Minnan-Wong, and Soknacki are all essentially from the same part of the political spectrum as Ford. In fact, one of John Tory's supporters says
a Tory mayoralty would be akin to "Ford's fiscal conservatism without the freak show."
Without a strong centre-left candidate in the race, all those other would-be candidates will split the centre-right vote with Ford, who no doubt thinks he can count on his loyal supporters to win that fight."
Source: http://theagenda.tvo.org/blog/agenda-blogs/heres-how-stephen-harper-can-help-rob-ford