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Who knew the Dutch had so much influence in Ontario?

No, I don’t mean yours truly, but more the throng of Members of Provincial Parliament who crowded around a flagpole in front of Queen’s Park Monday morning to hoist the tricolor flag of the Netherlands, in honour of Dutch Heritage Month.

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There was Elizabeth Witmer, the former deputy premier and longtime Progressive-Conservative MPP, who turns out to be Dutch herself, chumming it up with Dutch members of the Liberal and New Democrat caucuses. This bipartisan spirit was enough to warm a cynical journalist’s heart — well, almost enough.

John Gerretsen, the attorney general of Ontario, told the assembled, “All the ministers are not here. They are working hard on our behalf.” Garfield Dunlop, the PC MPP for Simcoe North, couldn’t resist quipping, “Buying another power plant.”

Of course, the Liberals gave as good as they got.

“We may not have as many members,” said Ernie Hardeman, the PC MPP for Oxford, one of 15 children in a family who immigrated from Holland in 1952. “And we may have more work to do, but we have a lot more of our members here.”