Ontario election 2011 - pre-campaign thread

I had to unfollow Adam Goldenberg because he is just too obnoxious

The Liberals have had another oops, having to cancel a $420,000 contact for someone to select art for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line.

As if there weren't artists and other art experts who'd do that for a fraction of the cost.

Wow an awful lot of that sounds like Grant Robertson from Huron-Bruce, even the language reminds me of his old weekly commentary series when he was head of the NFU.  Wonder why he didn't get the nod for the release, especially since two of the last three Agriculture Ministers come from this riding.   Hope they rectify that with a leader's stop during the campaign.  

Well to be fair Taras Natyshak is a fairly easy name to stumble over- to the exent that Taras put out a pretty funny video in the federal election.

After reading the OMAFRA bit again I am more convinced than ever that Grant Robertson's finger prints are all over- what to be honest is the first decent ag platform I have ever seen out of the NDP- and that he is due at least one campaign stop, no matter how many times Horwath comes here before the election.

I noticed that very same ad at the corner of Yonge and Finch in Toronto, except replaced by David Zimmer (Willowdale MPP). Notice how the MPP's name is helpfully coloured Liberal burgundy. Note also how neither the Government of Ontario logo nor the Ontario Liberal Party logo appears, thus making it very far from clear who paid for these ads.

I also don't think Willowdale has been the only riding getting a newsletter from their Liberal MPP in both July and August this year (after months of zero newsletters) is at all a coincidence. This is as shameless as it is obvious.

Walking through Rosedale and More Park today and I'm noticing a lot of "Stop the Quarry" signs. At first I was surprised but on second thought preserving the countryside is a very Red Tory issue. Most of those old money families have "farms" in Caledon.

Dufferin-Caledonians who vote Tory are a combination of old WASP Ontario (minority and in the country) and new Harper Conservatives (in places like Bolton and new suburbs)

The WASP conservatives in Dufferin are leading the charge against the quarry.

Rosedale and More Park (and Lawrence Park lots of signs there too) are the last bastions of WASP Toronto and they do vote Liberal as well as Tory... wonder what this could mean for the NDP if those Blue Grits move over to the Tories and start splitting the vote.

Could we see a 1990 again?

Could St Paul's and Don Valley West go blue and Toronto Centre go orange???

Anonymouse wrote:

PCs probably can't win Toronto Centre unless there is a crazy 3-way split; could PC polling indicate the NDP are the front-runners in Toronto Centre?

I'll buy packing peanuts for Glen Murray. Who's got tape?

Any word on whether Pam Taylor is helping the PCs out this time? Or is she still persona non grata over her antics on the Andy Barrie show?

This may get interesting. From the Toronto Star today:

Ontario is on the cusp of a lively provincial election that any major party leader could win, a new Toronto Star-Angus Reid Public Opinion poll suggests.

With the Oct. 6 campaign officially kicking off next Wednesday, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is at 38 per cent, Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is at 31 per cent and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is at 24 per cent. Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner trails with 6 per cent.

"This race is still very much up in the air," Jaideep Mukerji, managing director at Angus Reid, said Tuesday.

"The Tories clearly have an edge, but it is conceivable that any one of the parties could pull ahead," said Mukerji, emphasizing one especially ominous finding in the poll for the governing Liberals: 56 per cent of voters feel it is time for a new government.

"There's really an overwhelming desire for change in the province right now," he said.

Only 24 per cent said the Liberals should be re-elected with 20 per cent responding that they were unsure if there's a need for change.

List of so-far nominated candidates is up... i'm happy to see that!

http://ontariondp.com/en/candidates

The campaigns has been slow to kick off.  But I suspect next week there's going to be all sorts of action starting up.  

Or not.

There are entrenched Con candidates in Oxford, Haldimand Norfolk, Hardeman and Barrett.  I don't expect change in those ridings.  I haven't been following London that closely.  But Ramal has strong support in London-Fanshawe.  Deb Matthews isn't doing that bad after being handed the health care hot potatoe.  

But Steve Peters is gone in Elgin and he was in there mainly because of his iron-clad support from people in St Thomas who remember him keeping his job bagging groceries when he became the youngest mayor in Canada (Ontari0?).  Pupatello isn't running in Windsor-West.  The PCs were openly courting Windsor Mayor Eddie Francais (he bluntly turned down the Libs).

I'd say those are two ridings to watch in the southwest: Elgin and Windsor West.  They are up for grabs.

Hudak doesn't appear to have to same sort of conservative edge to his stump, yet.   

PCs 35% Lib 30% NDP 26%

Forum Poll

Farmpunk wrote:

There are entrenched Con candidates in Oxford, Haldimand Norfolk, Hardeman and Barrett.  I don't expect change in those ridings.  I haven't been following London that closely.  But Ramal has strong support in London-Fanshawe.  Deb Matthews isn't doing that bad after being handed the health care hot potatoe.

Given how the Grits are doing provincially, Ramal's "strong support" ain't likely to be strong enough (and given the federal representation, it's obviously low-hanging NDP fruit, though I'd rather strategically see it as a three-way).

Quote:

I'd say those are two ridings to watch in the southwest: Elgin and Windsor West.  They are up for grabs.

Besides the already-mentioned Essex, I don't see why Dwight Duncan's Windsor-Tecumseh should be out of the picture--esp. considering how Dave Cooke used to be bombproof there.  For giant-killer fetishists, he ought to be plainly in the crosshairs.

And don't forget in between Windsor and London: Chatham-Kent Essex (Pat Hoy retiring; Con federally w/Grit in third) and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex (which probably already would have switched in 2007 were John Tory not so unappetizingly blue-blood-Torontonian a PC leader)

2Gyor wrote:

Howard wrote:

PCs 35% Lib 30% NDP 26%

Forum Poll

Hudak has no charisma and Andrea is still a relatively unknow and Mcguinity has been only challenged to date in adds on being the "Tax Man", yet if you look at the desire for change, only 24 percent of the liberals 30 persent believe he actually deserves to be reelected. A large portion of the Liberal vote is just parked there for now. Even some of Hudak's vote could taken by the NDP as he's not catching on. Andrea is the most charismatic leader and the only one willing to protect the economy.

And thats why you will only see one debate... Andrea is untested, and so is Hudak. BUT Andrea is far more, as you say, charasmatic. More importantly shes the most likeable and real of the three. Dalton will be either in defense mode or aggressive fearmonger/mud-slinger mode.

There's a contested nomination in Thornhill:

Quote:

A battle is brewing among Thornhill NDP supporters over who will represent the party in the upcoming provincial election.
Simon Strelchik, a long-time Thornhill resident who ran at the federal level for the NDP in May, is faced with a challenge for the provincial candidacy by Barry Weisleder, 58, a Toronto-based substitute teacher and writer/editor who joined the New Democrats 43 years ago. 

http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/1074149--two-vie-for-thornhill-nd...

The link was broke, but just going to the site gives you a story about how he won.   So it looks like locals supported him. If he was allowed to run he must have passed the vetting process.  

 I don't know who he is from a hole in the ground, but if he is a loose cannon, someone better reign him in if it threatens other campaigns, such as the one in my riding, because the NDP has to focus on damage control instead of the other parties and its own message.    The days are gone where a controvesy in one riding doesn't spill over into all others.

Same guy?

http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/ndp-brass-treads-water-halifax-no-new-name-no-new-policies

Having Barry Weisleder and Bernie Farber in the same race will be very entertaining from a babble POV.

Stockholm wrote:

I can already see where this is leading. Weisleder lives in downtown Toronto and has no ties whatsoever to Thornhill. The only reason he wants to run there is because he's fanatically anti-Israel and so he wants to run in a heavily Jewish riding that way he create as much controversy as possible, draw attention to himself and ideally to incite disturbances at all-candidates meetings etc...The ONDP would dodge a hube bullet and save itself from being taken wayyyy off message by his rants if they immediately disallow his candidacy.

Maybe we should remove the word "Democratic" from the party name as well?   Love him or not Weisleder won the nomination in a democratic contest.

He has used whatever is left of the internal democratic structures of the party to advocate a point of view.  That's something that's quite admirable in many ways because alot of good political and social activists have just sorta said "fuck it" and turned away from the NDP.

He's also running in a riding represented by a Tory who brought forward a motion in the legislature that was an attempt to suppress the free speech rights of Ontario university students.   Not giving a rats ass about the freedom of speech of Ontario student activists isn't exactly the  message you want to send to these young people.    Ideally, I think one would want to attract this youthful energy to the NDP.

Israel/Palestine may not be a "provincial issue" as such, but the democratic right of Ontario university students to debate this and other issues very much is a provincial issue.

As well, seeing a relatively good turnout and a contested nomination meeting in a marginal riding like Thornhill is also a good thing.

So my best wishes to Barry in his campaign in Thornhill.

Fidel, young people aren't saying "fuck it" to any of those issues.    In fact they're very involved in exactly the issues you mention.  What they are saying "fuck it" to is getting involved in the NDP and in electoral politics in general.  You don't encourage them to get involved in electoral politics by being anti-democratic control freaks.

Edited to add:  

There are sitting members of NDP caucuses that I don't like all that much but I'm not suggesting, as Stockholm is, that they be removed as candidates.