Ontario polling thread (April 18, 2012)

What did the pollster say?  Oh them.  Ha! Ha! Ha!

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/11/28/tories-could-topple-wynne-poll

It's not a poll but to understand the relentless attacks when the NDP gets good polls and particularly Andrea's great polling numbers:

The hidden history of Bob Rae's government in Ontario

Gerald Caplan

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Oct. 08 2010, 11:06 AM EDT

I am going to post most of it. It's old but good lesson here.

When the NDP won government in Ontario exactly 20 years ago, it constituted the greatest advance for social democracy in North American history.

It's true that British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba had all elected NDP governments and that progressives had won small victories in various parts of the United States. But none of them (I hope this doesn't hurt their feelings) mattered in the same way Ontario then did. It was the economic heartland of Canada, the home of much of Canada's industry and finance. What happened in Ontario impacted all Canadians. Now it was under the control of Bob Rae and the New Democrats.

Reflecting this reality, within months Mr. Rae's government faced an unrelenting, brutal four-year onslaught that was unprecedented in Canadian history.

The attacks came from all sides. It is no exaggeration to say hysterical fear-mongering and sabotage was the order of the day. Launched within the very first year of the new government, the attackers included every manner of business big and small, both Canadian and American-owned, almost all private media, the police (especially in Toronto), landlords and lobbying/government relations firms. Their goal was clear, and they had the money and power to achieve it.

They were determined to undermine the government every step of the way, to frustrate the implementation of its plans and to assure its ultimate defeat. In all three goals they were successful. The considerable achievements of the government - often forgotten or dismissed -were wrought in the face of a deep recession and ferocious obstruction.

The tactics were not necessarily subtle. Though the Soviet Union was ignominiously imploding, right-wing columnists such as Diane Francis and Barbara Amiel actually resorted to old-fashioned red baiting, smearing the government as "red" or "communist." And after the new finance minister's very first meeting with the banking community , a bank vice-president told him, in the presence of an aide: "Nice speech, Mr. Minister, but we're going to kill you." And they did.

Conrad Black was a leading executioner. Lord Black swore loudly that on principle he'd never invest in Ontario under an NDP government. Other corporate interests threatened a virtual strike of capital unless the government relented on its intentions to introduce higher business taxes and to strengthen union rights, environmental regulations and equity programs.

Mr. Rae and treasurer Floyd Laughren made themselves easily accessible to business representatives, many of whom ran Canadian branch plants of huge American multinationals, only to be threatened with capital blackmail. The premier was warned that their U.S. head offices weren't about to invest further in Ontario unless the government abandoned most of the programs it had run on.

Bond traders declared that slashing government programs to reduce the deficit was a prerequisite to Ontario borrowing at competitive rates, even though Ontario's deficit was equivalent to that of Conservative-run Alberta. Suddenly the entire media was fixated on the government's threatened credit ratings, never mind that Ontario had the only Standard & Poor's AAA rating in the country. The Social Credit government in British Columbia, the Conservatives in Alberta and Robert Bourassa's Liberals in Quebec all had lower credit ratings. Yet only in Ontario was the government threatened.

NDP government decision-makers, while innocent about so much, at least understood that the corporate world was not given to bluffing. Time after time they responded to the endless corporate blackmail by compromising on policies and commitments. In this way, they alienated many of their own followers but without ever appeasing business interests. They never could.

Some business protests bordered on the disloyal. Hysterical landlords took out an ad in The Wall Street Journal warning Americans not to invest in "leftist Ontario." Others demanded the complete repudiation by the government of its most cherished legislation, as when several coalitions of powerful business interests, managed by government relations firms such as Hill & Knowlton, demanded the NDP scrap its entire plan to amend the Labour Relations Act. This was the kind of class warfare Lenin might have admired, especially since the government had already withdrawn many of its intended changes in order to meet business criticism.

One front organization, the "All-Business Coalition," won headlines for warning that amendments the government had already disavowed would cost 450,000 jobs and cost $20-billion in investment. All the while the same groups were deliberately frightening investment away from the province.

Hostility to these fictional amendments also led to unusual solidarity among Toronto's rival newspapers. Of course hostile editorials were fully expected. Less predictable were the full-page statements in the press denouncing the labor amendments. Even more unprecedented was the delegation consisting of the publishers of all three dailies who appeared in the premier's office to express their hostility in person. The media in general played a key role in mobilizing perpetual hostility to the government, with business columnists regularly stirring up their readers while the Toronto Sun especially wallowed in the sheer joy of unrestrained excess and fabrication.

Throughout the five years of the Rae government, the Sun was its most powerful and effective foe, doing everything in its considerable power to damage the government. It repeatedly set the agenda for the entire media, even though competing reporters knew much of it was sheer hooey. The Sun gleefully sensationalized embarrassing facts, mere rumors, vicious innuendos and obvious lies, with no attempt to discriminate among them.

Perhaps the most chilling and underestimated of the government's enemies were the Toronto police, whose actions at times bordered dangerously on virtual insubordination against the civilian authorities. Here too certain newspapers and radio commentators repeatedly and deliberately inflamed angry officers against the government. Most successful was the Sun's ongoing, systematic campaign to drive a wedge between the government and the Toronto police force, sometimes with the collusion of the police themselves.

The Sun and senior Toronto police officials maintained a troubling relationship. In one particularly outrageous episode, they colluded in smearing an NDP appointee to the police board on the very evening of her swearing-in. The Sun published intimate information on the appointee that could come, many thought, only from the office of the chief. Sun readers then began their 1991 Victoria Day weekend with a huge banner headline proclaiming "COP COMMISSIONER PART OF OPP PROBE". The story claimed the new appointee had been discovered in a car in the middle of the night with a very shady operator connected to an even shadier operator.

It was a blatant frame-up. On Victoria Day itself, the Sun came clean . They publicly acknowledged the sheerimpossibility of anyone confusing the police commission member with the real passenger the OPP had found in the car. A Sun reporter described an "undeclared but very real state of war that exists between the new, NDP-appointed members of the police board and the great majority of the Metro [Toronto]force." But that was pure mischief. The only war was the one the Sun was methodically fomenting.

The government introduced regulations that substituted the Constitution for the Queen in the oath that cops had to swear. Many media swiftly exploited the occasion to further exacerbate tensions between the police and the NDP. Yet the change had actually been initiated by the previous Liberal government and had been recommended by a committee consisting mainly of police. Their work had been completed when the NDP took office; the Rae government was simply implementing their recommendations.

I documented these facts publicly after interviewing numerous police reps, every one of whom supported the new oath. Nor could they see what the big deal was about. I asked the Toronto Sun, CFRB radio and CFTO-TV, who had most flagrantly misled the public on the issue, to demonstrate good faith by apologizing. Not one admitted the slightest fault. Good faith was in short supply in those years.

There are a world of studies yet to be written about the Ontario NDP's difficult and controversial years in office, none more important than the nature of the saboteurs who organized their very own Ontario coup. This includes much of the business community, government relations firms, the media and the police. There are lessons to learn here about the limits of left-wing politics in Canada. None of them are encouraging if you are a left-winger.

Ontario Liberals in hot seat in wake of spending scandal

A new poll reveals that Ontarians want an election called in wake of the gas plant scandal.

http://www.torontosun.com/videos/3193328422001#2780895450001

Ipsos Reid today:

Andrea Horwath would make best leader for Ontario.

And the Liberal brand is in trouble.

Bricker says NDP has a definite chance at forming the government.

And he says that Hudak does not have a lot of room to grow.

Brachina wrote:

 I'm curious if any of the blow back will land on Justin Trudeau and the Federal Liberals.

Did Justin (It-For-Me) Trudeau campaign for either of the Liberal candidates in Windsor-Tecumseh and/or London West in last fall's by-elections?

If so, that information should be shared every time Justin (It-For-Me) Trudeau's name gets mentioned as the 'Saviour Of The Liberal Party' by anyone who hasn't yet seen through his facade.

 Justin did a robo call in Kitchener Waterloo t no effect in that campaign as well, although that was before he was leader. 

Brachina wrote:

http://warrenkinsella.com/2014/02/ipsos-ontario-liberal-support-is-soft-...

Warren Kinesella thinks the Provincial Liberals are screwed. When you factor in just likely voters the NDP goes up to 34% the PC 37% (yuck), and the Liberals drop to 27%. I'm curious if any of the blow back will land on Justin Trudeau and the Federal Liberals.

Warren Kinsella is not a Liberal; he is a paid-up member of the Warren Kinsella Party.  He thinks the Provincial Liberals are screwed because they didn't do what he told them to do (elect Sandra Pupatello as leader) and because they aren't letting him and his friends run the party (for a fee, of course).  If Pupatello was leader, would Warren have allowed a single nice word about Horwath to pass his lips?  Not a chance!

Like Chretien, another three-time winner, McGuinty left office trailing a huge stench of corruption and mismanagement.  If Pupatello had won, she would have gone straight into a provincial election that would have handed Tea Party Timmy a majority government on a silver platter.  Kathleen Wynne has spent an entire year doing a very good job of polishing the turd that is the Ontario Liberal government.  She may not come out of this on top, but by mending fences with the unions, particularly her attack dogs in the Working Families Coalition, she has given the Liberals a fighting chance to hold on to power.

Ipsos: Ontario Liberal support is soft as butter  

http://warrenkinsella.com/2014/02/ipsos-ontario-liberal-support-is-soft-...

Forgive me, I'm not an Ontarian and know little about current Ontario politics (especially of the Liberal variety), but was Pupatello generally considered the right-wing or blue Liberal candidate in the OLP leadership race? And was Wynne the more left-wing candidate? In his blog Kinsella called Wynne a New Democrat at heart. I doubt that, but she seems to have put a slightly more leftist spin on the Ontario government what with her putting the breaks on the ONTC sell-off and championing a provinical pension scheme. Is this an accurate characterization or am I off-base here?

PrairieDemocrat15 wrote:

Forgive me, I'm not an Ontarian and know little about current Ontario politics (especially of the Liberal variety), but was Pupatello generally considered the right-wing or blue Liberal candidate in the OLP leadership race? And was Wynne the more left-wing candidate?

Correct.  Wynne was considered the left liberal choice, and Pupatello the right liberal choice. 

There's been a new poll.  link

Quote:

The Progressive Conservatives, led by Tim Hudak, were at 35 per cent; Premier Kathleen Wynne’s governing minority Liberals at 32 per cent; the New Democrats, led by Anrea Horwath, were at 26 per cent; and Mike Schreiner’s Green Party was at 6 per cent.

Various policy planks were looked at too:

Minimum wage:

Quote:

Wynne’s plan to raise the minimum wage from $10.25 to $11 as of June 1 was backed by 77 per cent of respondents, while 18 per cent disapprove and 5 per cent don’t know.

Horwath’s pledge to raise the hourly rate to $12 by 2016 was supported by 53 per cent while 34 per cent said $11 is fine and 14 per cent were unsure.

Pensions:

Quote:

The premier’s proposal for an Ontario pension plan to supplement the Canada Pension Plan, expected to be a cornerstone of the Liberal re-election campaign, was backed by 53 per cent, while 27 per cent disapproved and 19 per cent didn’t know.

Liberal transit fees and flat taxes:

Quote:

But Wynne’s pitch to fund transit infrastructure through new taxes and fees appeared to be divisive with 41 per cent agreeing, 42 per cent disagreeing, and 16 per cent uncertain.

Hudak's pondering on "right to work" and doing away with the Rand formula:

Quote:

The Conservative leader on Friday renounced his party’s controversial “right-to-work” policy, which would have scrapped the Rand Formula that requires employees in a unionized workplace to pay dues even if they choose not to join the union.

But Forum found 62 per cent disapproved of the Rand Formula while 24 per cent approved of it and 13 per cent didn’t know.

At the same time, 42 per cent approved of “right-to-work” laws and 40 per cent opposed them with 18 per cent undecided.

Opinions were split on Hudak’s flip-flop – 39 per cent backed the Conservatives’ policy U-turn and 31 per cent disagreed with it and 31 per cent were uncertain.

“They got spooked in Niagara Falls,” Bozinoff said, referring to the Tories’ narrow loss to the NDP in the Feb. 13 byelection after unions rallied against the right-to-work policy.

It's a great victory of both the NDP and the unions to scare the Conservatives away from pursuing the "right to work" stuff.

The NDP is still in striking distance.  Hopefully polling for them will improve.

The new numbers from Nanos Research put Premier Kathleen Wynne’s party at 36 per cent, unchanged from January. Tim Hudak’s PCs are up five points to 33 while Andrea Horwath’s NDP are statistically unchanged – down two to 25.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tight-race-looms-between-on...

To hell with polls.  I resolve not to look at 'em anymore.

 This reeks of a bullshit push poll. TS federally had the NDP with a strong lead and that's with Trudeau mania and before the scandal, for the NDP to be that far back from Wynn would require a huge scandal on Horwaths part. This is a poll from the Liberal Party that some how found its way into the Liberal loving Toronto Star's hand by what accident. Fuck what happened to Journalist ethics or even basic intelligence at the Star.

 Yeah I'm still shocked and disgusted the Star did that its one of the most embarrassing and unpfofessional things the star has ever done.

Do you trust this pollster?

PCs - 36%

Libs - 36%

NDP - 22%

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-ndp-support-down-pc...

New poll shows NDP slipping.  link

 One pollster has the NDP at 21%, another at 32%, one pollster had the tories in last just days ago, and now they're in first.

Poll chasing should have thier own detox centres and rehab facilities.

 None of this matters, who wins and who loses is not decided in polls its decided on the campaign trail.

NorthReport wrote:

Another day, another poll

PCs - 37%

Libs - 32%

NDP - 32%

But can you trust the pollster? 

I think the poll North Report was referring to was the Ipsos Reid poll which had the NDP at 27%, not 32%. 

Quote:

 

If a provincial election were held tomorrow, the Progressive Conservatives under Tim Hudak would receive 37% support among decided voters (up 3 points), while Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals would receive 32% of the vote (up 1 point). Andrea Horwath and her NDP are very much in the hunt at 27% support (down 4 points), while some other party (including the Green Party) would receive 5% of the vote (up 1 point). Two in ten (20%) Ontarians remain undecided, which is a very high percentage.

With a relatively tight national race among the three major parties, each party draws its core support from different areas of the province.

• The Liberals (40%) show the most strength in Toronto proper (416 area code), followed by the NDP (33%), the PCs (24%), and others (4%).
• In the equally seat-rich 905 area code of the GTA, the Tories (47%) have a commanding lead over the Liberals (27%), NDP (21%) and others (5%).
• In Southwestern Ontario, the race is tighter, but the PCs (37%) have built a lead over the Liberals (30%), NDP (27%) and others (5%). This is where the movement has occurred. In Ipsos’ last poll in February, the NDP (43%) were well up on the Liberals (29%) and the Tories (22%).
• In Eastern Ontario, the Tories (39%) also lead the Grits (34%), NDP (24%) and others (3%).
• In Northern Ontario, the NDP (43%) have a clear advantage over the Liberals (31%), PCs (18%) and others (8%).

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=6479

Another day, another poll

PCs - 37%

Libs - 32%

NDP - 27%

But can you trust the pollster?

Frank Grave's ploy has obvioiusly backfired on him.  

For some of us in Toronto (well those who live in Trinity-Spadina & Scarborough-Agincourt) we will be having THREE elections. This provincial one, an upcoming federal by-election and the muncipal one in October.

Trinity-Spadina & Scarborough-Agincourt is the lucky recipient to be voting three times in all three levels of government in a six month period.

The Toronto Star and the CBC failed in their attempt to convince Andrea  to support their beloved Liberals.

If the media can be so slanted in their support of a political party, the same can be said for pollsters, and any polls that come out at the very beginning of a campaign are often very misleading, if not downright wrong. 

http://www.threehundredeight.com/search/label/Ontario

A new Forum Research poll has Tim Hudak’s PCs at  38 per cent, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals at 33, Andrea Horwath’s New  Democrats at 22

While the Progressive Conservatives lead in the Forum Research survey,  the Liberals are poised to form another minority government due to the  efficiency of their vote.

“The Tories need to  get over 40 per cent for a lot of seats to fall their way,” he said. “It  appears the Tories could pick up a few Liberal seats, but the Liberals  are going to pick up a few urban New Democrats’ seats.”

The pollster said he was “really surprised at the hit that Andrea Horwath has taken in personal approval.”

Horwath came in at 36  per cent in the new poll, compared to 34 per cent for Wynne and 26 per  cent for Hudak. However, in last month’s Forum poll, she was at 40 per  cent. (Wynne was at 34 per cent and Hudak at 27 per cent.)

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/05/04/ontario_poll_tories_le...

However Forum is the same research pollsters that said Wildrose would sweep AB and the NDP would do the same in BC, Neither happened and their interactive voice response polling has been subject to both scrutiny and criticism.

It's early yet.