Ontario polling thread (April 18, 2012)

Just yesterday you were sayiing that City Council had the Ford agenda under control. Now the city government is Tory blue.

I can't get a handle on any of these polls so far, or who has what momentum--PCs?  Grits?  Wait & see?  (But one possible tilt in the Grits favour is their endorsement by Hazel McCallion.  Scoff if you must: but she's a fair barometer.)

Updated

So both the Liberals and the NDP drop, which the PCs plow on ahead.

Bad as some people think his policies are, Hudak is obviously resonating with a lot of voters, and picking up a bit of steam, at least so far.

A couple of good pollsters missing from the mix, with good track records are Angus Reid / Vision Critical and Environics . Although not current, I have added of what appears to be Environics most recent Ontario polls at trhe end.

Date / Pollster / PCs / Libs / NDP / Connections

2011 / GE / 35% / 38% / 23%

May 14 / Ipsos Reid / 37% / 30% / 24% / Leans a bit Right / Bricker / Fairly Reliable

May 13 / Forum / 33% / 38% / 21% / Liberal or Flake / Bozinoff / Disregard

May 8 / Ipsos Reid / 35% / 31% / 28% / Leans a bit Right / Bricker / Fairly Reliable

May 6 / Innov / 33% / 39% / 20% / Liberal  / Lyle / Disregard

May 5 / Oracle / 42% / 31% / 25% /  PCs / 

May 3 / Forum / 38% / 33% / 22% /   / Liberal or Flake/ Bozinoff / Disregard

May 2 / Legislature Dissolved

May 1 / EKOS / 35% / 38% / 23% / Liberal / Graves  / Disregard

Apr / Oracle / 34% / 35% / 24% / PCs / 

Apr / Ipsos Reid / 37% / 32% / 27% / Leans a bit Right / Bricker / Fairly Reliable

Apr / Nanos / 36% / 36% / 22% /  / Right-Wing / Nanos / 

Apr / EKOS / 27% / 32% / 29% / Liberal / Graves / Disregard

----------------------------

Jun '12 / Environics / 37% / 25% / 28%

Apr '12 / Environics / 37% / 27% / 30%

--------------------------

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NorthReport wrote:

Woo! Hoo!

Link

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has a brew along with NDP candidate Lisa Gretzky at Brews and Cues grill in West Windsor Thursday May 8, 2014. (Julie Kotsis/The Windsor Star)

There’s a reason NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was pouring drinks at a local bar the second day of the provincial election campaign and touring a factory here the next day.

The party is projected to take Windsor West from Liberal cabinet minister Teresa Piruzza.

And if it does, it will likely mean that for the first time in more than half a century, there will be no Liberal politicians in Windsor and Essex County. More importantly, it will likely mean that for the first time in 11 years, the city and county won’t have a member of  provincial government.

 

 

 

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Is Lisa Gretzky related to...well, you know...? 

So she's as Gretzky as Jessica Rabbit is a rabbit. ;-)

New EKOS poll released this afternoon:

Liberals 37.1

PCs 30.3

NDP 20.9

Greens 7.3

Others 5

how discouraging..

Graves continues to assert the ribald fantasy that the Liberal budget was "progressive" and should be "attractive to NDP voters". That is probably because no one is pointing out how much privatization the Liberals are committed too. Sadly, Horwath seems to be shying away from pointing this out since the media ganged up on her on the outsourcing of long term maintenance contracts, and pretending (I guess) that because these outsourced contracts go to private companies it does not amount to "privatization" of the TTC, per se, because the private companies are not part of the TTC.

Duh.

Horwath is going to have to bear down on this issue to seperate herself from the pack, rather than mumbling about "saving money". Her first big policy announcement on creating a Ministry of Savings and Accountability, missed the mark by a country mile.

The ONDP can not excell simply by being 10% better than the Liberals.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Horwath is going to have to bear down on this issue to seperate herself from the pack, rather than mumbling about "saving money". Her first big policy announcement on creating a Ministry of Savings and Accountability, missed the mark by a country mile.

The ONDP can not excell simply by being 10% better than the Liberals.

At this point in the 2011 Federal race, the NDP was in the 14-16% range, and people were criticising the NDP campaign. There's still a long way to the finish line. The only sure thing is that people are really souring on the Liberals.

Winston wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Horwath is going to have to bear down on this issue to seperate herself from the pack, rather than mumbling about "saving money". Her first big policy announcement on creating a Ministry of Savings and Accountability, missed the mark by a country mile.

The ONDP can not excell simply by being 10% better than the Liberals.

At this point in the 2011 Federal race, the NDP was in the 14-16% range, and people were criticising the NDP campaign. There's still a long way to the finish line. The only sure thing is that people are really souring on the Liberals.

Ok, but Jack's sudden surge was a pretty rare event, instigated in part by how poor the Liberal leader was in comparison. A surge like that is pretty rare. Wynne is easily as good a candidate as Horwath, and Horwath needs to step up.

Also, there was no reason not to call an election. As a democrat. I support them. Unlike some others, who seem to think they are dangerous to the status quo, as if that is a problem.

The Liberals, should they win, are prefectly able to implement the proposed changes, as they wish, in a month.

If they lose, it has nothing to do with the NDP. It is a public vote of confidence on the last 10 years of Liberal governance, a period which for most of the time they have held a majority. And should Hudak win, it is because of their governance, not the NDPs tiny interventions in the process.

 The NDP's chances hinge on the debate, but sadly it be late in the campaign, only 9 days before the end.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Graves continues to assert the ribald fantasy that the Liberal budget was "progressive" and should be "attractive to NDP voters". That is probably because no one is pointing out how much privatization the Liberals are committed too. Sadly, Horwath seems to be shying away from pointing this out since the media ganged up on her on the outsourcing of long term maintenance contracts, and pretending (I guess) that because these outsourced contracts go to private companies it does not amount to "privatization" of the TTC, per se, because the private companies are not part of the TTC.

Duh.

Horwath is going to have to bear down on this issue to seperate herself from the pack, rather than mumbling about "saving money". Her first big policy announcement on creating a Ministry of Savings and Accountability, missed the mark by a country mile.

The ONDP can not excell simply by being 10% better than the Liberals.

Fair observation.  But I'm puzzled by your actions here.

In the run-up to the election call, you were berating and mocking anyone who offered even the mildest criticism of ONDP tactics and policy proposals.  Yet now, after the writ has been dropped, you're bashing the Horwath campaign night and day.

Why is that ok, in your view, but what people were saying before the election was intolerable(or proof of secret Liberal Party sympathies)?

Rokossovsky wrote:

PrairieDemocrat15 wrote:

The EKOS had the NDP in FOURTH in Northern Ontario (17%) and considerably lower in Toronto proper (14%) than in the 905 and Eastern Ontario (21% each). The sample for this poll is almost certainly not reflective on the political situation on the ground.

I don't believe the Northern Ontario stats. How many people were polled there?

308 said 126, with a margin of error of +/- 8.7%. That's a decent sized sample for a small region, but I don't think its representative.

The definition of the "north" includes the Barrie, Simcoe, Nippising, and Muskoka areas, so the NDP shouldn't do as well overall as they do further north, but 17% is incredibly low given the party's historical and recent performance in the region. I also doubt the 39% the poll gives the Liberals. I'm pretty confident that with the party's general decline since the 2011 election and the government's assult on the ONTC, they will not be the top party in region after the votes are counted.

Either a really, really, really important poll...or not:

http://www.thebeaverton.com/national/item/1354-poll-many-would-vote-for-...

Why doesn't Andrea say that? All i heard is scandals and accountability.  "The Liberal budget is a sugar coated privatization bomb. "

epaulo13 wrote:

Video: Young workers call for $14 minimum wage in Ontario

video

On May 14, students and young workers set up an obstacle course on the lawn of Queen's Park to demonstrate the hurdles students face juggling rising tuition fees and low-wage work. The event is part of the ongoing campaign calling on party leaders and candidates to support a $14 minimum wage in Ontario.

http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2014/05/best-net/video-young-wor...

Thanks for posting that. What do you think of the massive structural changes that the Liberals are planning by selling off Ontario Hydro, the LCBO, and privatization and outsourcing of government contracts?

Do you think that will have an impact on worker's real wages and quality of life, or not?

PrairieDemocrat15 wrote:

I'd rather see the NDP gain at the PCs' expense than at the Liberals'. A Liberal collapse and NDP surge, combined with a Hudak majority is worse than the status-quo.

Thank-you.  I'm glad to see someone say this here - it is so rare on this board.  Most posters here often sound like they hate the Liberals so much they would rather the Conservatives win (which is ironic for people who are supposedly 'progressive').

Unfortunately, the NDP does often split the vote and take more away from the Liberals than the Conservatives. This happened in the 2011 federal election, and that is why Harper got a Majority.  And in the 2011 provincial election, the 6-7 seats that Horwarth picked up all came at the expense of the Liberals - she didn't take any from the PC's.  It was the same for Layton outside Quebec in 2011 - he only took away ONE Conservative seat in English Canada (Surrey North).

The Liberals remain the best option for beating the Conservatives, which is why it is puzzling why some people here want Justin Trudeau to be defeated (and even in his own riding, which won't happen, but it's odd that people wish for that).  Mulcair has been NDP leader for 2 years now and has not been able to grow NDP support outside of Quebec and is in 3rd place.  Trudeau has been able to emerge as the main alternative to Harper, including in Western Canada (take last fall's Manitoba by-elections, for example).  That may also be the case in next month's Alberta by-elections.  We'll have to stay tuned.

Debater wrote:

The Liberals remain the best option for beating the Conservatives, which is why it is puzzling why some people here want Justin Trudeau to be defeated (and even in his own riding, which won't happen, but it's odd that people wish for that).  Mulcair has been NDP leader for 2 years now and has not been able to grow NDP support outside of Quebec and is in 3rd place.  Trudeau has been able to emerge as the main alternative to Harper, including in Western Canada (take last fall's Manitoba by-elections, for example).  That may also be the case in next month's Alberta by-elections.  We'll have to stay tuned.

It's interesting that you don't discuss the merits of JTrudeau's leadership and vision, only about his recent popularity.  And in BC and many other ridings, it could as easily be said that the Liberal votes take away NDP seats, not the other way around as you frame it.

epaulo13 wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Thanks for posting that. What do you think of the massive structural changes that the Liberals are planning by selling off Ontario Hydro, the LCBO, and privatization and outsourcing of government contracts?

Do you think that will have an impact on worker's real wages and quality of life, or not?

..you may argue that the ndp will be less harmful to students then the cons or libs and maybe you would be right. what i think that no party is looking out for the interests of the young folks and students and they know it. i can extend that to the poor as well.

..what i say is don't look for change to come from the ontario parliament but join with others that are already in or willing to go into the streets. the top down economic and political systems are the problem and that should be said out loud and more often when talking about what needs to be done or changed. you can't (you can if you want) just keep narrowing the argument to who will do less harm because all govs are fucking us over in ontario and everywhere else in canada. all represent wealth and power more than they represent anyone else.

Yes, I see this point. But the means through which the neo-liberals neutered the ability of parliament to be an effective agent of social democratic policy, is by entrenching structural changes that made anything other than neo-liberal policy impossible.

On the heels of Mike Harris, and the McGuinty era corporate tax cuts, the government either must introduce flat taxes, sell assets or reduce service in order to be financially viable. This is how the fix is put in.

What the Liberals propose here is even further structural changes that will make it even more difficult to reverse the neo-Liberal austerity agenda, and force the sale of even more of the support infrastructure that supports low income people.

In the face of that, I personally think that the minimum wage demand is pretty ephemeral in comparison to the massive structural changes that will totally undermine the long term viability of the social support network that both improves the quality of life of low income people -- not just low income working people -- and also indirectly floats the value of labour in the market.

You can set the minimum wage as a matter of policy, but buying back Ontario Hydro, or the LCBO, is next to impossible.

What will they sell next to support the next round of minor social assistance hikes? The school system? Yes, that is it. How will the privatization of the school system improve the quality of life of low income workers and their children?

Debater wrote:

The Liberals remain the best option for beating the Conservatives

Maybe so, but in that case it is a pyrrhic victory -- The Liberals and the Conservatives are  Tweedledum and Tweeledee. I am reminded of the end of Orwell's Animal Farm, where the animals look from the pigs to the humans, and back to the pigs, and "it was impossible to tell which was which." 

When I read that novel in middle school, I didn't understand the ending. Now all I have to do is look around and it is painfully obvious.

Debater wrote:

Unfortunately, the NDP does often split the vote and take more away from the Liberals than the Conservatives. This happened in the 2011 federal election, and that is why Harper got a Majority.  And in the 2011 provincial election, the 6-7 seats that Horwarth picked up all came at the expense of the Liberals - she didn't take any from the PC's.  It was the same for Layton outside Quebec in 2011 - he only took away ONE Conservative seat in English Canada (Surrey North).

For the 209,813,049,860,983,221,098,340,968th time, the Conservatives did not win because the NDP and the Liberals split the vote, but because more people wanted to support the Conservatives than any other party. If you want to defeat the Conservatives, you need to convince more people to vote for your party than the Conservatives, and pointing the finger at the others does no good. If the Liberals actually appealed to people, the NDP would not have been a threat.

Debater wrote:

The Liberals remain the best option for beating the Conservatives, which is why it is puzzling why some people here want Justin Trudeau to be defeated (and even in his own riding, which won't happen, but it's odd that people wish for that).  Mulcair has been NDP leader for 2 years now and has not been able to grow NDP support outside of Quebec and is in 3rd place.  Trudeau has been able to emerge as the main alternative to Harper, including in Western Canada (take last fall's Manitoba by-elections, for example).  That may also be the case in next month's Alberta by-elections.  We'll have to stay tuned.

That only gets at part of the issue. The NDP took Kitchener-Waterloo away from the PCs in a by-election, so that helps keep the PC seat count down. Also, look at the by-elections that happened since 2011 without Liberal incumbents, the seats of London West, Niagra Falls, Windsor, and Essex. True, the Liberals had the seats before they flipped to the NDP, so it looks like they took the seats from the Liberals. However, the Liberals placed third in each seat, so that suggests not only that the Liberals have major structural weaknesses outside the GTA, but that the NDP played a more important role in stopping the PCs than is acknowledged. And if the NDP loses those seats, it will most likely be to the PCs and not the Liberals.

As for Manitoba, that is a case where the provincial Liberal party is close to polling ahead of the NDP, so naturally there will be some spill-over into the federal arena. Alberta will be interesting to see, but remember that the Conservatives are generally so far ahead in that province that they are nearly impossible to beat, and the Trudeau name is not remembered with much fondness in these parts. Depending on what kind of a ground game the NDP has, they can still save face with a second-place finish in each riding.

epaulo13 wrote:

..what i say is don't look for change to come from the ontario parliament but join with others that are already in or willing to go into the streets. the top down economic and political systems are the problem and that should be said out loud and more often when talking about what needs to be done or changed. you can't (you can if you want) just keep narrowing the argument to who will do less harm because all govs are fucking us over in ontario and everywhere else in canada. all represent wealth and power more than they represent anyone else.

I've been in the streets many times over the years...  as a 13 year old showing solidarity against a Liberal government in Saskatchewan trying to turn back Douglas's recently enacted medicare (enacting "deterrent" fees), against the uranmium development without adequate environmental measures of the ndp government in Saskatchewan in the late 70's, and many more times since.  And it's a critical part of standing up for, and creating awareness about, issues that affect workers, the environment, the poor and dispossessed, and more.

I don't know if you're suggesting that political action (of the democratic and systems type) is a waste of time and not worth doing.  If so, this sanctions and legitimizes running street battles between different factions because "that's the only way to get things done".  This, of course, is what the Harper and Obama governments support abroad (Libya, Egypt, Honduras, Syria, Ukraine) but never at home.  It's ironic (okay, often criminal) that we support these insurrections rather than the use of the ballot box.  If Harper's and Obamas's stance were applied in our own backyard for example, this would legitimize a tea-party revolt that seized government in the US, just because they have the street might, assault rifles and all, to support their insurrection and thus to impose their view of the world.

The street work and the democratic political work go hand-in-hand.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Yes, I see this point. But the means through which the neo-liberals neutered the ability of parliament to be an effective agent of social democratic policy, is by entrenching structural changes that made anything other than neo-liberal policy impossible.

..i see you understand the ways and mechanisms that keeps us in our place. and yes social democracy can’t operate within this system. why because it has no way of controlling capital. it has no power (or even the will) to reverse what has taken many years to accomplish. which, by the way, was all done with the tacit approval of the ndp leadership across canada..who continue to support this system.

is there any news article link that talks about the privatization deals in the Liberal budget?