Ontario election results

Some Ontario PCs say they want Hudak out immediately

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-tory-mpps-say-they-...

ProfShawn wrote:

Ciabatta2 wrote:

Yikes, sorry I didn't realize that I had to come with polling in-hand to assert something I've experience based on experiences with real people.  I value experiences with people, however anecdotal, to polling papers.  You are free to prefer the alternate.

There were a lot of positives from the NDP's campaign, like holding the by-election wins, the win in Oshawa, increasing the vote in the S-W and Niagara.  There were some inevitables, like the loss in T-S and I'd say Davenport too.  There was also some failures, like Thunder Bay, Sarnia, everything east of Oshawa.  I think the result indicates that the gasplantaholism of the campaign didn't really result in a massive breakthrough and didn't prove to be a resounding reason for not electing Liberals, and tehrefore falls in the latter category.

You don't have to have a poll in your hands, in fact most of the folks here demanding that, have no trouble offering their own observatives as long as those observations support their point of view.

The NDP because it attracts ideologues has always tended towards group think, at the expense of real debate. 

Not really. I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture" issues like the use of public money for private profit and the pitfalls of privatization needs to be interrogated.

But since you have taken up the "bread and butter" issues thread, I noticed that eariler you observed that FDK saves parents money, and improves performance. It does none of those things.

Indeed, working parents still have to pay for "after school care" at a rate close to that of "full time daycare", so unless you are of the TFW nanny set, and have a live in caregiver ready to pick up your darlings at the school at 3:15, you actually end up paying about the same amount for care during working hours, in worse conditions with larger class sizes and less supervision per student, under the ministry mandate than people paid previously in licensed professional day care centers.

For the most parts parents and teachers hate it, and performance results are mixed.

It's nice in theory, but part and parcel of the "big idea" meets "austerity" formula that the Liberals have been applying for the last 11 years is they keep creating expansive "feel good" initiatives to make it look like they are "listening", then failing to fund them properly, or shifting resources to the new program from an old one, leaving those in charge of the old program without proper resources to fulfill the mandate handed down during the last "flavour of the month" initiative undertaken purportedly to improve service.

Amazingly, while licensed daycares require groups of children between the age of 3 and 4 to be supervised at the 8 to 1 ratio, a similar group of kids in the same cohort under the care of the FDK program require an upwardly flexible ratio of 13 to 1, which can end up being as high as 15 to 1.

The latest scheme to "improve" daycare for Ontarians, in the light of several deaths in private non-licensed daycare centers has been to significantly reduce through regulation the "student to ECE" worker ratio in licensed daycares, in fact exchanging child safety for economic feasability. This they needed to do because existing daycares, some of which have been established for generations are having their customers stolen from them by the ministry's not really up to snuff FDK program.

Being an idealogue who didn't put enough "family values" teeth into her platform to please women-folk, proposed an additional 100m towar funding for daycare to deal with these structural problems.

But of course since you are free of the demagoguery of ideology, you might want to try and back up some of your claims on policy issues, at some point.

A Conservative MP charge the $16 for a glass of orange juice. The Conservatives are still in power and if they lose in 2015 - it will NOT be because Bev Odda spent $16 on orange juice.

Rokossovsky wrote:

I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture" issues like the use of public money for private profit and the pitfalls of privatization needs to be interrogated.

To all the men guessing what women are or are not interested in when it comes to politics -- especially when framed like the comment above, please stop. Such comments are sexist generalizations and are against babble policy. Please refrain from hyopthesizing what ladies are interested in, especially when it conforms to century-old gender stereotypes. Thanks.

Arthur Cramer wrote:

Choke on in Unionis, you LPC shill.

So, just fyi, Arthur has been suspended for a day or two for this and for an abusive private message he sent another babbler. This is so not ok, as everyone knows. As you were.

Rokossovsky wrote:

I maintain the that losses in Trinity Spadina and Davenport were quite likely inevitable, or at least hard to prevent, because of factors quite other than the ONDP campaign, not because of the brilliant Liberal strategy of screaming about the encroaching Mongol hoards and rallying everyone they can into the castle.

I agree that other factors were involved - changing economic demographics (eg. condos), a Liberal candidate who connected with the Chinese community in a way Sarah Thompson did not, and federal support from Adam Vaughan & Justin Trudeau all gave the Liberals momentum to contribute to the 15-point margin in Trinity-Spadina.

However, there may have been some strategic voting involved or some issues voters in T-S had with the NDP campaign itself.  Rosario Marchese claims it was strategic voting, but as you said above, it's unlikely strategic voting could have been soley responsible for such a large vote-swing:

--

Long-time NDP MPP Marchese blames loss on strategic voting

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/long-time-ndp-mpp-marchese-...

Catchfire wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture" issues like the use of public money for private profit and the pitfalls of privatization needs to be interrogated.

To all the men guessing what women are or are not interested in when it comes to politics -- especially when framed like the comment above, please stop. Such comments are sexist generalizations and are against babble policy. Please refrain from hyopthesizing what ladies are interested in, especially when it conforms to century-old gender stereotypes. Thanks.

Yes thanks! Good for catching me up on making the point the people should not presume a gender bias on issues, by accusing me of presuming a gender bias on issues.

"I just think the women are mostly interested in the "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture" issues like the use of public money for private profit, and the pitfalls of privatiation need to be interrogated"

Interogate means to "question".

http://rabble.ca/comment/1445280#comment-1445280

Here is the original discussion point:

Rokossovsky wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Ciabatta2 wrote:

I do agree, however, that the NDP's increasing gas plant corruption narrative lost more voters, particularly women voters, as the election went on.  It was an OK intro message but the party needed to shift to something with a purpose after the first week.

Based on what polling did you determine the gas plants issue didn't interest women?

 

The Liberals were good in the narrative focusing on education, health care, tuition fees etc. Issues that women and mothers care about.

Really, fascinating I know a frontline nurse who is furious about waste at public expense of which the gas plants are an example, and thinks that P3s are the devils tool, and voted for the NDP for the first time, because she could never vote Tory.

I find this whole assertion of gender preferences to be rather strange.

That said, the ONDP pitched on education, health care and tuition fees quite agressively, promising to freeze the latter, add front line clinics and additional nursing staff and add money to support daycare center's that are being forced to close because of the transition to FDK, and saving schools that are to be sold and demolished by creating a fund to convert them into community use facilities.

How did you miss it?

Has it occurred to you that the media chooses how political campaigns are "framed"?

But I give you credit for once again singling me out for sanction for the sins that others commit. You are batting 100% on moderation bias against me, but you have gone a step further, you are warning me not to presume gender bias because I was rejecting the notion that it was ok to presume gender bias.

As I said, it is "questionable".

Catchfire wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

I think 'kitchen table issues' would have been a better choice of words.

No, it would not have been. Best practice: avoid theorizing what (as Antonia Z. would say) that "radical, fringe group known as women" would collectively think -- especially when (like Catchfire would say) it conforms to centuries-old gender stereotypes.

You can define those stereotypes as domestic/economic, private/public, family matters/financial or whatever -- but they all suck.

Wouldn't kitchen table issues apply to both men and women? They do encompass issues like electricity, the cost of food, education, health care, etc.

We were talking about the parties going after the electorate with these issues in mind.

Rokossovsky wrote:

What isn't clear?

Your concluding predicate has no clear subject -- or rather, as written, its subject is "pitfalls of priviti(z)ation." I might have written it as "I just think the narrative (or stereotype) that..." and used appropriate punctuation to mark your distinct clauses.

That said, grammar lesson aside, I apologize for jumping to conclusions and thank you for standing up for a harmful gender stereotype.

sherpa-finn wrote:

According to Pundit's Guide, the NDP lost 14,000 votes in GTA (2011 to 2014), 3,000 votes in Ottawa - and gained 181,000 votes across the rest of the province.  Netting out to a 163K vote gain.

http://punditsguide.ca/img/ON41PGE_regional_vote_shifts_v2.png

I understand the debates over policy issues, - but as electoral results go, it wasn't shabby. 

Must have been all those elite federal bureaucrats in Ottawa sipping Chablis and expressing disdain for the working class.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Ciabatta2 wrote:

I'm not sure how Robert Benzie suggests that the NDP is a northern Ontario rump given that only 5 of 21 MPPs are from northern Ontario.

He works for the Star and anything North of St. Clair is North, anything North of Eglington is "far north".

LOL!

Double LOL!

One thing about the Ontario NDP is that there are different types of members and supporters who may have different values depending where they may live.  The downtown Toronto and downtown Ottawa NDP voters may support worldly issues such as dealing with events involving the environment, the Middle East, and poverty issues where there may be a transient population of homeless people who may come from elsewhere.  They are likely vocal supporters of gun control and saving the forests.  In northern Ontario, NDP supporters may be fine with chopping down trees as this is a livelihood.  They may not be so keen on gun controls.  NDP supporters in Windsor, London, Kitchener, Hamilton, and Niagara Falls may have different concerns than people living in Toronto.  It will be up to the Ontario NDP to decide if the gains made in the smaller cities of Ontario were worth it compared to the losses in Toronto.  On the federal level, the NDP will need to be concerned about issues related to Quebec along with those involving the people of downtown Toronto, Ottawa, northern Ontario, Vancouver, and other places.

"Kitchen table issues" is a good name in that the Harper Conservatives are very good in campaigning on issues affecting families immediately.  That is why the Conservative like to offer tax-credits for particular thing affecting families such as youth sports tax-credit.  The Conservatives know that worldly issues such as global climate change and the situation in the Middle East (except for Israel) will not affect how people vote.  For example, what is happening in Ukraine and the Conservative government's reaction will like affect how less than one percent of people will vote.

If Tom Mulcair wants to win the next federal election, he will need some kitchen table issues to present to the voters so long as they don't appear gimicky.

Ciabatta2 wrote:

  There was also some failures, like Thunder Bay, Sarnia, everything east of Oshawa.

Given how Brian White's 2011 share was depressed by a split in the ranks, I'd consider his near-victory this time more "success' than "failure".

Debater wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

I suppose.  Though sneering seems also near universal on this board.

Tell me about it!  I've been on the receiving end of it since I came here 5 years ago. 

As for Brian Topp, what I think everyone can agree on is that he hasn't had the guts to run for a seat.  He's had multiple chances to do so.  It's been over 2 years since the NDP leadership.  He should have run in the Toronto-Danforth seat at the time - it would have given him a better chance against Mulcair, but he didn't seem to have the strategic brains to understand this.  The NDP were getting overshadowed in the House of Commons at the time and they wisely realized that they needed a leader with a seat to replace Nycole Turmel.  At the time Bob Rae was the clear leader of the Opposition in the House.

By not running for a seat, Topp essentially made himself irrelevant to the NDP, and since he already had a low-profile to the general public, he will have to start from scratch if he ever wants to move from the backrooms to elected office.  Leadership candidates without seats are annoying.  There were several of them in the Liberal leadership too last year.  They always promise during the leadership that they will run for a seat regardless of the outcome of the leadersip vote (eg. Martha Hall Findlay, Martin Cauchon etc.) but then take forever to make up their mind and frequently back out.  Brian Topp seems to be the NDP version of that.

Guts eh?  Maybe he came to his senses.

Electoral politics is a horrible business.  

I think it's pretty low to chide people for deciding they don't want to do it.

pookie wrote:

onlinediscountanvils wrote:

I have no opinion of Topp other than I think it's shitty for him to sneer at people who use pseudonyms on a board where their use is not only accepted, but near universal.

Well I think it's shitty the way that he is continually baited here.

Yeah, the anonymity crack was weak.  Big fucking deal.

The big deal is that people should learn to recognize their own privilege.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

I think that female voters are simply more frightened of a Conservative government than male voters, knowing as they do that the Cons hate women. The Liberal party being the party of fear, scared voters tend to flock there.

Or perhaps the fact that the Liberal Party has a history of breaking ground for Canadian women?

Liberal PM Trudeau decriminalized abortion.

Liberal PM Trudeau appointed first woman Justice (Bertha Wilson) to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne became the first woman premier of Ontario, the biggest province in Canada. . .

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/06/16/what_the_leaders_ca...

Rokossovsky wrote:

Slumberjack wrote:

Quote:

I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture issues..."

I'd just like to say as well that this can't be right, notwithstanding the fact that politically speaking, the big picture issues are mostly uninteresting, sort of like being annoyed with a digital recording caught in a frenzied loop.

I am glad you brought this up because the meta discussion that ensued actually distracted from the main point I was pursuing, which among other things are the execution of childcare programs and education under the Liberals as discussed up thread:

ProfShawn wrote:

Ciabatta2 wrote:

Yikes, sorry I didn't realize that I had to come with polling in-hand to assert something I've experience based on experiences with real people.  I value experiences with people, however anecdotal, to polling papers.  You are free to prefer the alternate.

There were a lot of positives from the NDP's campaign, like holding the by-election wins, the win in Oshawa, increasing the vote in the S-W and Niagara.  There were some inevitables, like the loss in T-S and I'd say Davenport too.  There was also some failures, like Thunder Bay, Sarnia, everything east of Oshawa.  I think the result indicates that the gasplantaholism of the campaign didn't really result in a massive breakthrough and didn't prove to be a resounding reason for not electing Liberals, and tehrefore falls in the latter category.

You don't have to have a poll in your hands, in fact most of the folks here demanding that, have no trouble offering their own observatives as long as those observations support their point of view.

The NDP because it attracts ideologues has always tended towards group think, at the expense of real debate. 

Not really. I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture" issues like the use of public money for private profit and the pitfalls of privatization needs to be interrogated.

But since you have taken up the "bread and butter" policy theme of "real debate", I noticed that elsewhere you say that the "Liberals" have done "good things", such as creating the FDK program which you said saves parents money, and improves education outcomes. You need to back such assertions because both my personal observations, and studies of the program do not support those conclusions, whatever former Mike Harris supporter Liz Sandals says about it.

Working parents still have to pay for "after school care" at a rate close to that of "full time daycare". Unless you are of the TFW nanny set, and have a live in caregiver ready to pick up your darlings at the school at 3:15, you actually end up paying about the same amount for care during working hours, in worse conditions with larger class sizes and less supervision per student, under the ministry mandate than people paid previously in licensed professional day care centers.

For the most parts parents and teachers hate FDK as executed, performance results are mixed, and it doesn't save money for persons able to pay for regular daycare.

Queen’s University wrote:

“A final observation of the findings worth noting is that on several measures, the non-FDELK programs were associated with more positive outcomes. This was especially true for non-FDELK programs in low need schools, on the EDI measure of Emotional Maturity and Communication Skills and General Knowledge. To be clear, some children appear to have done worse with the FDELK than with the non-FDELK.

It's nice in theory, but it is a perfect example of the "big idea" meets "austerity" formula that the Liberals have been applying for the last 11 years. They create expansive "feel good" programs to make it look like they are "listening", then fail to fund them properly. Either this or they shift resources to the new program from an old one, leaving those in charge of the old program without proper resources to fulfill the mandate handed down when the last "flavour of the month" program was instituted.

Amazingly, while licensed daycare's require groups of children between the age of 3 and 4 to be supervised at the 8 to 1 ratio, a similar group of kids in the same cohort under the care of the FDK program require an upwardly flexible ratio of 13 to 1, which can end up being as high as 15 to 1.

The latest scheme to "improve" daycare for Ontarians, in the light of several deaths in private non-licensed daycare centers, has been to significantly reduce  the "student to ECE" worker ratio in licensed daycares through regulation. They have reduced the regulatory control in order to make private daycare delivery cheaper. This in fact exchanges child safety for economic feasibility. This they needed to do because existing daycares, some of which have been established for generations, are having their customers stolen from them by the ministry's not really "up to snuff" FDK program.

Horwath being an NDP "idealogue" who didn't put enough "family values" teeth into her platform to please "women-folk", according to some, proposed an additional 100m toward funding for daycare to deal with the structural problems caused by FDK implementation.

These are the kind of chronic problems caused by the Liberal desire to appear to be "big picture" progressives, while applying a "supply side" Reaganomic model of taxation. It is precisely because of this that I applaud Andrea Horwath's "boutique" approach to her election program, because instead of proposing big ideas and delivering them badly, Horwath proposed modest fixes to deal with existing problems, which might be achievable, as opposed to the Liberals who routinely announce big plans that they can not fund, leaving front-line government workers to take the blame for the administrative mess the Liberals create through pretending to create new progressive programs and then underfunding them..

Horwath was being "realistic" in the financially restrained environment the Liberals created by drastically reducing corporate taxes.

But of course since you are free of the demagoguery of ideology, you might want to try and back up some of your claims on policy issues, at some point.

 

 

First up, I have no idea where you are buying before and after school daycare that costs the same as all day. When we had our older kids, some years back in all day, I think we were paying 40 or 45 per kid per day.  Before and after was $12 per day or something like that.  There are after school programs run by various agencies, in schools and outside of schools and many folks us private daycare arrangements with relatives, friends and neighbours.   

Kindergarten out her in small towns and small cities has been full day for along time, the full days were just staggered. Half Day kindergarten was eliminated because it cost too much for busing. 

My reference to the value of early education was based on the early years studies.     I've had three kids go through the system, the youngest is in the full day, every day program and it works well. Yes there are more kids in the class, but there are two adults instead of one.  The Teacher/ECE combo works well and the classroom is well managed.   And yes the Full Day Kindergarten program has saved us a ton of money. 

Aw yes daycare funding, that is a good one from the NDP, I rememember I was working in a community as part of a multi-agency plan to implement the Universal Daycare Program that was to be funded by Ottawa (2006) Unfortunately the Federal NDP under Jack Layton killed the Liberal Minortiy Government in that budget, killing Univerisal Daycare, and the Kelowna Accord. 

I agree with you on one thing, the LIberal's focus on not increasing Corporate Taxes is absurd. I do believe that they are likely afraid of the Bond Raters, who have been threatening Ontario with anohter credit score downgrade.   However on the Fiscal Front The NDP's plan to create this roving Minister of Savings, bordered on Cartoonish.  The Very presence of such a Minister signals that the NDP believes that the Public Service is full of fat tha can be trimmed (that is stock Conservative turf).  Also why would one create a whole Ministry, with a new costly structure, in order to save money.  It sounds like corporate logic where they hire expensive consultatants to come in and do what people within the organization could have done themseleves.

pookie wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

The ONDP have clearly established themselves as a party of all Ontario, and not just Toronto, like the Liberals.

Oh, my. 

That is too delicious.

That statement is just absurd.  The Liberals won all of Toronto save one recount seat.  They won seats in the 905, they won seats up in 705, They won Durham, Peterborough, Northumberland - Quinte West, Barrie, Kingston and the Islands, All of Ottawa Proper, one of the 3 London Seats, The Sault, two Thunder Bay Ridings and Glengarry Prescott. 58 Ridings in all, including the largest urban centres. So I'm not sure that this is in anyway accurate.

ProfShawn wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

Slumberjack wrote:

Quote:

I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture issues..."

I'd just like to say as well that this can't be right, notwithstanding the fact that politically speaking, the big picture issues are mostly uninteresting, sort of like being annoyed with a digital recording caught in a frenzied loop.

I am glad you brought this up because the meta discussion that ensued actually distracted from the main point I was pursuing, which among other things are the execution of childcare programs and education under the Liberals as discussed up thread:

ProfShawn wrote:

Ciabatta2 wrote:

Yikes, sorry I didn't realize that I had to come with polling in-hand to assert something I've experience based on experiences with real people.  I value experiences with people, however anecdotal, to polling papers.  You are free to prefer the alternate.

There were a lot of positives from the NDP's campaign, like holding the by-election wins, the win in Oshawa, increasing the vote in the S-W and Niagara.  There were some inevitables, like the loss in T-S and I'd say Davenport too.  There was also some failures, like Thunder Bay, Sarnia, everything east of Oshawa.  I think the result indicates that the gasplantaholism of the campaign didn't really result in a massive breakthrough and didn't prove to be a resounding reason for not electing Liberals, and tehrefore falls in the latter category.

You don't have to have a poll in your hands, in fact most of the folks here demanding that, have no trouble offering their own observatives as long as those observations support their point of view.

The NDP because it attracts ideologues has always tended towards group think, at the expense of real debate. 

Not really. I just think the women are mostly interested in "home, kitchen, family" narrative, and not "big picture" issues like the use of public money for private profit and the pitfalls of privatization needs to be interrogated.

But since you have taken up the "bread and butter" policy theme of "real debate", I noticed that elsewhere you say that the "Liberals" have done "good things", such as creating the FDK program which you said saves parents money, and improves education outcomes. You need to back such assertions because both my personal observations, and studies of the program do not support those conclusions, whatever former Mike Harris supporter Liz Sandals says about it.

Working parents still have to pay for "after school care" at a rate close to that of "full time daycare". Unless you are of the TFW nanny set, and have a live in caregiver ready to pick up your darlings at the school at 3:15, you actually end up paying about the same amount for care during working hours, in worse conditions with larger class sizes and less supervision per student, under the ministry mandate than people paid previously in licensed professional day care centers.

For the most parts parents and teachers hate FDK as executed, performance results are mixed, and it doesn't save money for persons able to pay for regular daycare.

Queen’s University wrote:

“A final observation of the findings worth noting is that on several measures, the non-FDELK programs were associated with more positive outcomes. This was especially true for non-FDELK programs in low need schools, on the EDI measure of Emotional Maturity and Communication Skills and General Knowledge. To be clear, some children appear to have done worse with the FDELK than with the non-FDELK.

It's nice in theory, but it is a perfect example of the "big idea" meets "austerity" formula that the Liberals have been applying for the last 11 years. They create expansive "feel good" programs to make it look like they are "listening", then fail to fund them properly. Either this or they shift resources to the new program from an old one, leaving those in charge of the old program without proper resources to fulfill the mandate handed down when the last "flavour of the month" program was instituted.

Amazingly, while licensed daycare's require groups of children between the age of 3 and 4 to be supervised at the 8 to 1 ratio, a similar group of kids in the same cohort under the care of the FDK program require an upwardly flexible ratio of 13 to 1, which can end up being as high as 15 to 1.

The latest scheme to "improve" daycare for Ontarians, in the light of several deaths in private non-licensed daycare centers, has been to significantly reduce  the "student to ECE" worker ratio in licensed daycares through regulation. They have reduced the regulatory control in order to make private daycare delivery cheaper. This in fact exchanges child safety for economic feasibility. This they needed to do because existing daycares, some of which have been established for generations, are having their customers stolen from them by the ministry's not really "up to snuff" FDK program.

Horwath being an NDP "idealogue" who didn't put enough "family values" teeth into her platform to please "women-folk", according to some, proposed an additional 100m toward funding for daycare to deal with the structural problems caused by FDK implementation.

These are the kind of chronic problems caused by the Liberal desire to appear to be "big picture" progressives, while applying a "supply side" Reaganomic model of taxation. It is precisely because of this that I applaud Andrea Horwath's "boutique" approach to her election program, because instead of proposing big ideas and delivering them badly, Horwath proposed modest fixes to deal with existing problems, which might be achievable, as opposed to the Liberals who routinely announce big plans that they can not fund, leaving front-line government workers to take the blame for the administrative mess the Liberals create through pretending to create new progressive programs and then underfunding them..

Horwath was being "realistic" in the financially restrained environment the Liberals created by drastically reducing corporate taxes.

But of course since you are free of the demagoguery of ideology, you might want to try and back up some of your claims on policy issues, at some point.

 

 

First up, I have no idea where you are buying before and after school daycare that costs the same as all day. When we had our older kids, some years back in all day, I think we were paying 40 or 45 per kid per day.  Before and after was $12 per day or something like that.  There are after school programs run by various agencies, in schools and outside of schools and many folks us private daycare arrangements with relatives, friends and neighbours. 

In fact the after school program run by our school costs $35 a day. The local daycare charges $45 a day 7:00 am to 6:00 pm. But they did not institute a cheap after school program when JK went "full day" because they can make more money filling up limited spaces with full day kids, because they have a limit on licensed enrollment. In fact, they cancelled their half day program altogether.

You seem also to be suggesting that it is acceptable to force parents who want to avoid paying the rates offered by the ministry for after school care to substitute professional child care services in licensed establishments, with "private" unlicensed daycare.

Funny how your "big savings" for parents turned out to be replacing licensed professionally staffed daycare until 6:00 pm into relying on volunteer services of relatives, friends and neighbours, or finding unlicensed amateur run daycare facilities between 3:15 and 6:00, on the cheap.

But the fact is that to receive the same quality of service for after school care, one needs to pay almost precisely what one pays for a full day at a licensed pre-school daycare.

And this complaint is reflected in what almost every single parent I know says about the FDK program.

ProfShawn wrote:

My reference to the value of early education was based on the early years studies.     I've had three kids go through the system, the youngest is in the full day, every day program and it works well. Yes there are more kids in the class, but there are two adults instead of one.  The Teacher/ECE combo works well and the classroom is well managed.   And yes the Full Day Kindergarten program has saved us a ton of money.

Saved you money by making you rely on free unlicensed services, or volunteers. However if you wanted full day until 6:00 of the same quality as a licensed pre-school daycare you would be paying more or less the same cost to the ministry. So no big savings.

Not only are there more kids in the class but the ratio of adults to students has nearly doubled. Starting at 13 to 1, the size can go as high as 15 to 1, for a class made up of kids in roughly the same age category as in pre-school daycare at an 8 to 1 ratio, with kids between 3 and 4 years old.

ProfShawn wrote:

Aw yes daycare funding, that is a good one from the NDP, I rememember I was working in a community as part of a multi-agency plan to implement the Universal Daycare Program that was to be funded by Ottawa (2006) Unfortunately the Federal NDP under Jack Layton killed the Liberal Minortiy Government in that budget, killing Univerisal Daycare, and the Kelowna Accord. 

I agree with you on one thing, the LIberal's focus on not increasing Corporate Taxes is absurd. I do believe that they are likely afraid of the Bond Raters, who have been threatening Ontario with anohter credit score downgrade.   However on the Fiscal Front The NDP's plan to create this roving Minister of Savings, bordered on Cartoonish.  The Very presence of such a Minister signals that the NDP believes that the Public Service is full of fat tha can be trimmed (that is stock Conservative turf).  Also why would one create a whole Ministry, with a new costly structure, in order to save money.  It sounds like corporate logic where they hire expensive consultatants to come in and do what people within the organization could have done themseleves.

Completely unrelated to any of the specific points on Liberal policy on the failure of FDK implementaion in Ontario. I outilined. Just deflection by rehashing a common Liberal "idealogue" NDP attack talking points about unrelated subjects.

I am not here to defend the ONDP non-record, on non-implementation of programs that they did not implement, I am discussing how idiotic it is to try an implement "big idea" programs while deliberately cancelling revenue streams, and forcing yourself to increase services with less money -- its a formula for failure, and increased debt and deficit.

That is what the Liberals do.

In the TDSB, last year in order to find the money to hire the 300 ECE workers to fill the FDK program slots, the TDSB had fire 300 EAs used as in class support workers in the regular grades 1 to 8. That was all the EAs in all programs other than special needs programs. So while theoretically the FDK model might work to improve education outcomes, it in fact comes in by degrading the regular school program overall.

Note this fact about the big "education" boom in Ontario. Of the budget increases for the Ministry of Education since 2006, only 7.5% of all increases are increased payment to front-line staff.

 

Brian Topp wrote:

One is rooted in some advice former Saskatchewan Premier Allan Blakeney gave to federal NDP leader Jack Layton during the 2004-2006 Liberal minority government.

Blakeney told Layton not to be too eager to take down a minority parliament in which the NDP had some power for what the public would see as purely political reasons. “If you set out to persuade the public that minority legislatures don’t work, you might succeed in your cause,” Blakeney told Layton — not necessarily to the NDP’s advantage.

Layton took this advice to heart, and attempted to manoeuvre (in a very complex parliamentary setting) to squeeze some concrete gains for Canadians from the Liberal minority. And to be clearly seen by the public to be doing so. This led to the 2005 federal NDP budget, which invested heavily in public transit and housing, and deferred still more regressive and unnecessary tax cuts proposed by the Liberals. Layton was then able to build on those gains, and after much additional interesting political history, ultimately supplanted the Liberals in Parliament.

That’s not what the public saw the Ontario NDP do in the winter of 2014.

They did see that in 2012, however, and this set the stage for precisely the same game that played out here in 2014. Horwath obviously saw how badly Layton's attempt to "make parliament work for people" was turned against him in 2006, even though it had been so successful with the 2005 budget.

Martin plays a role here too, and it is not just Layton's decision to kill the budget over health care, Martin didn't want to run into a confidence vote so early in his term. Hence Layton was able to get "real" results and burnish his image with the 2005 budget.

However in 2006, Martin wants an election and is intractable, and Layton is trapped in the device of his own negotiation and the in-camera meeting where Layton says he is "disappointed", and Martin says that it was a "good meeting".

"We" the public will never know what happened in that negotiation for sure. Martin says it went well suggesting he is pliable, and Layton says he is disappointed.

If Layton passes the budget as is he has not "made parliament work for people", and get nothing out of it, he just appears as the junior partner in a Liberal steamroller. Martin will not give, because he wants an election, and so Layton has nothing left to do at this point but follow through on his threat to make the government fall, or lose all credibility.

I think the healthcare principle was important.

Horwath's approach to the Liberals in 2014 should be understood in the lesson learned by Layton in 2005. Horwath opts to do all the negotiation in public in order to avoid the trap of the "in camera" negotiation because they were convinced that Wynne wanted an election, and would not budge on any issues.

In a public letter Horwath publicly floated the idea of a 1% increase in corporate taxes, and this seemed to be the "price" of support being presented by Horwath. But the Liberals demurred offering a budget without the corporate tax increase leaving the ONDP with nothing that it could claim as their "contribution", instead the Liberal opted for a legitimately "progressive" hike in income tax increase on the top 2%.

ONDP was not going to get anything out of trying to "make the legislature work for people".

At this point Horwath knows negotiation is not going to bear fruit, and if she goes into a negotiation, the Liberals are just going to use this as an opportunity to paint her as intractable, as they did to Layton in 2005.

Therefore, Horwath attempts to finesse the whole issue of a negotiation that will not go anywhere by framing the election as one about the integrity of the Liberals, and the trustworthiness and inability to follow through on their commitments. In doing so she is taking charge, and trying to frame herself, and the Liberals, and the whole campaign, and not letting the Liberals do the "framing".

I don't know if it worked, but she had them all on pins and needles for 24 hours, that is for sure.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

You already got called out once by the mods for making a homophobic slur against me. You want to now make it 2 for 2?

Um, dude. You are embarrassing yourself again. I have never made any homophobic slurs on this board, nor have I ever been called out personally by the moderators in the twelve years I've been posting here. Is this another one of those "untruthful statements"?

Quote:

Again I do not watch Sun News of a regular basis, I was channel surfing this AM and just happened to catch it.

Again as I have said before, please CHECK your facts before making false allegations. The video is above. It states clearly what I said I saw this morning.

Just like Tim Hudak called Wynne a liar, I don't appreciate being personally attacked and called a liar.

I expect an apology Jacob Two-Two.

Fine, fine. Fair is fair. It is true that there is no polling or analysis. Just a talking head blowing smoke out his ass, but you did see it on Sun News just as you said. You were just repeating the made-up bullshit. You didn't make it up yourself. I apologise for saying that.

Half an apology, coming from Jacob Two-Two I guess I'll have to take it. But you never apologized for the homphobic slur you volleyed at me during the election campaign. And I found that even more offensive than being called a lliar.

You must of not been around when Rebecca remprimanded you (and in truth alot of other people on this board, as she didn't mention you by specifically name). But she did respond to a post of mine (about you) shortly after I flagged your homopobic post towards me. She said

Rebecca West wrote:

I'm getting mighty fed up with being asked to intervene here. Stop the personal attacks, stick with the issues. Lord thundering Jesus, it's like trying to moderate Question Period in the House of Commons. C'mon, I know you're all better and smarter than that.

http://rabble.ca/babble/ontario/ontario-general-election-2014?page=40

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

I've only called you a liar when you were ACTUALLY LYING.

I you have only called me a liar once when you said

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

This just something you made up and pretended to see on Sun News because you knew none of us would likely be watching it.

With no facts, no proof and basis. Just throwing it out there. Which was just disproven above. So who was wrong in that instance?

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

Meanwhile you've repeatedly called me homophobic based on nothing whatsoever.

The whole narrative of your remark is at the link below. Instead of owning up to your remark, you deflect. And you accuse me of projecting?

http://rabble.ca/babble/ontario/ontario-general-election-2014?page=40

Again after I flagged your post as offensive, Rebecca responded to one of my posts (about your remark)  by replying

Rebecca West wrote:

I'm getting mighty fed up with being asked to intervene here. Stop the personal attacks, stick with the issues. Lord thundering Jesus, it's like trying to moderate Question Period in the House of Commons. C'mon, I know you're all better and smarter than that.

Again it was you that got the ball rolling when you accused me of lying. With no facts, no proof and basis. So who is the one who is stirring things up?

Did I ever accuse you of lying? Have I ever called you a name? Have I ever attacked you personally?

And you say I'm projecting.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

Yes, except for that time, which I already admitted I was mistaken about. I merely assumed you were probably lying, because of all the lying you've done in the past. I shouldn't have done that. If I engage you in the future I will limit myself to only those points which I know to be lies, of which I'm sure there will be no shortage. And I think anyone who reads your link can see that you're lying about me being homophobic as well.

Please show a specific example of me lying. I'll save you time. I have NEVER lied and you will never find a past example. Go ahead try and find one. But you will never find one, because I have never lied.

I have never denegrated anyone, never made a personal attack against anyone, never called anyone a nasty name.  You will NEVER find an example where I have done that. Go ahead and try to find that as well. But you will never find it, because I have never done that.

Your comments here speak for themselves, as you past history has shown you get nasty and personally attack other people.

I'm not going to go tit for tat with you, and I consider this matter closed because you don't take responsibilty for your action or your personal attacks against other people.

Catchfire said it best

Catchfire wrote:

Ugh. Just read far too much of this thread than is healthy. It's getting nasty and I'm asking babblers to stop. That means stop with the aggressive language and personal attacks based on petty partisan bickering, real or perceived. Suspensions are next. It will be a long campaign and I don't have the time to deal with this. Get on with it and discuss the issues, not the person. FFS.

Obviously you haven't followed what Catchfire has said, just personally attacking other people, without checking the facts. The other day was a perfect example. Just unleashing this attack, without the facts.

Which is why I don't expect an apology, because it would be an empty apology.

I consider this matter closed, so don't even bother responding. Because I won't.