Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty has developed a strategyfor exceeding the expectations of voters. Aided admirably by theConservatives’ negative campaign against him, McGuinty has systematicallyensured that those expectations are so low that he exceeds them simply byshowing up and not tripping over his own tongue. Aside from his surprisingrevelation that we are now living in 2005, he did that Tuesday evening in thetelevised leaders’ debate.

During the debate, McGuinty stood in the middle — bothphysically and ideologically. To the right stood Ernie Eves; to the leftstood Howard Hampton. Sure it was the luck of the draw, but it couldn’t havebeen more appropriate.

He clearly had learned something from his Americanimage consultant. He spoke softly but firmly, thanked each questioner byname, and always answered the question he wanted to answer instead of theone that was asked. He did a good job of pointing out problems with what thecurrent government has done, without giving any clear idea of how he’d solvethem. He even showed fleeting flashes of humour, and used the patented BillClinton hand gesture to maximum effect.

If points are to be awarded for avoiding questions, McGuinty deserves topmarks for skating around the issue of same-sex marriages, stating hissupport but reiterating for anyone who had any doubt about his own sexualorientation that he has been married to his high school sweetheart for 23years and that they have four children. It could have been a coincidence, but McGuinty also made a point of using the word “straight” at leasttwo dozen times during his remarks (indeed, along with “prudent”, “careful”and “responsible” it was one of his favourite words). He never did getaround to explaining why, if he is so open-minded, he voted against themodest same-sex benefit proposals contained in the former NDP government’sBill 167.

Another thing that McGuinty did not do was to clearly identifywhy anyone who really wanted to “choose change” would vote for the tepidhalf-measures being offered in his platform. For example:

  • McGuinty won’t do anything to cut tuition, which has been allowed toincrease by over 150 per cent since 1995, but he will implement a temporaryfreeze on rates. By contrast, the NDP will immediately cut tuition by 10 percent.
  • He says he’ll wait four years to increase the minimum wage to $8 anhour, something that the NDP would do immediately.
  • The Liberals are promising to cancel scheduled tax credits andcorporate tax cuts, but they say that they won’t go after tax cuts that havegone to upper income individuals (those earning more than $100,000 a year).

Nevertheless, McGuinty will likely benefit from the fact that many voterswere comparing and contrasting his performance to that of Tory leader Ernie Eves. If McGuintywas evasive, Eves appeared downright slippery. If only there had been astudio audience present, some of his statements would, no doubt,have elicited howls of laughter (or howls of anger). One wonders, forexample, how Eves himself kept a straight face when saying things like:

“There is no place for personal attacks in a campaign.”

“Ontario is headed to another balanced budget.”

And (my personal favourite):

“The government has no business issuing birth certificates.”

At the same time, knowing that he’s going to lose the election, Eves mayhave done what he needed to do to consolidate his core vote and preserve afew marginal seats. There is clearly still a market for the snake oil thatEves is peddling; fortunately, it is a shrinking market.

The best performance of the night belonged to NDP Leader HowardHampton. Of course, the same could have been said (and was) about hisperformance in the 1999 leaders’ debate, and it didn’t translate into voteson Election Day. Still, anyone keeping score had to give Hampton top marksfor staying on topic, for consistency, for actually proposing ideas, and forpressing the key questions that McGuinty and Eves didn’t want to answer.For example, “What are you going to sell to balance the budget?.”

He promised toban corporate and union donations to political parties. He promisedproportional representation. He promised a higher minimum wage. He promisedto freeze rents. He promised public automobile insurance, and franklyadmitted that it had been “a mistake” for Bob Rae to abandon the idea whenthe NDP was in power. He promised to keep hydro, education and health carein public hands, noting on several occasions that privatized services “costmore and provide less.”

Hampton’s most compelling moment of the debate was also his mostunexpected. Traditionally, the NDP has run from its image as a “tax andspend” party. Its proposals to increase taxes on those who can and should bepaying a bigger share have been presented with an apologetic tone. In Tuesdayâe(TM)s debate, Hampton put those proposals front and centre. After McGuintywaffled in response to a question about his own tax policies, Hampton seizedthe opportunity.

“Taxes are what we contribute to society. They are the mostcost effective way to provide services. Yes, I will increase corporate taxesto the level they were at in 1999. I will increase taxes on people likemyself and Mr. Eves and Mr. McGuinty — people who earn over $100,000 ayear — because we can afford to pay more to ensure that those services areadequately funded.”

In his closing remarks, Hampton reiterated his key themes: “Weknow where the Conservatives are headed. This is where I stand. I can’t tellwhere Dalton McGuinty stands.” As Hampton indicates, electing the Liberalsis a major risk for voters who want real change, but one they appear to beready to take. If the polls numbers hold and we wake up on October 3 to thewords “Premier McGuinty,” it will be up to Hampton and the NDP to ensurethat McGuinty and the Liberals act in a manner that is noticeably differentfrom Eves and the Tories. With his impressive performance in the leaders’debate, Hampton already has a head start on that task.

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...