You know, I was thinking back to the 1995 election: a Premier at peace with his resignation to inevitable defeat; an anointed frontrunner who turned out too prickly, unlikeable, and smearable for her own good; and a victor with a warm, reassuring, smooth and positive aura about him, even though he ran to the hard right of where his party previously stood.
Imagine, in 2011, if those figures were, respectively, McGuinty, Hudak, and Horwath.
Meanwhile Shelley Carroll (hopefully the next mayor of Toronto) gets top marks in books for this:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1029250--carroll-takes-aim-at-ford-a...
"Councillor Shelley Carroll has rejected overtures to run for the Liberals in this fall’s provincial election, and taken a swipe at councillors with Liberal ties who are collaborating with conservative Mayor Rob Ford."
You know, I was thinking back to the 1995 election: a Premier at peace with his resignation to inevitable defeat; an anointed frontrunner who turned out too prickly, unlikeable, and smearable for her own good; and a victor with a warm, reassuring, smooth and positive aura about him, even though he ran to the hard right of where his party previously stood.Imagine, in 2011, if those figures were, respectively, McGuinty, Hudak, and Horwath.
Minus the hard right turn part, I like that scenario.
Good post Robo. ^5, especially about wanting them ALL to be more progressive....
So Robo, is Andrea Horwath getting rid of the health premium? Hmm, doesn't seem to be. Is she raising welfare rates by some 50% to undo the "Harris" cut? Right. Is the NDP incenting driving by reducing the price of gas? Oh, wait, they are.
Yes it is incenting to not hammer the working poor that has not other choice but to drive. But of course you middle-class urban bubblers don't give a crap if someone else much more vulnerable has to pay for your schemes. These Liberal talking points are becoming so lame I can hardly wait for Sept 7.
Is the NDP incenting driving by reducing the price of gas? Oh, wait, they are.
As opposed to McGuinty, who provided a disincentive to use public transit by removing the budget for Transit City in Toronto last year, thereby allowing Rob Ford the space to capitalize on an anti-transit platform?
I see Wayne Roberts and the Greens are now doing the Liberals dirty work and just making shit up as they go along. Disgraced to think I helped start the party.
http://wayneroberts.ca/archives/655
I see Wayne Roberts and the Greens are now doing the Liberals dirty work and just making shit up as they go along. Disgraced to think I helped start the party.
Why not post a rebuttal here so people can understand more? I'm sure your words as an ex-Green would carry some weight.
For a country that endures above average prices on things such as internet access and constant gouging from phone companies, making life cheaper is really attractive. As for the greens, if their strategy is to appeal to an upper class that can afford these measures - then I guess thats what defines them and they should state it proudly.
And I do think that they should wait for the ONDP to post their green policies. Then the constructive criticism should come.
The gist of what I'm getting from this board is that people think the Liberals should move right?
Wrong. It's unfortunate that you have not understood what the gist of the comments above are -- but I guess it's fun to use Liberal Party talking points to attribute statements that fit in with what the Liberal Party wants to claim New Democrats are saying, by using words like "gist" to attribute words when they don't actually appear anywhere. (As always, I note no one on this message board is a spokesperson for any party -- it's just a collection of folks mostly but not entirely on the Left chattering about things.) No one in the thread above has suggested that any Ontario party should move to the Right.
Here is what I say, and what I see as the gist of many comments above: like many times in the past, the Liberal Party has from time to time mouthed progressive ideas, but continued many of the changes that the Harris government brought in. Some specific examples include:
- Real rent control was brought in by Tory minority governments in the 1970s that had to respond to New Democrats in opposition. When Mike Harris came to power, rent control that attached to the unit rather than the tenant at the time was eliminated. In eight years in power, nothing has been done by Liberals to restore real rent control. For groups that are more likely to move than average, like students and lower income tenants, the rent control system of the Ontario Liberal government provides no practical protection when a household has to move. McGuinty has done nothing to reverse the most important Harris changes.
- "Card certification" (when workers confirmed in writing their preferences to form a new bargaining unit) used to happen under older Tory governments. Mike Harris got rid of it, to allow employers to pressure workers for a week before they were allowed to have their opinions actually count, in the minds of the provincial government. The Liberal government has brought back card certification, but only for the construction trade union sector, the only sector of the trade union movement where leaders have approvied donations to the Liberal Party from union funds. Unless you're willing to donate to the Liberal Party, McGuinty has done nothing to reverse Harris' changes to labour laws.
- The "Ontario Health Premium" introduced by McGuinty's government is more regressive than any tax change of the Harris government. The OHP was "flat at five points", constituting a significant increase in provincial tax rates for the significant majority of Ontarians, but constituting an increasingly small tax increase the higher one's income went. While Harris tax cuts disproportinately benefited those with higher incomes, the OHP actually taxed a millionaire at a lesser rate than any housheold with income under $100,000. And the Liberals want to lower corporate tax rates, necessarily shfting more of the tax collected, onto individual taxpayers, than the rates that even Mike Harris had taxed corporations.
Those are the kinds of regressive measures that Liberals actually have provided to Ontarians. I know that didn't get mentioned when Liberal cabinet minister John Wilkinson said that Andrea Horwath is the same as Mike Harris. Too bad for him that the facts are different -- McGuinty has left huge parts of the Harris agenda in place, and wants to out-Harris Harris in some places.
So, just to be clear in case you don't see my gist, I want all political parties in Ontario to be more progressive. It's just that the facts are that the PCs and Liberals are the least progressive options out there.
What the NDP has promised to do is to regulate gas prices, which in all likelihood won't reduce them on average but rather make them less variable. It's not such a major incentive to drive but I don't suppose the party could respond to criticism that way as it's such a political benefit to give the impression that it's going to reduce prices.
Could one of you please start a new Dalton-bashing thread and leave this one for us poll trolls?
Nice new poll from Forum Research:
Tories 38% (-3)
Libs 28% (+2)
NDP 24% (+2)
Greens 7% (-1)
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1032403--hudak-s-lea...
Stockholm -- consider this-- the gap between Hudak and the NDP is now less than it was between Hudak and the Liberals last month.
Or consider this: If the Cons lost 6% to the NDP and 2 to the Liberals there would be a 3-way tie.
The NDP vote is more concentrated than the other parties-- in low levels it is not very eficient but if it rises above the 25% level it starts to be. In a 3-way tie I would guess the NDP could get the most seats.
I am not predicting at this moment that the NDP could take power or come out ahead but things are much closer than some might think.
If the Conservatives fall any further they could be out of majority--
What arrangements are possible would depend on many things. It could be difficult for the NDP to back a governemnt of either Hudak or McGuinty. I wonder if the NDP would want to or be able to insist on some kind of all-party governemnt or if that would even be a good idea. It could prevent any one party from the advantage of being left out of government. Alternately the opposition could simply let McGuinty govern requiring him to get support for each and every initiative without any governing arrangement. Remember that while it took an accord to take government in 1985 it only did so because it was removing a government. No accord would be required for McGuinty to hang on to power if nobody else thought they could get enough support to take it away.
The NDP might prefer to remain neutral on McGuinty other than a policy by policy basis and the Cons might not want to form a minority government that would not last. In a three way split likely only the Liberals would have an incentive to try to hold power. It could be an exciting fall...
The one thing is such a split is very difficult to imagine-- most elections are referenda on the governing party and decisions are seldom split. Part of me believes that it is unlikely that the Liberals would find themselves as official opposition -- they will either hang on to power with a small majority following a campaign that does not go well for Hudak-- or end up as the third party.
It would be interesting if the tie were so close that the Liberals ended up third but still able to govern for the reasons stated above... If there is a tie between the NDP and the Cons in seats (which would not require a tie in votes), I could see them willing to let the Liberals govern if they were not far behind. Still the more likely scenario in a minority may be to have the Liberals so far back that they could not govern and could only choose between the NDP and the Cons.
In some ways the most ideal result is a weak TOry minority government propped by what's left of the Liberals. That way the NDP can be the opposition and prepare to take over in a subsequent election. It would be the kiss of death for the ONDP to actually end up in power after this election. They only have 8 incumbent MPPs and most are quite lackluster and I think it will take a few years to get the Ontario party ready to be in government. Right now Horwath is benefitting enormously from being in the right place at the right time. I just hope she doesn't blow it by being trite and platitudinous. My fear is that ends up being a female version of Hampton and I though he was very uninspiring.
Howard Hampton has just announced his retirement from politics. Sad to see such an under-appreciated politician bow out.
Any word or speculation on the prospects for holding his riding which went strongly Conservative in the federal election?
As for the Forum Research poll, does anyone have any regional breakdowns?
.
.
In northern Ontario the provincial and federal ridings don't match the way they do in the rest of Ontario. Most of Hampton's provincial riding of Kenora-Rainy River is in the federal riding of Kenora - which is Tory. A much smaller part of it is in the provincial rding of Thunder Bay-Rainy River - which is NDP. So its fair to say that the vast majority of Hampton's provincial riding is represented federally by a Conservative.
I suspect that Hampton already has someone lined up to take his place and didn't want to announce his retirement further in advance since it would give the other parties (and possibly other NDP nomination contenders), more time to take a run for the seat.
.
Here are the May federal election results transposed onto the provincial riding of Kenora-Rainy River:
