Ontario General Election 2014

Aide to McGuinty’s chief of staff twice refuses interview by OPP probe into deleted gas plant emails

Gary Dimmock, Postmedia News | May 8, 2014 8:00 AM ET
More from Postmedia News

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/05/08/aide-to-mcguintys-chief-of-staff...

Ontario police pursuing a criminal charge against McGuinty’s chief of staff over gas plant scandal

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/27/ontario-police-pursuing-a-crimin...

If the truth be known there is not much interest in actual democracy in Ontario, is there?

I don't see many walking the talk

Leaders' debates should be more than an afterthought

A few days into the Ontario election campaign, the major issues are already starting to emerge. There's the critical issue of foreign models being used in place of Ontarians in campaign advertisements. There are the many important questions raised by the staging of an opposition campaign event in a factory that - whoops! - benefited from government support policies. And of course there are the usual meat-and-potato issues of any election, the kinds of things that voters invariably find helpful in clarifying the choices before them - things like gaffes and photo ops and polls and attack ads and endless, endless discussions of strategy.

We're doing it again, in other words: we, the politicians and the pollsters and the strategists and the media, the whole godforsaken, incestuous, bathwater-drinking political class, the people whose combined exertions over many years have succeeded in driving turnout in provincial elections below 50 per cent. You wanted an election about issues, you hapless Ontario voters? You're getting a campaign about a campaign, same as always.

But wait. One of the party leaders, the NDP's Andrea Horwath, has challenged her rivals to a series of five televised debates, each devoted to a different issue. She suggested the economy could be the subject of one, and it wouldn't be hard to come up with a list of some other issues that might benefit from an in-depth exploration of the parties' differences: accountability, certainly, given the many scandals to erupt on the Liberals' watch, but also taxes, deficits, pensions, transit, health care. If they held the first one next week, they could have one a week for the rest of the campaign. We might experiment with different formats: maybe one organized as a series of oneon-one encounters, another giving the leaders a full 10 minutes each to argue their positions, possibly even a... I know. I know. It's not going to happen. For Horwath's proposal to come to pass the other leaders would have to agree, and since both the Liberals and the Conservatives lead the NDP by several points in the polls, why would they? Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne craftily offered to participate in as many debates as the networks would allow. But since the networks have no interest in holding any - all that prime time with no commercials? - that means we will have as few as they can possibly get away with. If history is any guide, they'll probably saw it off at one or two, with the networks' star correspondents prominently displayed and the Greens carefully excluded. The format will be execrable, the leaders will be over-caffeinated, the media will complain of the lack of "knockout blows," and another opportunity will have been wasted.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Leaders+debates+should+more+than+afte...

The NDP is proposing the highest minimum wage.

What I find fascinating about how the whole minimum wage debate is playing out is that the Liberals were applauded by labour for increasing the minimum wage to $10 an hour back in 2010. In fact, Wynne raising the wage to $10 an hour, basically a 10% increase showed that Wynne was tractable and progressive.

At the time $10 an hour was well below a "living wage". But that didn't seem to matter to anyone. Progress was progress. So, vote Liberal.

Today, times have changed, a 20% increase proposed by the NDP is not nearly enough, and in fact shows that the NDP is not progressive, possibly even less progressive than the Liberals, even though a few years back a 10% increase by the Liberals was hailed as a marvelous victory.

So, it appears that the NDP needs to be at least twice as "generous" as the Liberals in order to be deemed progressive enough to be more progressive than the Liberals.

Certainly outsourcing government construction and maintenance contracts should help ensure that more people are working for minimum wage, which is what we want right?

The difference this time around is that the NDP are now in the game.

Andrea came to BC last year to address the BC NDP convention and was by far the most effectiive of the guestspeakers at the convention.

Unfortunately no one in the BC NDP was listening.

With her labour roots, she grew up in an auto-worker household, Andrea is certainly rattling more than a few cages.

A lot of the tension results from the threat the NDP is now posing to the corrupt scandal ridden Liberals.

No one likes to have their authority or power challenged, especially when you have been fat cats for a long time.

terrytowel wrote:

Rokossovsky wrote:

You mean that poll they took in September? In that poll the Liberals had a comfortable lead. The most recent polling shows a reversal of those poll numbers. What happened?

Couldn't possibly be that more voters see the gas plants as more of "a scandal" with revelations of even more scandalous behaviour, such as wiping of hard drives, and possible charges against McGuinty's chief of staff?

Meh. Couldn't be that. Any ideas?

No this is a freshly released poll, whose numbers were revealed on The Agenda last night in an exclusive.

I would lover to see the new poll, because it really sounds a lot like this one: Ontario voters not dismayed by Liberal gas plant scandal, poll suggests, where it says:

Quote:

And despite the controversy around the power plants – which the Liberals cancelled ahead of the 2011 election, at an estimated cost of $585 million – 45 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the government’s handling of the electricity file. That figure is actually up seven points from May 2011, before the power plant matter began to dog the Liberals.

2 for 2

On track again talking about jobs and the economy.

New Democrats to Create Jobs with Targeted Tax Credits

“Our Job Creation Tax Credit will help companies that are ready to invest in training local workers and equipment right here at home,” said Horwath. “While the Liberals and the Conservatives alike are sticking to no- strings-attached corporate tax giveaways that don’t create jobs, New Democrats are ready to make smart investments and work with the real job creators.”

Horwath said that Ontarians want a government that will make job creation a priority. New Democrats  will reward companies that create jobs with a Job Creation Tax credit that will pay 10% of the salary of new employees to a maximum value of $5000 dollars per business.

“In Niagara Falls Riding and across the province people are telling New Democrats that they’re sick of watching their jobs get shipped away. New Democrats have the best plan to put people to work and help middle class families,” said Horwath. “It’s simple: if you put people to work you earn a tax break.  It works and it will put people to work.”

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Wynne is starting to sound like Putin. Putin says he has withdrawn Russian troops from the Ukraine border but he hasn't. Wynne says she doesn't want to drag Harper into the Ontario election but then she does it again. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but voters know who the Liberals are running against and will start tuning Wynne out soon. It is a sure sign of wekness if you can not address your actual opponents, as opposed to battling it out with some boogeyman. 

Andrea Horwath - Makes Sense

Some people have commented on the fact that Mike Harris used a version of this slogan, Common Sense.

terrytowel wrote:

Andrea Horwath - Makes Sense

Some people have commented on the fact that Mike Harris used a version of this slogan, Common Sense.

Yeah, I know. The word "common" as in Commonwealth. As in Canadian Commonwealth Federation. Mike Harris must have been referencing Tommy Douglas.

Is the best that you can do for political commentary?

CBC’s Metro Morning confirms the obvious: nobody pays attention to Queen’s Park 

http://www.torontolife.com/informer/toronto-politics/2014/05/08/cbcs-met...

Skinny Dipper wrote:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/05/08/andrea_horwaths_rightwing_populism_salutin.html

If I had an NDP card, or ever had one, or any party card, I’d rip it up, mostly in the hope it might feel good to do something in response to this travesty."

Right, because tearing up a membership card would somehow be considered "do[ing] something".

No, I will not be voting Liberal or Conservative.  I will not be voting for a right-wing Ontario NDP.  I'm not fond of the Greens either.  I will probably stay home on election day.

Seriously nutso stuff from Salutin. Regg Cohn seemed convinced that the $100 rebate thing had something to do with a plan to reconstitute Ontario Hydro as a single crown corporation, or some other "right wing" idea.

Quote:

Horwath would reconstitute the old Ontario Hydro, which was chopped into pieces by the last Tory government (it begat OPG, Hydro One, etc.). She’d also rein in CEO salaries. And curb exports of surplus hydro at low prices — just like that.

Its ok for Wynne to run around using Jack Laytonesque "I won't stop until the job is done" rhetoric, while proposing to sell off the remains of Ontario Hydro, the LCBO and outsource long term maintenance for TTC contracts to the private sector, but should the NDP propose the opposite, and sound ever so slightly like "the right", its simply unforgiveable.

As I had long suspected, the truth is that for much of the Liberal/left its all about image and semantics, and they really don't give a fuck if the labour is outsourced to companies hiring minimum wage workers from temporary supply agencies.

And they wonder why Rob Ford got elected. Lol.

That Salutin article is frightening but sadly enough, seems on the mark. I remember the Harris days in Ontario and it was bleak, very bleak. That Horwath would jettison what seemed like a more than reasonable budget just galls me. And Salutin is right, it does harken back to Layton rejecting Martin's desperate attempt to hold on to power with such hugh concessions as the Kelowna Accord and National Child Care.

When seeking power is more important that seeking better policies for Canadians, you lose my vote, membership and campaign contribution. I used to think that minority governments were a good thing in terms of forcing better decisions on those in charge for fear of an election. But I guess that's old school thinking these days.

Salutin is a dyed in the wool Liberal, writing in the CBC/TStar Liberal media wing of the party, and is writing one-sided gibberish.

One small example of many: The NDP was quite prepared to bring down Harper and the idiotic egotistical "entitled to my entitlements" Liberals walked. Gee, I wonder why Salutin just happened to forget that in his revisionist histoy lesson. 

laine lowe wrote:

That Salutin article is frightening but sadly enough, seems on the mark. I remember the Harris days in Ontario and it was bleak, very bleak. That Horwath would jettison what seemed like a more than reasonable budget just galls me. And Salutin is right, it does harken back to Layton rejecting Martin's desperate attempt to hold on to power with such hugh concessions as the Kelowna Accord and National Child Care.

When seeking power is more important that seeking better policies for Canadians, you lose my vote, membership and campaign contribution. I used to think that minority governments were a good thing in terms of forcing better decisions on those in charge for fear of an election. But I guess that's old school thinking these days.

Here is something worth reading to clear the air of Salutin's mewling about aesthetics.

Quote:

Ontario has spent so much time figuring out what happened after the cancellation of the plants that we’re in danger of forgetting what happened before the cancellation, and why.

Under Duncan, the Ontario Ministry of Energy issued a request for proposals for the gas plants in 2004. It awarded the contracts in 2005. The tender process and the resulting contracts were unusual, to say the least.

Under the tender process,the only entity in the province with any experience in building large generation projects – Ontario Power Generation – was prevented from bidding. It was not even permitted to participate as a partner with any of the proponents.

The problem at the heart of Ontario’s gas plant fiasco: public-private partnerships

But don'e worry. Wynne won't stop, until the job is done.

And not to get off topic, but when Salutin says:

Quote:

By contrast, Jack Layton’s NDP killed a national childcare program and gave us a Harper government in the bargain — but it finally became the official opposition. Now we get Horwath’s NDP killing an Ontario pension plan and willing to boost Hudak.

In the years that Harper has been Prime Minister, Manitoba has expanded child care spaces, boosted wages, and provided child care workers with a pension plan. Child care is primarily a provincial responsibility. If child care is that important to Salutin, what has he done to adovcate that the Ontario government improve the system it has?

Well said A24.

Quite frankly I am more fearful of talking with people who tell you they are left-of-centre, but who support right-wing policies, as opposed to right-of-centre folks who tell you they are right-wing and actually are right-wing.

With right-wingers at least you know who you talking with. 

There is something to be said for just being principled and honest, which far too many on the so-called left-of-centre have unfortunately forgotten about I guess.

Quite sad that people feel they have to forgo fundamental decent good principled living habits in their quest to get what they consider ahead. 

Apart from all the Liberal corruption and scandals, let's have a though discussion of the unemployment situation in Ontario, eh!

It seems that one place after another is closing up shop in Ontario - what gives?

Brampton soup plant closure becomes Ontario election campaign flashpoint

The pending closure of a Unilever soup plant in Brampton at a cost of 280 jobs became a flashpoint in the Ontario election campaign Thursday.

On a day opposition leaders highlighted their job creation measures — including a Progressive Conservative push for more skilled trades — the NDP’s Andrea Horwath said the shutdown slated for 2016 demonstrates Kathleen Wynne’s government has “no plan to keep jobs here.”

“The maintenance of good jobs is something the Liberals have failed miserably on,” Horwath charged at the Covent Garden Market in London after reviving her 2011 election promise for job creation tax credits.

http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/1028050/brampton-soup-plant-closure-bec...

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I am fine with Andrea Horwath choosing not to support the "NDP-style" Liberal budget.  As she stated, just because there were good things promised in the budget, it wouldn't have meant that the Liberal government would have implemented them.  I also think that if the NDP had supported the Liberals, the NDP would have started to become irrelevant in a battle between the Liberals and Hudak's Conservatives.  Politically, it was wise for Andrea Horwath and the Ontario NDP to withhold support of the budget.

It's difficult for me to distinguish Ms. Horwath from other political leaders.  When I listened to her on TVO's The Agenda, I couldn't tell if she was a New Democrat or a leader from any other party.  She spoke as a generic politician.  When Rick Salutin stated that Andrea Horwath was a right-wing populist, he was sharing my belief that if Ms. Horwath were to become the next premier, she will lead the province as a right-winger--perhaps not as right-wing as Tim Hudak, but right-wing nevertheless.

Have to laugh at the party hacks on here attacking Salutin as a "wacko"
and a Liberal when he's far more sane and left than either of them.

And as anyone on the left south of the border will tell you, the phrase "job creators" is right-wing tripe. It makes my skin crawl.

josh wrote:

Have to laugh at the party hacks on here attacking Salutin as a "wacko" and a Liberal when he's far more sane and left than either of them. And as anyone on the left south of the border will tell you, the phrase "job creators" is right-wing tripe. It makes my skin crawl.

Care to point out a what point Salutin elevates himself above aesthetics and ad hominem smears and talks policy? Doubtful you know the difference, as this post illustrates.

The Liberal budget is a sugar coated privatization bomb.

Again, something on policy worth reading for those who wish to rise above.

The Ontario Budget and the 2014 election

OPSEU wrote:

In the Budget, these changes would have been paid for in three main ways: through small tax increases, big spending cuts, and significant asset sales and privatization.

Rokossovsky wrote:

Seriously nutso stuff from Salutin. 

Yea, he is usually more discerning, very dogmatic here;

but then I am living in another province, maybe I don't get it.