Ontario Election June 7, 2018

jerrym wrote:

Mighty Middle still in denial about Wynne's unpopularity.

Can you provide posts where I mentioned Kathleen Wynne? I'll save you the trouble, I never once mentioned her in terms of the Ontario election. All I'm saying is that Ford Nation has attracted NDP supporters. But seems posters here are in utter denial about it.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/05/14/ndp-platform-crafted-...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/liberals-ontario-ndp-budget-mistak...

Not good, not good at all for them.

Ken Burch wrote:

Mighty Middle wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

What we've done is totally discredit it. We've proved that the ONDP isn't responsible for Ford's (now declining) lead in the polls.

It is called being in denial.

Ken Burch wrote:

In ONE poll, one stat looked like that.  The same stat showed an slightly larger number of Liberal supporters being attracted to "Ford Nation". 

It was by ONE PERCENT! and according to the margin of error, that is  considered a statistical tie.

At bare minimum, it was an equal to, and possibly slightly larger percentage. 

Gimme a break if the roles were reversed you'd be saying it would a statistical tie.  In addition there has been more than one poll showing Ford Nation poaching NDP supporters.

In fact former card carrying NDPer and Jack Layton supporter (who supported him in the leadership) is now openly supporting Ford, and using his bully pulpit to convert other dippers into the Ford column.

He is trolling neighbourhood in Brampton to turn those ridings PC.

Only one option for anti-Ford voters.

https://www.thestar.com/amp/opinion/star-columnists/2018/05/15/only-one-option-for-anti-ford-voters.html?__twitter_impression=true

Quote:

Horwath says no way to coalition with Wynne Liberals

Given the possibly hyperbolic comments about those damnable Liberals around here, I can't really see any way by which we could expect the NDP -- the last, best, most useless and corrupted (so I'm told) bulwark against everyone else -- to join forces with EVIL incarnate JBF (Just Because FORD!!!).

If Ontario (and that's me; that's where I am) has trouble deciding between Ford and the Liberals/Lieberals/Libranos/[insert_weak_pun] then that's the real problem from my point of view, and 51% of that problem would be that the only people who could help fix it -- my fellow Ontarians -- are the ones making it.  But that's electoral politics, yes?

Mighty Middle wrote:

Third party advertisters linked to the Conservatives (like Ontario Proud) have poured time, money and resources demonizing Kathleen Wynne for the past three years on Social Media. With real vile and vicious attacks on social media (in particular on Facebook) All in the hopes of driving voters to the Conservatives.

Who knew that all of their blood, sweat and tears would just drive voters to Horwath? Maybe she will send them a fruit basket when this is all over as a thank you.

But Ontario Proud is one step ahead sending out this Facebook message

If that's true about the results of Howarth's health-care policies(ie. Americans can drive up and get free health-care), I'm pretty sure the plan would never be implemented anyway. Or, implemented and quickly cancelled, the minute a video hits You Tube of some pot-bellied Yank in a ballcap sitting in a doctor's waiting room and insulting Canadians, while he waits for his Ontario-taxpayer funded medical care.

Pogo wrote:

I think you have done everything but state your bias, almost like you are ashamed. A poll shows an equivalent leaning of  Liberals and NDP, yet you restate (and restate (and restate)) the NDP information and come up with senseless quibbles when it is drawn to your attention that you are totally ignoring the Liberal information in the same poll.

Babblers here had previously dismissed certain pollsters as being bias and being in bed with the Liberals. Now all of a sudden, when they show a surge in NDP support. That narrative (pollsters being in bed with the Liberals) has been tossed out the window, and now these same pollsters are to be believed 100%.

So if (and I say IF) these same pollsters show Jagmeet Singh in a freefall, don't go around saying they are in bed with the Liberals. Because you can't say one year (2018) you believe what all these questionable polling firms are saying. Then turn around a year later and accuse the same polling firms for being in bed with the Liberals!

Uploading TTC Subway lines a backdoor scheme to privatize public transit jobs

In the 2018 Ontario Budget, Premier Kathleen Wynne revealed the Liberals’ destructive plan to take over TTC Subway lines from the City of Toronto.

If this scheme sounds familiar, it is because Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives are also calling for the same, which is nothing more than a backdoor plan for the province and Metrolinx to privatize the cornerstone of Toronto’s public transit system.

“Across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Metrolinx is pushing privatization by making it impossible for public transit systems to operate and maintain new transit,” said Frank Grimaldi, President, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113. “Metrolinx taking over Toronto’s subway lines is a recipe for disaster that could lead to privatization, higher fares and even service cuts.”....

....

Fighting for Toronto public transit in the provincial election

quote:

The ‘glimmer’ refers to the possibility that we can do some education and mobilization with working people who use transit in Toronto, along with our allies in the union movement – and in particular, ATU Local 113 members – to raise the key issues behind our movement: increasing and providing stable operational funding for the TTC; keeping it public; increasing accessibility by building rapid mass transit throughout the city and in particular, working class neighbourhoods; reducing overcrowding and lowering fares for all, but especially people living in poverty and lower incomes.

Like so many of us, who are not tied to one of the political parties, TTCriders, as a transit user’s organization, is working to build a broader, deeper and more effective movement through the election, and in the process, help influence voters to “vote for transit”, and away from the possible (and now probable) mess that could result from the election of a Ford-led government.

We are working on a series of actions and educational tools, to bring out transit issues, and help to shape the outcome as best we can. They include:

– A Vote Transit Report Card, that includes the positions of four parties (PC, NDP, Liberals and Greens) on a series of key transit issues: funding better TTC service; commitment to lower fares; building more transit; keeping it public. Not surprisingly, the PC’s fail miserably on all of the issues. The NDP gets a green light on most, but a ‘yellow’ light on promising to fund more transit (they haven’t committed to a specific figure they would spend); the Liberals refuse to commit to any stable funding or keeping transit public, while they get a ‘yellow’ light for some funding and commitment to building more transit; the Greens get a green light on all of the issues.

Mighty Middle wrote:

What I said was 20% of Ford Nation support already comes from NDP supporters. I didn't say their surge in the polls is due to NDP supporters rushing to him. He already had them in his corner.

And I have access to polling (which I can show you) from Rob Ford Mayoral days to prove that,

You are the one that continues to be in denial about Ford Nation being made up of 20% of NDP supporters. If you want to continually to be in denial about it, then so be it.

And I have the polling from Rob Ford mayoral days to back it up.

You may want to sit down before hearing this.

Rob Ford is dead.

When he was alive, he was mayor of the city of Toronto, elected under a system without parties.

He was not his brother Doug, leader of a provincial party, running to be premier of Ontario, a province, as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

Even if the poll you have -- about Rob, the dead mayor -- was accurate, it has no bearing on what percentage of historical NDP supporters have moved over to backing Doug (the provincial PC leader) in this election. You've used the term "Ford Nation" to attempt to obscure this, along with some handwaving about how populists convert people for life.

Do you have any polls from this year (I'll be generous and not require they come from the election campaign, during which there's been a substantial rise in NDP support) that indicate what percentage of people who voted NDP in 2014 are voting PC in 2018?

cco wrote:

You may want to sit down before hearing this.

Rob Ford is dead.

And yet Doug Ford is recycling Rob Ford old election signs for this campaign as they say FORD NATION. And he won the PC Leadership on the support he pulled from Liberal and NDP supporters in the 2014 Mayoral race. In one poll (for Missausuga Mayor) the pollsters threw in Doug Ford name, even though he wasn't running for Mayor there, just to see what would happen and Ford came in 2nd!

As studies have showed, once a populist politician gains support from a voter, that voter sticks with them. Even if they leave politics for a bit and then come back. 

Slogans such as the Fords’ “stop the gravy train” and Trump’s “drain the swamp” and “make America great again” may not have much substance, but they often stick when people are increasingly worried about their status in society.

Populist politicians tend to use straightforward messaging that caters to someone’s emotions, said Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol who studies the spread of fake news and misinformation.

“They’re simple messages that promise solutions and appeal to emotions. In a world that is incredibly complex … a lot of people find the pace of change difficult to cope with … that’s when simple messages become attractive,” Lewandowsky said.

Ford’s candid and brazen approach to politics has won over Gordon Hazelwood, 52, who owns a small print shop in his hometown of Hamilton.

“No surprise I’m also a Trump supporter. You can quote me on that,” Hazelwood said.

He thinks Ford is cut from the same cloth as Trump and does “the things he says he’s going to do and actually follows through on them.”

“Ford is just being a regular person up there. He’s speaking normally. He’s speaking from his heart, as himself — not (as) somebody who wants you to hear stuff that’s scripted and, you know, the right way to say it,” he said.

That goes beyond just repeating talking points — Hazelwood feels political correctness has gone too far and pervaded public policy, citing a recent report about Service Canada’s directive to avoid honorifics like Mr. and Mrs. and the All Families Are Equal Act in Ontario that swaps out “mother” and “father” for gender neutral “parent” on government forms.

“We’ve been like this for centuries and nobody ever complained about anything. It seems the whole world is going that way, it’s too far,” he said.

People may be more willing to give up the liberties ingrained in democracies because they feel like they’re losing their place in society, but those feelings have to be nurtured, Lewandowsky said.

“Populism doesn’t just grow on a tree like apples or pears. It has to be produced,” Lewandowsky said. “You have to have messengers go out who are stoking fears and divisions because one of the crucial aspects of populism is it is turning people against some out-group.”

Lewandowsky said people’s perceptions on cultural and economic issues are exaggerated. People tend to think there are a lot more immigrants in the population than there actually are, though financial stress is more subjective.

Populism may be a gateway to autocracy, but for now at least, Canadians don’t seem to be willing to give up on democracy as we know it.

According to a Pew Research survey from 2017, Canadians generally think autocratic leaders are bad — 81 per cent versus 17 per cent who said they are good. That said, one in 10 said they thought the country should be under military rule.

Ford Nation is a “strange coalition” that includes “immigrants and minorities but also people who don’t like immigrants and minorities,” said Michael McGregor, a political science professor at Ryerson University who heads a study of local elections in major Canadian cities.

“Maybe the two groups don’t recognize each other, maybe they don’t care — the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he said.

McGregor’s national study of local elections includes a poll conducted just before Toronto’s 2014 municipal election, when Doug Ford entered the mayoral race to replace his brother, the drug-scandal-plagued incumbent mayor who dropped out at the time to focus on his health.

People who identified as East Asian, South Asian and Eastern European were more likely than self-identified Canadians and Western Europeans to give Ford a high score when asked to rank a candidate’s likability out of 100. Ford’s approval rating was about 44 per cent among East Asians, 42 per cent among South Asians and 41 per cent among Eastern Europeans. He scored an average of 31 per cent approval among self-identified Canadians — which would include visible minorities — and about 32 among Western Europeans.

McGregor noted Ford’s base in the 905 and Toronto suburban fringe tends to be low-income, high visible minority.

“It’s this disaffected feeling (that) elites or people in power … don’t really care what people like me think,” McGregor said.

Simon Kiss, a political scientist at Wilfrid Laurier University, gauged support among Torontonians for then-scandal-plagued mayor Rob Ford, using data from Ipsos’s 2014 provincial election exit survey.

Visible minorities in Toronto were twice as likely to support the former mayor compared to white voters, Kiss said. Support was also higher among immigrants — those who were born in Canada were 34 percentage points less likely to approve of Rob Ford than those who had immigrated here.

“They (the Fords) talk about getting taxes down, they talk about taking on the elites, they talk about being the voice of the people, they talk about being businessmen knowing how to run a government better ... in Toronto, Ontario, at least, that message actually resonates quite profoundly with visible minority voters,” Kiss said.

Religion is also a key factor in support for the Ford brothers. McGregor’s research suggests Doug Ford did poorly among atheists. Kiss’s report also shows the most religious respondents were four times as likely to approve of the late mayor over those who skewed secular.

Ayoola goes to church every Sunday and wholeheartedly believes Ford shares her religious, socially conservative values.

“Why him? Because he has a family too and he has the same kind of morals that I do,” she said.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/04/15/why-doug-fords-populi...