How Will You Handle Doug Ford as Premier?

Hatred of Mulroney reduced the PC Party to 2 seats. He completely destroyed the party. By comparison, Harper left the CPC in relatively good shape. They are still the official opposition. Everyone in Canada hated Mulroney because he sold us out to the Reagan-Thatcher Big Bang of 1986 through his FTA with Reagan. Everyone, left and right, knew that this would mean Canada would be sucked dry. Now currency is printed to buy government debt, instead of exchanged for other currency elsewhere. Chretien, Martin, Harper, and Trudeau Jr. just managers of what Mulroney has wrought. Still, Trudeau Sr. saw this coming and started with neoliberal policy at the end of his rule.

Harper only had to be defeated by a shift of a few percentage points from Conservative to Liberal, or the NDP at certain times in the campaign. Only about 20% of the vote could have moved around. About 20% are going to be Liberal, Conservative, and NDP no matter what. 40% are the floaters. But not all of them floated.

To me, it seems that a lot of people in their 50s who saw they were going to lose 2 years of pension revolted against Harper. Trudeau's (now kept) promise to reverse that was enough to get their votes. Many of us may still be afraid that the Conservatives might try to pull that trick again. I don't know if the Family Benefit was in the Liberal platform, but if it was, that would have got a lot of people with kids quite happy. If the Conservatives say they want to means-test that, they might get a lot of people angry with them.

A number of Conservatives bought the argument that we should borrow money for infrastructure. It was a good time to borrow, which most people agreed. The problem is that the money has not been going out the door. If we are not getting any infrastructure for the deficits, these kind of Conservatives will say the Liberals are blowing the money and go back to the Conservatives again. So Trudeau is under the gun on that one. We need to see shovels in the ground.

Perhaps Doug Ford will realize he can print as much money as he wants and spend it on infrastructure.

How long will you handle Doug Ford as Premier?

Most likely 2 or 3 terms.

Martin N. wrote:

How long will you handle Doug Ford as Premier?

Most likely 2 or 3 terms.

I disagree. I think his inexperience and general ignorance will make his time as Premier a complete disaster.

I think he's a one and done Premier.

I checked facebook and my daughter had updated her status to say that for the next 4 years we have to work together as a community to help the vulnerable.

Pondering wrote:

I checked facebook and my daughter had updated her status to say that for the next 4 years we have to work together as a community to help the vulnerable.

Congratulations, you have a very smart daughter. I am sure it feels good that she has some of the values you have.

progressive17 wrote:

Hatred of Mulroney reduced the PC Party to 2 seats.

The problem is this is mostly not true.

Not sure if you remember that time but that is not what happened.

Here is what happened:

 - the Conservatives actually lead in the polls after Mulroney left so it was not a foregone conclusion

 - what did the Conservatives in was their support fractured into three parties. The total vote of these parties was actually higher than what the Conservatives were used to getting

- the argument that it was Mulroney's unpopularity is partly true but nothing to do with the election itself as the right will never be wiped out (only a party that loses support to another right wing party can be wiped out).

Mulroney's unpopularity was true only to the extent that Mulroney had the bad judgment to try for Constitutional change without the support needed to make it work. His attempt created Meech Lake Accord failure which in turn created the BQ. At the same time, his attempts at keeping Quebec onside fed the Reform party and the Conservatives split three ways.

What killed the PC party federally was the Meech Lake Accord failure. But even then they nearly survived. So Meech Lake was the coffin built for the PCs. The nail was the leadership change and poor campaign of Kim Campbell. She blew the campaign with two huge gaffes: 1) saying you do not discuss  policy in a campaign 2) ads showing Chretien's face asking if people thought this was the face of a PM.

During the election Mulroney polled higher than Campbell and may have held enough seats in Quebec and elsewhere to avoid elimination as a party. the left hated Mulroney but there was a sizeable block on the right that liked him.

So Meech lake set the stage for a wipeout with competition for the right of centre vote and then Campbell lost that vote.

Comparisons to Harper etc. are not applicable in the least.

Your discussion about Free trade is popular here but without any foundation in analysis - the PCs, BQ and Reform all supported free trade -- very clearly. They got in total 48% of the vote. The support for Free Trade really never changed by more than a handful of points through that entire time.

NDPP wrote:

The Tory agenda must be blocked by a struggle that makes the Province ungovernable.

That reminds me of rioters in Bosnia burning firetrucks, then watching their village burn.

We should make the provicence an even bigger disaster over the next 4 years to prove a point.