In just 39 days the voters of Ontario will decide whether to return Dalton McGuinty to power or to give Tim Hudak a chance at running things. Too bad there’ll be little of substance discussed with the voters. Don’t blame the politicians though, this is entirely the fault of the media for turning modern-day elections into shallow popularity contests where the only thing that matters are those “gotcha” moments.
We’ll see. The idea that elections need to be six month long, and always high intensity is crazy. Wait until after Labor day.
Tim Hudak must have something to come (he can’t be this lame and timid for real), and Dalton by rights should spend six very tough weeks on the defensive. There’s time for this one to get interesting yet.
Why discuss anything with anybody that can lie like Liar McSquinty.
Words have no meaning, Ontarioians will formally pronounce the debate winner in a month.
Energy policy? No electrical energy generating policy. As on no energy.
What do the polls look like? Toronto installed a conservative mayor, and Ontario largely voted CPC in the recent federal election. Will Ontario voters go for the triumvirate? What do things look like on the ground in Ontario?
Green energy is Liberal RED bullsh@# !
GST on Home Heating & energy needs trashing.
Let Mom & Pop Variety stores sell beer and wine in every corner store in the province!
Are you listening Tim?
Hudak’s people have always believed he can win this election by default, and thus have put together a platform of nothing, with no wedge issues, and no promises to reverse any of the McGuinty damage. It was a bad, bad decision by “Progressive Conservative” morons. No matter how bad the incumbent, you can’t beat an incumbent with nothing. Shame on these guys, they may well have ruined our chance to get rid of McGuinty.
And Robert, I must disagree. The media would love to talk about differences and divisions between the campaigns. There aren’t any to talk about, and that is 100% the fault of Hudak and his team.
Dalton McHudak will beat out Tim Guinty.
You heard it here first.
As the thread title ironically suggests there really is no discussion necessary and no choice involved in the Ontario election. In Ontario the current government is the most scandal ridden, wasteful, tax-crazed, malfeasant morally deficient regime the province has ever suffered under. There are at least 30 scandals and rip offs that I recall ranging from the Caledonia abandonment of rule of law to the lottery rip off to E-health waste to the wind energy waste.
In the next election there is no need for discussing removing this malfeasant kleptocratic government, it is our duty!
Hudak’s people have always believed he can win this election by default, and thus have put together a platform of nothing, with no wedge issues, and no promises to reverse any of the McGuinty damage. It was a bad, bad decision by “Progressive Conservative” morons. No matter how bad the incumbent, you can’t beat an incumbent with nothing. Shame on these guys, they may well have ruined our chance to get rid of McGuinty.
Posted by: flaggman at August 29, 2011 12:00 PM
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I concur 100%. Hudak and team are complete idiots.
To my mind the only solution is to implode the Ontario PC party and come out of it with an Ontario Conservative party.
I agree that it’s disappointing that there isn’t a real discussion about the issues at hand. But maybe that is the strategy the Conservatives want to use. The sooner they talk about the issues the sooner the msm attacks and the longer they have to attack. If the Conservatives have some game changing policies they can drop them one at a time throughout the campaign and keep the Liberals and the MSM off balance. Right now they can only attack what they “think” the Conservatives are going to do and that seems to have made them a bit panicky.
Electricity bills should end the discussion
Occam nails it.
“Electricity bills should end the discussion.”
Yup. They should hammer away at that constantly.
Flaggmann, I stand to be corrected but I have not seen one election in the past 20 years where the media really wanted politicians to discuss the issues honestly. Perhaps this upcoming Ontario election campaign will be different … but I doubt it.
The performance of the Ontario PCs has been so lame,
so politically incompetent, since Mike Harris, that
the question really has to be raised as to whether
they haven’t been bought. The Libs have a great
deal of money behind them, even though McGuinty
and – what’s his name? the disgusting former Health
minister? are utterly depraved and incompetent.
Ontario is worse run than the US!!
So it looks as though the fix is in. Remember, the
president of the federal Liberals is a big
corporate lawyer, and an
incompetent government is likely to generate more revenues for bankers etc. than an honest one.
You mean Ontario’s no real election, election.
Since the Office of Premier appears nowhere on any public ballot, nor does the Provincial Senator, nor does any leadership position whatsoever, so I ask, to what election are you referring?
Only the insider elite (Party Members) get to cast votes. To belong to that club you must first pay a fee, and then get admitted after vetting, and then can be kicked out for anything including lack of political purity to the Politburo.
I heard mcsquints just tossed nearly 50 mill to study building electric cars with Magna International.
they should check electric car sales before they start another one.
Flaggman says, “Hudak’s people have always believed he can win this election by default, and thus have put together a platform of nothing, with no wedge issues, and no promises to reverse any of the McGuinty damage. It was a bad, bad decision by “Progressive Conservative” morons. No matter how bad the incumbent, you can’t beat an incumbent with nothing. Shame on these guys, they may well have ruined our chance to get rid of McGuinty.’
You nailed it.
I heard Tim Hudac speak a few months ago in Guelph and he was great.
I’ve heard nothing since.
The “Progressive” Conservatives had this in the bag, at that time, and then they decided to do nothing.
I can only hope they have been keeping their powder dry for the election. If not, we’ll have more of the same.
Guaranteed.
Part of the platform as announced this morning is remove the PST portion on hydro and home heating and my personal favourite: Get rid of the “debt retirement charge” on hydro bills. After all that debt was likely repaid a while ago. That one is a slap in the face (and a reminder of bad management) every time you see the bill.
I was contacted a month of so ago to ask what, in my opinion, was the most important issue. I answered too much government spending and waste. Until cuts are made on a grand scale, improvements in health care, education and tax relief don’t stand a chance.
The Lib/Left media will not give Tim Hudak a fair shake. Why? Well they are scared sh*tless they’ll be surrounded by Conservatives in Ottawa and Toronto, the province turning Blue would make them blue.
Robert, you are quite right. The media wants the PCs to come out with some definite statements, particularly on health care issues, so it can hammer them flat. Hudak is doing the very wise thing by shutting up about it. No matter what he says, this is an issue the Tories can only lose on.
The standard division is that Tories fight on economic issues, Liberals fight on social issues. Election success lies in getting the fight on your issues and not on his. So far, the Tories have been at least a little successful in focusing voters on taxes and electricity costs. That’s NOT where the Liberals want to be.
Mississauga Matt, KPD: if everyone was as defeatist as you, well, welcome to two more decades of Liberal rule and public union arrogance.
Flaggman: “No matter how bad the incumbent, you can’t beat an incumbent with nothing.”
Not really. Brian Mulroney won the 1984 election on nothing at all. Jean Chretien won three straight minority governments on nothing at all. Dalton McGuinty won his first majority on nothing at all. The art of politics is saying nothing definite until you are forced. The less of substance you say, the less the opposition and media have to attack. That’s why John Tory was such an idiot in the last election. The school funding issue, which Tory opened up, was pure grist for the Liberals. It shows that if you open up a new social issue, the Liberals will clobber you with it.
What part of Barack Obama’s election success don’t you understand?
Can anyone recommend an inexpensive large-format print shop in the Toronto area? I’m going to print two electric bills — before McGuinty and after — and stick them on the lawn as campaign signs.
Problem is, though, that I don’t know who to campaign for. Hudak strikes me as a bit of knob. Which is better than McGunity, I guess, who is a lot of a knob.
Humph.
Currently there are ONTARIO “Government ads”(Liberal ads paid by the taxpayer) make a deal about the “10%” rebate on hydro bills.
Both the ads and the rebate are paid by the Ontario taxpayer to the claimed benefit of McSquinties Liberals….sorta transparent that.
Then that transparent “workers/familly crowd”, whatever,(Liberal front) have been floating a few ads.
Anne, the debt retirement fund was created in 1998 to pay off part of the debt accumulated by the old Ontario Hydro. What happened however, was that as the money came it, the Liberals spent it to subsidize down the bulk power rate. No one has ever taken the Liberal government to task for misappropriation of funds over this.
The current government has no intention of paying off this accumulated debt. Such would eliminate a source of revenue that can be used for all kinds of politically useful bakshish, precisely the situation that Adam Beck’s original Power Corporation Act of 1906 was designed to avoid.
@CGH
Just wanted to say thank you for your explaination in the HST thread so thank you!
May I remind anne and cgh that the “debt retirement charge” was implememted as a result of the Billion dollar deficit incurred by Ontario Hydro under the management of one MAURICE STRONG!
He pissed away a lot of it on the purchase of a rainforest in Costa Rica.
Mississauga Matt, KPD: if everyone was as defeatist as you, well, welcome to two more decades of Liberal rule and public union arrogance.
Posted by: cgh at August 29, 2011 1:31 PM
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Actually, what we don’t need and haven’t needed is John Tory and John Tory lite (Hudak). When I hear Hudak’s ad that exhorts us to “stop McGuinty,” my reaction is “no shick Sherlock, you spent all that money to tell me the obvious and nothing about yourself?”
The other thing we don’t need is the “Harper can’t reveal his true self until he gets a majority” kind of analysis. That one turned out really well last time, didn’t it.
Reading all the excellent commentary on here, much of it from Ontario residents, has been most informative. Thank you!
The situation there seems strangely similar to what we have here in British Columbia:
– One truly despicable political leader (NDP)
– One slightly less worse political leader (Liberal)
In either province, what’s a conscientious, concerned citizen to do?!
sasquatch:
I don’t watch Ontario TV much but I did see one ad from that Liberal front org. Something about “unprecedented” cuts by Hudak. Of course nothing about the “unprecedented” spending that preceded it.
Dalton McHudak will beat out Tim Guinty.
but at least it should be a minority McHudak government.
I think that will be better? We need the provincial Reform Party back again.
flaggman nails it and Robert sums it up well @ 2:00 pm.
“GST on Home Heating & energy needs trashing.” Posted by: Joe Molnar at August 29, 2011 11:52 AM
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The Feds already lowered it from 7% to 5%, it was discussed on SDA when this came up before – solution: Why not lower the high Provincial tax?
Even if they lowered the GST to 3%, most Ontario tax payers would complain, and not one sentence about the PST. Besides, you have so support your “wind energy” subsidies rip-offs, which you voted for. Ontario is going the way of BC in their votes for supporters of Global Warming/Climate Change – their votes count … not yours. (I recall when Ontario Hydro convinced rate payers to use the “screw light bulbs” to lower consumption and had to charge $5.00 to make up for savings to your electric bill. (Do not only blame the Feds; the Power companies and provincial government are to be questioned also.)
Most of you probably have read Margaret Wente’s Message to McGuinty column on 25 August in the Globe.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/message-to-mcguinty-most-green-job-schemes-have-been-miserable-failures/article2140859/
The Liberals may still win, as Ontarians traditionally elect different parties federally and provincially.
Electricity costs are indeed a big issue, if not the big issue.
I went off-grid 6 years ago and never regretted it. It cost me a lot to install the system (including the ‘stinking fan’ as Kate would call it) and originally estimated it would pay itself in 15 years. The way things are going, it will be 8 or 9 years instead.
Like his predecessor John Tory, Hudak has thrown it away. He and the PCs are nowhere to found, and when they do speak, they sound like Dalton Lite. We are a week away from Labour day, then school. Election is Oct 6. 37 days, with the biggest family event right in the middle of the remaining time. If he doesn’t get a majority, he’s toast.
There will be a substantial sympathy vote for the NDP. Andrea Horvath is a well respected leader, even among non-NDippers.
8 friggin’ years to pull it together, and they’re missing in action.
Flaggman stole me tunder.
But here’s a question: McGuinty’s legislation kicked the s**t out of rural Ontario – has anybody heard any howling from the dozens and dozens of associations, federations and unions that supposedly represent the victims.
I mean, anybody heard the Ont. Federation of Agriculture telling farmers not to vote for Fibber McG because he prefers badger and bob-o-link habitat to hayfields?
And ROMA (rural Ont. Mun. Assoc.) – anybody heard them on the airwaves about the revenue shortfall the townships suffer because The Province grants property-tax exemptions for property owners lucky enough to have ‘conservation’ lands?
And our hunting associations. Have they sent an ultimatum to Hudak to re-instate the spring bear hunt…or else?
No, eh. Not even a ‘Report Card’ ? Pathetic, cowardly, usless bunch.
Oh, and I forgot the greatest McGuinty sin – promising no new taxes then instituting the HST and unconstitutionally taxing in federal taxation jurisdictions. For that alone he should not only face election defeat but face criminal indictment for malfeasance.
This was a new tax and essentially the electorate had no say in it as BC did with their referendum on the HST. This broke the ancient bonds of the governing contract with the electorate “no taxation without consensus and representation”. McGuinty has continuously shown his contempt for the constitution and the ancient rights of citizens. He really should be facing a court, not an election.
Anybody from Ontario that thinks this one is in the bag, hasn’t got very far from their gravel road.
I miss Mike Harris….
There’s a provincial election underway in Ontario?
Huh. How the heck did I miss that?
(And I live in Ontario.)
GreenNeck
“I went off-grid 6 years ago and never regretted it. It cost me a lot to install the system (including the ‘stinking fan’ as Kate would call it) and originally estimated it would pay itself in 15 years. The way things are going, it will be 8 or 9 years instead.”
Amazing…mosr hereabouts that did that every month, still got a bill($35) from HYDRO ONE for service. Maybe they didn’t remove the lines and then have Hydro One remove the transformer…
I agree with flaggman and Mississauga Matt.
Hudak is coming off as McGuinty-lite.
Ontario is running anywhere from a 15 to 20 billion dollar a year deficit, a structural deficit at that, which indicates entrenched gov’t bloat. And Hudak’s promising frills like not HST on this or that – while focusing on health care.
Where is the plan to roll back excessive gov’t?
Is he scared of a confrontation with gov’t unions?
Is he scared of how the media (and Dalton) would invoke the spectre of mean, old Mike Harris were he to dare emulate his Common Sense Revolution? The Harris years really only became tarnished because he lost his nerve with the teachers and then Ernie Eves took over, abandoned the CSR, and tried to make nice with everyone (see SDA masthead).
Hudak has already done a 180 on a red meat conservative issue, re Ontario “Human Rights Commission”. There are lots of other issues that would appeal to everyday citizens given how poorly the Liberals have mismanaged the province.
What’s disenchanting to me was listening in on a candidates phone town hall with Hudak the other week and hearing caller after caller, supposedly conservative, asking what a Hudak gov’t would do for them. Where are the people whose expectation is for the gov’t to get out of their lives as much as possible?
In short, we need to kick the gov’t dependency habit but I am afraid that Hudak would still give us the needle…
End rant.
Atric, the Ontario Hydro debt was accumulated before Strong came into office. It resulted from Darlington, from a billion dollar transmission system upgrade, from a large number of hydro dam upgrades,from billions retubing the Pickering reactors in the 1980s, and from billions spent by Ontario Hydro at the behest of the Peterson government on conservation programs, principally electric motors and lighting.
We should also remember that in the late 1980s, the Peterson government made Ontario Hydro pay all the intervenor costs in the DSP public review. This cost about $500 million all on its own.
Strong simply made it worse with the Kimberly Clark dam purchase, not to mention yet more billions poured into useless conservation measures, overpriced power purchase agreements and boondoggles like Costa Rica rainforest.
None of this debt would ever have been a problem. All of it would have been amortized as all previous Ontario Hydro debt had been amortized. In fact, the debt burden of Ontario Hydro in the 1990s was relatively light compared to what it was in the 1930s after the completion of Adam Beck.
The problem was that Mike Harris destroyed the company that owned and serviced all this debt. The three resulting entities were too weak to assume all of it (the three parts were less than the whole), and so some of the debt had to stay as a separate entity.
And like their Peterson predecessors, the McGuinty Liberals used electricity funds as a slush fund. But it never would have happened if Harris hadn’t given them the opportunity.
Sasquatch: if you’re still connected to the grid, you still pay. Most people who put in their own sources still stay connected.
Robert: “In either province, what’s a conscientious, concerned citizen to do?”
The only thing you can do is pick the least vile option. Voting for fringe parties simply makes our votes marginalized and worthless.
The other thing: join a party and through the local riding association try to push it in the direction you want.
Mississauga Matt: “That one turned out really well last time, didn’t it?”
Remind me again who’s Prime Minister today.
MRV: throw all that stuff at the voters right now and welcome to opposition for another five years. Politics is not just about power, it’s the art of the possible. Flap your hands all you want; you still can’t fly. And for those thinking its easy to tout a right wing agenda in Ontario, this election is going to bring out the public sector unions in spades, along with their megabucks, supporting a Liberal re-election.
The art of electioneering lies in two things, get your voters out, and also try to ensure that the voters against you are sufficiently apathetic that they DON’T come out.
Remember that in Ontario, most voters still long for the days of Bill Davis.
cgh,
I think there is an appetite in the electorate right now for aggressive, no-nonsense policies that are articulated with conviction.
Ontarians did vote for the Harris gov’t. Rob Ford did win in Toronto.
Given the pessimism in the global economy, especially the US, and unprecedented deficits/debt in Ontario, people like myself with young children want decisive action that will reduce any burdens on their futures. How hard is it to communicate that?
MRV, some interesting points but remember this. Rob Ford may have won in Toronto, but there’s no love there for his policies. It’s more accurate to say that after 30 years of dismal failure, the socialists finally lost one. All too many of the voters there are still nervous about what they did.
Remember who Mike Harris beat. After Rae Days, even the unions were less than vigorous about coming out to vote for the Dips.
It’s both easier and more difficult at the same time to communicate this. All too often in tough times people will vote for those who will give them money NOW rather than later, reduce burdens now rather than reduce them later. As a wit once said, “You have to survive the short term to get to the long term.”
Best case scenario: minority McGuinty government. It would be hilarious, and there’s a very small chance Hudak could be replaced by a real leader.
Since I do not have TV and don’t listen to Radio, there is only one bit of Ontario propaganda I’ve seen. Its playing on youtube before some clips, the Ontario Hydro(or whatever) 10% eco-rebate.
There are no lawn signs, there are no flyers in the mail, there is BUPKIS.
Probably no surprise, around Caledonia there’s no point in the Liebrals even running a candiate. Nobody’s going to throw tomatoes at him, but they aren’t going to vote for him either.