According to a recent Forum Research survey, Tim Hudak’s conservatives were getting a 41% approval rating from Ontarians, while the Liberals were somewhere around 26%, the NDP at 22% and the Greens at 8%.
Almost immediately after the survey was released, conservatives started gloating over the results. Some columnists at the National Post were suggesting, as they’ve been doing since the May election, that Ontario is now experiencing a historical shift to the right, just like the rest of the country.
I don’t think this assumption is true. Why is that? It’s because I think most people don’t actually care about the ideology of the party.
What most Canadians care about nowadays is that they have job security, a modest standard of living and median taxes. They feel safe under the protection of our current laws and don’t expect any major constitutional battles between the parties to happen anytime soon.
In other words, the PCs are the safe bet simply because they aren’t actually that conservative, socially conservative that is. And they also have a rather stable looking fiscal plan for Ontario.
However, it would be prudent for Canadians to at least look at the Hudak conservative platform a little bit closer, in particular at the costing of the proposed fiscal changes.
About a week ago the Liberals released a video with a quick analysis on how the conservatives will fund the promises in their platform.
PC Platform Costing from Ontario Liberal Party on Vimeo.
According to the above liberal analysis, the Tory plan is full of holes. It will only result in broken promises by a Hudak government.
One such promise would be forcing prisoners in Ontario to work 40 hours a week in chain gangs, picking up garbage, cleaning up the city and doing other kinds of labour. This measure according to the Forum Research survey is very popular with voters.
Why is forced labour popular with people in Canada?
I for one can pick up my own trash, thank you very much, whether it’s littering my front lawn or its accumulating at the street corner. As for construction work, well, that’s why we have construction workers. Cleaning up parks, we got that covered too with volunteers.
And what about young offenders? What do the conservatives plan to do with those? For certain its not schooling that Hudak has in store for them.
Also, some of the other conservative pledges, to remove 8% from the 13% harmonized sales tax on hydro bills and tightening welfare eligibility rules, also popular with Ontarians, seem quite outlandish and difficult to implement.
How in the world will these measures help with the Ontario economy? how will they create jobs? and how will they produce a province that we can all be proud of? liberals, conservatives, NDPs and Greens.
