The NDP has sent several emails to supporters before and during the campaign premised on the idea that the best way to stop the Conservatives is to vote for the NDP. Here is the latest: “This election, there is one simple trick you can use to stop a Conservative majority:
Continue readingAuthor: bazie
Progressive Proselytizing: Riding by riding strategic voting in the 2014 Ontario Election
I’ve always advocated for strategic voting on this blog where we vote based on promoting certain goals given the constraints of both our local riding and the broader election. This can take many forms; for instance, in “safe” ridings where the outcome is all but determined I often advocate voting
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Game theory and corporate tax rates: the Ontario Liberals are almost certainly wrong
I don’t know what the optimal corporate tax rate is. I suspect neither does anyone. I believe there is reasonable evidence out there that given the kinds of goals and values we likely share, that a somewhat higher corporate tax rate is preferred, but what exactly that rate is –
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Andrew Coyne assures us "Hudak’s bogus plan is no reason not to vote for him"
The media reaction to Hudak’s 8 fold screwup in his Million 75,000 Jobs Plan has been almost as ridiculous as the mistake in the plan itself. I already wrote about what the CBC’s frontpage was doing in the interest of “balance” and “nonpartisanship”. But what about the media op-eds? The latest
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Media stenography: The CBC can’t bring itself to call Hudak’s plan what it is
If you haven’t heard, Hudak’s so called Million Jobs plan is more like a 75,000 jobs plan, based on an obvious mistake that meant most of his numbers were multiplied by 8. That is the best case scenario, accepting all the numbers selectively pulled from a particular report, accepting the
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: 2014 Ontario Election: Much to lose, little to gain for the NDP
I once wrote about what I called the “n-party problem”, how movements of various parties on a political spectrum is much more complicated when n, the number of political parties, is greater than two, analogous to the complicated orbits of n-body solar systems for n greater than two. The positioning
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The best case view of the NDP platform
NDP candidate Rosario Marchese cuts through a lot of spin to defend a frank and real representation of the NDP’s platform. In my previous post, I was fairly harsh towards the NDP plan – both as a set of policies and the larger strategies. I wanted to share his post
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The Ontario NDP’s small plan isn’t even good strategy
Shortly after the 2014 Ontario Election was called, I said that progressives – whether nonpartisans like myself or NDP supporters like some of you – should take yes for an answer, and vote to reward Kathleen Wynne’s relatively left leaning and progressive budget. Andrea Horwath’s big chance to change my
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The marriage equality war in the US is over. We won.
You know how on election night the TV news channels try to out do each other with ever more ridiculous graphics and sound to announce their big “Official Prediction” ages after everyone has already figured out who the winner is going to be? Well drum roll please, ladies and gentlemen
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Justin Trudeau plays the long game on abortion
The general response to Justin Trudeau’s new edict on abortion – that all new Liberal candidates must vote pro-life – has been overwhelmingly negative. Canada’s major newspapers’ editorial pages have lit up with titles like Margarete Wente’s “Spare me the abortion absolutism” at the Globe and Mail, Andrew Coyne’s “Trudeau ban on pro-lifers
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Taking the HST off hydro is bad policy, if good politics
One of the signature campaign planks for the NDP in the 2014 Ontario Election is to remove the HST from our hydro bills, saving perhaps $120 a year for average families. The motivation behind this – reducing the cost to average families – is reasonable and will undoubtedly be a
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: While Wynne goes to the left, Hudak dives hard right
You might have thought that Tim Hudak would have learned his lesson after his disastrous and short lived attempt to push his party towards US style union busting: going hard right in Ontario isn’t a winning strategy. Well, he is at it again with the first two major campaign announcement
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: John Tory’s empty "plan" for Toronto
Toronto mayoral candidate John Tory has penned an op-ed in the National Post claiming to explain what his plan is for Toronto. Usually politicians spend most of their campaigning time spewing platitudes that are cute, but offer little insight into what they actually plan to do. Usually, however, buried somewhere
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Ontario Election 2014 endorsement: the Left should take yes for an answer
The Liberals, federally or provincially, always have a choice when it comes to winning votes. They can either tilt to the right, trying to pick up votes from the Conservatives. Or they can tilt left, trying to pick up votes from the NDP. In this election – in particular, in
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Edward Snowden’s every move still strikes controversy
With Edward Snowden’s major contribution to history – the leaking of the NSA documents that shed significant light on what our governments are doing – now well over and done with, you might think we would be focusing on the revelations themselves, and that little if any attention would need
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Wynne suing Hudak is hardly going to help her
The de facto practice of being a politician is to not so subtly imply all manner of scandalous inanities about one’s opponents. When there is an actual underlying scandal, the shrill accusations from opponents tend to reach a fever pitch, and how an incumbent politician deals with the scandal breaking
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Tech on the Side: Microsoft corrects past mistakes
In a world where tech companies are forced to make difficult decisions between mutually exclusive business models, it can be hard to know whether they decided correctly. For instance, did Google make the correct choice to release Android on a less-than-free model (which has been obviously successful), or did they
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The Quebec election is being fought over the wrong issues
Quebec has numerous very legitimate issues in governance and economics that can, and should, be addressed in an election. In many ways, the Quebec model provides for Canada an example of a significantly more interventionist, egalitarian government – something I might advocate for on this blog – but poor management
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Rob Ford Crushes the First Toronto Mayoral Debate
Sorry, fellow progressives, but it’s true. The first debate was, somewhat mercifully, fairly policy focused with large sections devoted to debating various transit plans (such as LRT vs subways in Scarborough), finances, the Billy Bishop Airport expansion, and so on. In this context, and with a format that had a
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Quebec’s Highly Questionable Voting Eligibility Rules
Students who come to Quebec to study at universities like McGill – as my brother has done – are in a rather uncomfortable position when it comes to voting in the upcoming provincial election. Whether they will be able to vote at all is not easily determined. There is anecdotal
Continue reading