This and that for your Thursday (and Ontario election day) reading… – Joseph Heath makes the case against Tim Hudak’s PCs in particular, and the shift from public to private goods in general: (I)t’s fairly clear what the PCs are planning. They are proposing a general shift in Ontario away
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Montreal Simon: Why I Might Vote for the Liberals in the Ontario Election.
With just two days before the Ontario election, and still not having decided whether to vote for the NDP or the Liberals, I decided to check out the lawn signs on the island, which is part of Trinity-Spadina riding.And the results were no surprise. The island is still mostly orange, with
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Ontario Election and the Never-ending Con Nightmare
It was dull grey rainy Sunday on the waterfront where I live, but at least it gave me a chance to collect my thoughts, wonder what is happening to this country I sometimes no longer recognize.And of course try to figure out who the hell I'm going to vote for
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Dear NDPers: The Time Has Come To Do The Right Thing And Abandon Your Party
Because it has already abandoned you. I mean, Jack Layton carefully prepared your federal counterparts for his “move to claim the center”. And some of the changes he made, to your constitution for example, where he removed the stuff about property ownership being inherently evil because it suppressed revolutionary fervor,
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Ontario Debate Aftermath #voteon
My initial (biased) impressions of the debate are: – As someone who is supporting the OLP, I’d have much preferred if Wynne had started stronger, but the first two topics were always going to be the tough ones, and I’m not sure whether I’d have done much better. I did
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Ghastly Ontario Debate and the Fatal Weakness of Progressives
It only took about fifteen minutes of watching the Ontario leader's debate before I started to wish that I was watching something else. Anything else.Or just lounging around with my friends on a lovely warm evening, like I suspect most people in the province were doing.Because it was bad eh?It
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Sometimes You Just Have To Hold Your Nose
It would never occur to me to withhold my vote in any election. Yet the one occurring in Ontario on June 12 is particularly striking in its paucity of real choice. I can’t remember a campaign for which I have felt less enthusiasm. Of course, Tim Hudak’s extremism disqualified him
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Your #voteon narrative for today: not good for opposition parties.
Your one narrative that is going around the media and which Premier Wynne has decided to target extensively today: Tim Hudak’s bungled million jobs plan numbers: ..Based on a backgrounder distributed by the Progressive Conservatives to journalists, but not posted on their website, it is clear that the planners confused
Continue readingEh Types: Is Red the New Orange?
The Ontario election has featured a deeply divided, ideologically intrenched split. Two polarized points of view on how our province should run which will determine who runs it. To be clear, I’m only talking about the NDP here. This election began with NDP leader Andrea Horwath announcing her party would
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 readingScott's DiaTribes: Whither the Ontario NDP’s social conscience?
I’ve been observing this Ontario campaign with some curiosity as to why the Ontario Liberals decided they were going to target Andrea Horwath and the Ontario NDP first in the (pre)-camapaign over them failing to support their rather progressive budget, rather then go after Tim Hudak’s far-right stances/policies, which seemed
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Ontario NDP: The Party of No Damn Principles?
That is the conclusion Rick Salutin recently came to in a column entitled Andrea Horwath’s right-wing populism. Describing her as a right-wing populist, full out, Salutin explored the framework within which this unpleasant and inconvenient truth emerges: She’s Rob Ford, thinking always about saving taxpayers money simplistically by cutting waste
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 readingThe Liberal Scarf: Is Andrea Horwath for real?
That’s what the new Kathleen Wynne ad asks Ontarians after Horwath said NO to an increased child benefit, an Ontario Pension Plan, better transit, and a new job creation strategy for Ontario. I’m really digging the “I’m Kathleen Wynne and I stand behind this message” tag the Premier has been
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Is Andrea Horwath for real?
That’s what the new Kathleen Wynne ad asks Ontarians after Horwath said NO to an increased child benefit, an Ontario Pension Plan, better transit, and a new job creation strategy for Ontario. I’m really digging the “I’m Kathleen Wynne and I stand behind this message” tag the Premier has been
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Is Andrea Horwath for real?
That’s what the new Kathleen Wynne ad asks Ontarians after Horwath said NO to an increased child benefit, an Ontario Pension Plan, better transit, and a new job creation strategy for Ontario. I’m really digging the “I’m Kathleen Wynne and I stand behin…
Continue readingPOLL: Ontario Election – Who Has the Best Bus?
Will Kathleen Wynne’s steady hands stay at 10 and 2? How many of Tim Hudak’s million jobs are for designing bus wrap slogans? What’s the insurance rate for Andrea Horwath’s campaign vehicle? Transportation, already a prominent issue in the 2014 provincial election, intersects with many aspects of politics, policy, and
Continue readingEh Types: Wynne’s to Lose
The provincial election in Ontario is only a week old. Polls suggest a tight race lies ahead, and of course campaigns matter. All that said, on June 13th Kathleen Wynne will still be Premier of Ontario and if she had a slim majority to go with it I would not
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Can I Get Back To You On That?
Maybe I am just angry because a progressive budget was dismissed by an allegedly progressive party. Maybe I am fearful that an NDP-induced Ontario election could see the ascension to power of young Tim Hudak (‘I’ve got a plan to create one million jobs!’), who clearly will never be ready
Continue readingMaple-Flavoured Politics: What Was Andrea Horwath Thinking?
On May 2, 2014, Andrea Horwath, leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, announced that her party would vote against the Ontario budget tabled by the (Liberal) government. Before the budget was tabled—even before its contents were leaked—Tim Hudak, leader of the Ontario PC party (PC stands for Progressive Conservative,
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