TweetAs the deadline for candidates to enter their names (and $50,000 fee) in the contest to become the next leader of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Association came to a close yesterday, three politicians have put forward their names – bank vice-president and former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice and former provincial
Continue readingTag: Kathleen Wynne
Politics 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 readingPolitics and its Discontents: Following Politics Too Closely Takes Its Toll
I imagine that many people who follow politics closely do so in the belief that it is one of the few arenas that offers the possibility of change on a wide scale. Enlightened public policy, backed by the appropriate fiscal measures, can help bring about greater social and economic equity,
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 behin…
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 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 readingScott's DiaTribes: Thoughts on the upcoming provincial election in Ontario
You would know from reading this blog or searching its archives I’ve not exactly been overflowing in my praise for the Ontario Liberal government the past several years. I had issues with Dalton Mcguinty on environmental issues as well as omnibus Budget bills presented in the same fashion that Stephen
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,
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: While Horwath is silent, labour and progressive speak: The Ontario Budget deserves support
While Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was silent on Ontario’s Budget today, continuing her approach that saw her take no position on the minimum wage and pensions, labour and other progressive are speaking loud and clear that Ontario’s 2014 Budget deserves support for the people of Ontario. JERRY DIAS, NATIONAL
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: While Horwath is silent, labour and progressive speak: The Ontario Budget deserves support
While Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was silent on Ontario’s Budget today, continuing her approach that saw her take no position on the minimum wage and pensions, labour and other progressive are speaking loud and clear that Ontario’s 2014 Budget deserves support for the people of Ontario.
“Today’s budget will make a positive difference in the lives of working families in Ontario – and should be supported by the NDP…We hope the NDP will work with the Liberals to pass the budget.”
GAIL NYBERG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DAILY BREAD FOOD BANK
“Keeping poverty reduction on the table is always the right thing to do…Daily Bread has always been a strong proponent of the Ontario Child Benefit. Indexing it will allow low-income families with children to keep up with the rising costs of living such as food.”
ONTARIO HEALTH COALITION
“The good news: An Ontario pension plan that will provide an enhanced public pension for those with no private pensions.”
The Liberal Scarf: While Horwath is silent, labour and progressive speak: The Ontario Budget deserves support
While Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was silent on Ontario’s Budget today, continuing her approach that saw her take no position on the minimum wage and pensions, labour and other progressive are speaking loud and clear that Ontario’s 2014 Budget deserves support for the people of Ontario. JERRY DIAS, NATIONAL
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 readingCuriosityCat: Ontario Byelections: The change that really counts
It seems that the leaders of all three poltical parties in the province of Ontario sense that voters want change. Premier Wynne, leading a minority Liberal government, was rejected by voters in the two byelections, but says change is wanted: Real Change Wynne? After writing off the byelections as “skirmishes”
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: By-Election Analysis And A Look Ahead
Let the NDP crow for a day. They’ve earned it. As for a Spring election, its about as likely/unlikely as it was yesterday morning, which means we’ll probably have one. And as to the likely result, well, Kathleen will be dogged by anti-wind protesters at her rural events. Our wild
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