Ontario Election Thread: The Most Successful Name In Politics Is Win

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Who will you be voting for?
	A Liberal
	A Progressive Conservative
	A New Democrat
	A Comedy Option

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

DynamicSloth posted:

The first thing a Liberal majority will do is stop playing lip service to the left. Their priorities under a majority (and when they were down one seat) were engineering "a very special report on the importance of austerity" and crushing the teachers and other public sector unions.

There does seem to be a pretty big risk of that happening, especially since the liberals have to fit somewhere between the NDP and the Republican Rightwing Policy Fest that is Hudak's PCs.

Seriously some of those white papers he released a few years before the election are nuts. Backtracking from right-to-work is a good start to wooing Red Tories back to the PCs, but they've got a long way to go.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 12:29

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:47

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Well given how well Wynne is polling versus the actual Liberal Party, that's not a huge surprise. The liberals need to make it about personality, so that everyone can't forget that Hudak and Horwath are the only other real alternatives.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 17:43

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

When I read the title of the new article on the CBC I thought "Wow the CBC are getting really partisan with their headlines." But no, he actually said he'd cut 100 000 public sector jobs.

I don't get it. Hudak went full Republican (never go full Republican) and had to backtrack before the election on Right-To-Work, but now has gone back to wanting to decimate the public sector.

# ¿ May 9, 2014 20:25

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

bunnyofdoom posted:

Completely unscientific, annecdotal preference data follows

In my many walks around my neighbourhood and riding (Ottawa West Nepean) I've seen a 2-1 ratio of OLP to PCO signs. I have not seen a single ONDP that hasn't been on public land. I have actually seen more Green signs on public land than ONDP by a ratio of 5:1.

Is the ONDP really lazy, or in deep poo poo here?

There are tons of ONDP signs in Davenport riding and almost no OLP. Anecdote destroyed!!!

I am facing a bit of a debate because Jonah Schien does actually seem like a really good MPP and I like a lot of things he supports, but even if the ONDP got elected I don't think his policy ideas would ever make it into legislature.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 18:04 on May 14, 2014

# ¿ May 14, 2014 18:01

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Rutibex posted:

I can attest to the fact that Sarnia is in fact full of Yokels. Full of Yokels in unions working for chemical plants; so I really don't get why it isn't an NDP stronghold.

Probably because people there see environmental regulations as a cornerstone of leftism-gone-mad.

Most of the people working at the plants aren't the yokels since they're paid well and live in the north end. The yokes are everyone else who lives in that dumb town.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 14:33 on May 15, 2014

# ¿ May 15, 2014 14:30

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Rutibex posted:

Wow I didn't expect to find Sarnia north end elitism in this thread. Everyone in Sarnia is Yokel, especially the well paid meth smoking plant workers.

Yeah you're right, that area of town doesn't need defending (because they're worse).

# ¿ May 15, 2014 15:51

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Helsing posted:

Meanwhile Ipsos Reid has a new poll saying OPC 39% / OLP 30% / ONDP 24%.

The polls in this election really are all over the place.

All we need to know is what �ric Grenier thinks. The opposite of that will be the election results.

# ¿ May 17, 2014 00:59

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Pinterest Mom posted:

Sometimes, when travelling, Andrea Horwath expenses her meal, and, with the help of a leak from the OLP, The Sun is on it.

Which is the real Andrea Horwath? The Andrea Horwath who eats a Tim Hortons lunch combo, or the Andrea Horwath who eats lobster bisque?

Every major party campaign in this election is stupid.

# ¿ May 18, 2014 03:33

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I know most people are urban dwellers so this isn't of much interest but there were some announcements after Wynne drove a tractor badly:

http://www.insidehalton.com/news-story/4528997-wynne-talks-of-support-for-farmers/

quote:

Wynne talks of support for farmers

PARIS, Ont. - Premier Kathleen Wynne donned a pair of Liberal red rubber boots Tuesday to visit a farm in one of the party's few rural ridings, announcing support for the agriculture industry if they're re-elected.

Wynne said she would introduce a $40-million-a-year fund over 10 years to support the food processing industry, which she said would help farmers buy machinery and equipment.

"We know that if we can partner with businesses and make sure that they have the support that they need and that they can grow and that they can market their products we know that we can grow the food processing and the agri-food industry generally in the province," she said in Paris, Ont., in Liberal Dave Levac's Brant riding.

The fund would come from a $2.5-billion pool of "jobs and prosperity" money aimed at providing government grants to businesses, which was part of the Liberal budget that failed to pass.

Many of the province's rural ridings are held by Progressive Conservatives, with the Liberals holding two rural seats: Brant and Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. They also hold Peterborough and Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, which are a mix of urban and rural.

Wynne, however, suggested funding for the agriculture sector isn't just about those seats.

"Yes, it's in an election campaign and of course we are all campaigning, but whether my political career ... is advanced by doing this or not, it is absolutely important to the future of this province that we have a strong agriculture and food industry," she said.

Wynne admitted last year during her bid to become Liberal leader that the government's popularity has suffered in rural Ontario, partly over industrial wind turbines.

Wynne's own seat is a Toronto riding, but the premier also took the post of minister of agriculture and food. When asked about trying to shed a downtown Toronto image, Wynne married urban and rural with a personal anecdote about her grandmother who grew up on a farm and didn't have money to go to university.

"If kids who grow up on farms want to go to university and then come back I want the government to be there for them to help them do that," she said. "That's not about being a rural kid, it's not about being an urban kid. That's about being a kid who wants to have opportunity. That's what our government is about."

Wynne also spoke about a Liberal "farms forever" program, which would be aimed at protecting agricultural land close to urban centres.

"We recognize that preserving farmland is a very important part of our responsibility and that's what the farms forever program would be about," she said.

"The other thing that I have heard as minister of agriculture and food is the need for support for young farmers who want to get into farming, either to be able to buy their family's land or to be able to break into farming even if they haven't been part of a farm family."

Under the program, a landowner could request an easement to prevent non-agricultural development from taking place on the land even if it is sold.

Progressive Conservative Vic Fedeli, whose riding is in northern Ontario, waited outside the farm Wynne visited to criticize the Liberal platform, which he suggested is not costed out, though he didn't offer specific criticisms of the agriculture fund.

"When you're making an agricultural announcement that involves funding you're basing it on funding you don't have," he said. Fedeli scoffed at the notion that the Tories are in danger of losing rural ridings.

"I don't think the Liberals are making gains in rural Ontario whatsoever."

The Progressive Conservatives later touted leader Tim Hudak's job plan in a statement, saying it will "unleash the potential (of) Ontario's rural communities by reducing the regulatory burden."

Wynne was also taken to task by John Vanthof, the NDP candidate for Timiskaming-Cochrane.

�The so called agriculture minister has challenged the agriculture industry to create 120,000 jobs without giving them any of the tools to do so," Vanthof said in an email.

"She hasn't addressed the streamlining of any of the regulation burdens on farms, she hasn't talked about how any of the funds will create jobs. Rural Ontario needs more than funds that arbitrarily pick winners and losers. Our job creation tax credit will partner up with the agri-food industry to create actual jobs.�

Ontario voters go to the polls June 12.

The farms forever project could be both a boon or a burden for farmers, since in the 40 years a lot of farmers were able to retire by selling their land to developers and retiring somewhere else, but on the other hand we're losing agricultural land in Ontario at an astonishing rate. I tend to favour anything that preserves that land, but I'm not sure about the economics of it (or how easy it'll be to bypass that easement).

# ¿ May 22, 2014 13:05

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The pension plans are ponzi schemes things comes out of a few books by conservative policy people/economists (and one of Hudak's white papers) who just assume all pension plans are the same and are managed the same.

Here's one of the more painfully popular ones: http://www.amazon.ca/Pension-Ponzi-Bankrupting-Education-Retirement/dp/1118098730

If we didn't have pension plans we could all be free to invest our retirement savings ourselves (with the assistance of a certified financial planner whose management fees are exorbitantly high in Canada)!

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 00:23 on May 29, 2014

# ¿ May 29, 2014 00:20

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I imagine the Liberals are trying to secure as many scared Dippers they can into voting for them in order to keep Hudak out.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 17:30

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

bssoil posted:

My riding, being in rural Ontario, makes me not want to bother figuring out how to vote from New Zealand. FPTP ftw.

http://apathyisboring.com/en/the_facts/articles/213#whatificant

http://wemakevotingeasy.ca/en/special-ballots.aspx

Vote you big dummy.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 16:56

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

eXXon posted:

What if he's incarcerated as a post-secondary student in a hospital in New Zealand? What then?

Write out 'Tim Hudak [X]' in your own blood on a surgical mask and smuggle it out of the country by drug runners to have it delivered to Elections Canada.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 17:06

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Wynne really does seem to be banking on siphoning support from the NDP rather than from the Tories. Given how the ODNP have run their campaign so far it might very well work, although I think there's an equal danger that the ODNP voters just stay home while the right remains motivated and has a much higher turnout.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 18:48

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

colonel_korn posted:

The Globe and Mail's editorial board endorses Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives

It's a pretty tepid endorsement, though they still do praise him for "taking a hard line with public servants"

Hahah what a bunch of assholes. Forget that none of it makes any sense or the math adds up, as long as we put those public servants in their place!

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 03:16

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I've seen people take every sign they can for the stakes. They're pretty handy for growing tomatoes.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 20:43

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Lobok posted:

The Globe and Mail was ready to endorse the Liberals but the Editor-in-Chief discarded his editorial board's decision in order to endorse the Conservatives instead.

http://canadalandshow.com/article/source-globe-editorial-board-endorsed-wynne-liberals-was-overruled

Everyone at my partner's work thought that this might be the case after the endorsement announcement was delayed an hour or two.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 02:28

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

lmao all of the gas plant ridings went liberal

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 03:00

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

AegisP posted:

So prior to the election, the Liberals craft a budget with presumably some kind of things to capture NDP support. But they shot it down.

Now the Liberals have a majority and can just resubmit the budget with anything else they'd like in it since they don't need the NDP support anymore?

Yes, the NDP managed to call an election to guarantee their irrelevance. Brilliant politics.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 03:06

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Here's some historical context for past election results in Ontario, not including yesterday:

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 13:37

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

You'd need most of the province to have the same profession for that to happen.

United Public Workers of Ontario government takes power in 2022 :v:

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 13:49

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I thought one of the more insightful comments last night was that Mike Harris spent months selling his Common Sense revolution before going into the provincial campaign. Hudak has 30-some days to sell his platform after his entire existence was dedicated to GasPlantMcguinty.

Same with the NDP. There was obviously a fair amount of exhaustion over the scandal, plus all of Hudak's pre-election platforms were of the "crazy Republican free market!!" variety.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 13:59

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Heavy neutrino posted:

Actually, I kind of agree here; a payroll tax is an abominably lovely way to raise revenues for anything, and the OLP should've gone for taxes on wealth and profit instead. That said, although the tears are wonderful, the actually sinister part of the right-wing response is buried a bit deeper into this article:

A pension plan isn't a payroll tax. "Payroll tax" and "Ponzi Scheme" are phrases used to demonize pension plans that are, essentially, forced savings. They're not used to raise revenue for the government; the money paid into ORPP cannot be touched by the government. It can only be invested and used to pay out money to pensioners.

If you have a problem with government-enforced savings that's one thing, but ORPP and CPP aren't payroll taxes.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2014 22:12

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Pinterest Mom posted:

The ORPP has two components: the 1.9% forced savings from workers' wages, which you're right, is probably not a payroll tax. The 1.9% matching employer contribution, though, is definitely a payroll tax - it's an extra percentage they have to pay to the government on all their wages, and they're not seeing a direct benefit from it.

The reason I say the worker portion is probably not a payroll tax is that the Liberals have been unclear over how the money would be spent. The Liberal platform says, and this is an idea that's been floating around, "The ORPP will be able to invest the premiums it collects in Ontario businesses and infrastructure, enhancing our competitiveness." If the pension fund isn't kept at arms' length from the government and is used to invest in infrastructure that's government priority, then it's really not as clearly not a tax anymore - it's more like the government forcing people to buy their debt.

I get the employer part of things, but again, given that they've explicitly stated that ORPP would be based on CPP that by definition means that the money will be kept at arm's length from the government. It will not be spent as part of tax revenue, it will become another funded pension plan. The Ontario Pension Act clearly defines what can and cannot be done with the surplus of a defined benefit pension plan, and unless the Liberals are willing to re-write it as well as have any challenges against those changes survive the courts, that will not change.

I mean, you could be right here as details are still sketchy, but the way things have been shaping up so far this is probably what ORPP will look like.

I sympathize with smaller businesses that have narrower profit margins to work with, but this is about guaranteeing that we clamp down on the slow rise of poverty amongst seniors (which has been quite low in Canada). Retirees who have a good pension to draw from are great for local economies and every penny saved now means less money spent later on poor seniors who need social welfare to stay afloat.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jun 15, 2014

# ¿ Jun 15, 2014 17:23

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Almost all campaigns that blame voters for their lack of success are really funny. If the voters are as stupid as you say they are, and you failed to convince them to vote for you, what does that say about your campaign?

To contrast, look at some of the retrospectives of Parti Quebecois candidates Pinterst Mom posted where they honestly talked about how their version of separatism really doesn't have much appeal to the electorate any more. That's a much healthier way to handle an election defeat.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jun 16, 2014

# ¿ Jun 16, 2014 22:51

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

bunnyofdoom posted:

Arrogant and corrupt.

[Pierre-Trudeau.jpg]

# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 16:19

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

harper is bisexual posted:

Anyway I was sad that Jonah Schein lost in Davenport. He was a good guy. If the NDP had a better platform or even just anything for them to run on in Toronto it would have been easy for him to win again.

I would have voted for him if he had been part of that letter sent to Horwath by those NDP MPPs who didn't agree with her campaign policies or rhetoric, but he didn't. It was a pretty contested riding though -- he only won the first time by 1000 votes so I think it was always going to be pretty fierce competition.

But you're right, if the NDP had a better platform he would have probably won.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 05:15

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

The narrative I've heard is that the OCP rejected Eliott because they thought they needed to cut harder to the right with Tim Hudak to appeal to the Ontario electorate. That didn't work, and Eliott is considered a Red Tory, so she's the heir apparent. Regardless of wanting flat taxes or whatever, she hasn't talked about turning all pensions into DC plans, firing thousands of public servants, and lifting tuition caps so it's more progressive than Hudak.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 05:28

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Helsing posted:

Are you referring to the "gang of 34" letter or did a bunch of MPPs really send Horwaths a letter complaining about her policy and rhetoric?

The gang of 34. Sorry I thought they were MPPs, not just supporters.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 05:43

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

I'd be fine with ending the Beer Store monopoly. Having the LCBO exist as is, but allowing corner stores and grocery stores carry wine and beer works well enough in Quebec.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 06:07

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:47

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

infernal machines posted:

Yeah, and despite Brewer's Retail doing their damnedest to make it a "thing" no one seems particularly concerned about the prospect of the local bodega selling beer.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there's much drive to get beer in the local bodega either. I don't where the reluctance comes from, since I think it'd be pretty popular, politically. I guess the big brewers behind the Beer Store would get pretty angry at the idea of losing their near monopoly.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2014 14:20

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