Ikantski posted:

Ikantski posted:

I disagree with Hudak cutting 100,000 jobs right away, it's too sudden, especially in education. I can't believe he came out with that number and didn't specifically say where they would come from, he's such a turd.

That being said, 100,000 skilled public sector workers being out of work for a few months until they find a private sector employer won't cripple the economy. Ontario's added 75,000 jobs since last April, I wouldn't say there's a tremendous difference economically.

Ikantski posted:

all day kindergarten off the top of my head.

quote:

To be sure, there are shreds of good news. Some kids from “high-needs schools” (i.e., lower-income children) did better in a few areas. But kids from “low-needs schools” (i.e., more affluent ones) often did worse. In fact, “on several measures,” the non-full-day kindergarten programs “were associated with more positive outcomes.” Special-education kids also did better in non-full-day-kindergarten programs. For most children, it made no difference one way or another.

quote:

And now that it’s begun, it will never be rolled back, because it will quickly develop its own enthusiastic constituency – especially middle-class parents, who can save thousands of dollars a year in daycare fees.

quote:

All is not lost, however. Truly dedicated social engineers do not give up without a fight. If a new program doesn’t work, their answer is to double down. And that is exactly what the authors of this study recommend. What we need are bigger classrooms, smaller classes, and “fidelity of implementation.” We need more consultants, more professional development and more recognition for those cranky ECEs. (Higher pay would help, too.) We need to purchase iPads, software and video so that educators have better ways to record the children’s emotional, social and cognitive progress. We need to expand the extended daycare programs so parents can leave their kids at school all day, all year round, and we should make sure their siblings can use them too.

geese posted:

Personally, I would just love for us to become the government. If we have to go all-in on populism to gain another 15-20 seats to head up a minority government, then that's fine with me. Andrea Horwath has a degree in labour studies and she was a community development coordinator before getting into politics. She's as left-wing as anyone in the base, and we have a lot of great progressive candidates and I trust them to deliver. But we have to find a way to win, even if we have to find ways to get a few more yokels in Sarnia or wherever to vote for us.

geese posted:

Again, this is just my opinion, I have no idea what the thinking of the leadership is.

I came up volunteering in Trinity Spadina with OC and with Rosario Marchese and I'm just tired of us sitting on the sidelines. Even when the Liberals put out left-leaning budgets, they still do lovely things like engineering the defeat of Rosario's OMB bill by sitting on their hands in committee and letting the PC members kill it, and that's not going to change while we're the 3rd party. I'd rather that we form the government and be beholden to unions and Joe Public than be slaves to corporate masters like the Libs and PCs.

I assure you there are more principled people than I am who are making our big decisions. I've heard some rumblings about big things to come, platform-wise, in the next week or two that the high-ups seem really excited about.

quote:

New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, meanwhile, promised to cut government spending by $600 million a year, and said she would run a leaner cabinet by reducing the number of ministers by one third, although she’d add a new minister of savings and accountability.

“There are a lot of people around the cabinet table whose business it is to spend the money,” Horwath said during a news conference at the legislature. “What I want is someone there that can save the pennies.”

Horwath admitted she doesn’t know yet which eight ministers she’d eliminate, but said there is waste and duplication across government and its agencies that should be rooted out, starting with the energy sector.

geese posted:

To be honest, I struggle with the direction of the party and the decisions of the leadership but this is the team I ended up with, for both idealogical and selfish reasons. Effort post incoming:

I finished my B.A. in 2011 and my M.A. in 2012 and I ended up with a very interesting combination of skills and research interests. I also worked for a non-profit during my M.A. doing work related to Aboriginals, but that contract ended right after I graduated. I found that between my interests in immigration, education policy, Aboriginals, the environment and other thing, that it was hard to choose one path, but I knew that my views are generally progressive, socially democratic, anti-capitalist and all that good stuff. I started looking for work in the non-profit sector with no luck, and I eventually decided that a good use of my skill set would be to help get progressive people elected to government, across all levels of government, in the hopes that things will get better.

I was not at all involved in politics for most of my life, but I live in downtown Toronto so I ended up with the NDP. I set up a meeting with Joe Cressy, who was then the president of my local federal NDP riding association and Joe put me in touch with some people at ONDP. I thought this would be a lot easier. I was expecting to volunteer a couple days a week for a month or two and then as soon as a constituency office or legislative assistant job opened up somewhere in Toronto, I'd get snapped up immediately and then I could REALLY do some positive work. Instead I've spent the last year and a half volunteering while still looking for a full time job in my field that has still never come.

I think the true strength of the NDP is in our constituency and grassroots work and that's where I'd like to be, at least in the short term. I think the NDP's community work is the main reason why we've managed to hold every seat we've gained since 1995. The only exception I can think of is Paul Ferreira, but he could get his seat back for real this time. In Trinity-Spadina, our constit offices gets so many people who are down and out and we do our best to help them and make their lives better. I've seen people in similar situations while canvassing in places like Niagara Falls. I think politicians should be responsible first and foremost to their constituents, certainly not corporations and "job creators". Maybe I'm wrong, but I just can't picture Liberal, and especially Conservative MPPs and their staffers putting in the effort to help people the way that we do. Every constit assistant I've ever dealt with really cares about their work and they want positive change in their communities. It's unfortunate that HQ has chosen to tack to the centre and come up with some of these silly ideas, but I find that the candidates and the people who work for them are good people who want to do good things. I believe every community in Ontario deserves a strong, progressive voice that will stand up for them, and despite all the bullshit from the leader's office, I feel that we really can make positive changes in a lot to the communities that take a chance on their local NDP candidate.

So that's why I ended up with the ONDP and why I continue to support the party. And again this might be selfish, but it would be really disappointing for me to come out of this with nothing after the thousands of volunteer hours I've put in. I've been lucky that Rosario and some others have taken a chance on me and given me a few small contracts here and there to help me put my degree to use and to keep me afloat financially in between some temp and retail jobs. I've worked really hard for almost no money to get my name out there and I've found it requires a lot of effort and hustle to get the big decision makers to remember me and what I have to offer them. So many of my fellow volunteers are young people in the same boat that I am and this election is an opportunity to finally get some paid work. My hope is that, at the end of the day, I get a full time job out of it. I've settled into trying to make a career out of this politics thing and the more people we get elected, the more potential jobs that are available for me and my friends that I've worked with over the past year and a half. And it it all goes to hell for the ONDP, a lot of my friends will lose their jobs, which would be even worse.

So if you want a more progressive ONDP, give me 10-15 years so I can really shake things up. People tell me I'm an optimist and idealist and that's definitely true, but like Jack said, we need some love, hope and optimism.

Guy DeBorgore posted:

Trick question, there's never been a Canadian government that D&D would recognize as "left wing."

Except of course for the Wynne government, who were totally going to give us all great pensions and loads of voter-friendly investment until that meanie Andrea Horwath defeated the budget.

Why yes, I'm a tad bitter that the Liberals have apparently succeeded in convincing otherwise-intelligent D&D posters that they're more leftwing than the NDP, despite having governed from the right for an entire decade.

Global News posted:

TORONTO – Ontario’s Liberal government wasted millions of dollars in a fruitless effort to reduce overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath charged Tuesday as she unveiled a plan to cut ER wait times in half if her party wins the June 12 election.

The Liberals spent too much money on bureaucrats and not enough on front-line care as they tried to reduce wait times in various areas of the health-care system, added Horwath.

“They put a whole bunch of money into wait times for home care, but a nice chunk of that money went to the administrators of (Community Care Access Centres), went to the executive directors getting close to 50 per cent salary increases,” she said.

“They seem to waste a lot of money at the top – look at the Ornge air ambulance as a perfect example – but the money never seems to focus in on the front lines, and that’s where our program is different.”

A New Democrat government would hire 250 new nurse practitioners to work in emergency rooms, create 1,400 more long-term care beds and open 50 new 24-hour-a-day family health clinics, all in an effort to help ease pressure on emergency room wait times, said Horwath.

“The solutions that we’re bringing to the table are not about hospital budgets,” she said. “They’re about reducing the pressure on the hospitals. They’re about finding ways to avoid unnecessary wait times by providing the right type of care for people.”

The NDP would also implement a five-day home care guarantee, said Horwath, noting patients discharged from hospitals who need the service currently wait anywhere from a week to a month before getting care at home.

“Our approach is targeted: get rid of the wait list, and that allows some air through the system and you can get those five-day wait time guarantees in place.”

The NDP’s plan to reduce ER wait times would cost about $205 million in the first two years and grow to $215 million in the third and fourth years, added Horwath.

After making her announcement outside the Ontario legislature, with the so-called “hospital row” of University Avenue health-care facilities as her backdrop, Horwath headed to London, which is Health Minister Deb Matthew’s riding, to again slam the Liberals’ record on health care.

“It was under Deb Matthew’s watch that we’ve seen the Ornge air ambulance debacle, that we watched (CEO) Dr. (Chris) Mazza buy himself a speed boat on our health-care dime,” she said outside the London Health Sciences Centre. “This is unacceptable when people are literally sleeping on the floors of a psychiatric emergency ward … and I think Ms. Matthews personifies what’s gone wrong with the health-care system in this province.”

Horwath also promised the NDP campaign platform would be released “very shortly,” and would be fully costed out.

vyelkin posted:

It's important to recall also that two things are true about the OLP:

First of all, McGuinty's government was more centre-left than you'd think until 2011. He did a lot of good social things, and economically he was all for raising taxes and spending them on good stuff like beginning the transition towards a green economy--McGuinty's policies were well on their way to making us a world leader in environmental technology, which is something that requires a lot of investment, and this stands even if you consider things the right hates like the big Samsung deal. His government is also responsible for undoing a lot of the damage Harris did to the province, especially by investing in healthcare and education (just as one example, Ontario had the best hospital wait times in the country according to a report a few years ago, and that certainly wasn't the case under 'close 28 hospitals' Harris). His 30% off undergrad tuition grant is actually a huge deal in helping underprivileged youths afford to go to university. He gave good contracts to a lot of unionized provincial employees. He provided the province with full-day kindergarten, which despite some implementation problems can be one of the most valuable tools for inter-generational social mobility. And he actually paid for all of this by raising taxes rather than by cutting spending elsewhere. Our debt-to-GDP ratio was decreasing until the 2008 crash, when suddenly massive deficits were needed to bail out the auto industry and support several hundred thousand people who had just lost their jobs.

Of course, this changed after the 2011 election, when for whatever reason he decided to swing to the right to try and get his majority back instead of to the left for NDP support, and we had the assault on the teachers' unions and the austerity budgets and everything. But he resigned after just over a year of that behaviour, and that's where the second point comes in.

Second, the OLP itself rejected McGuinty's swing to the right by electing Kathleen Wynne, who represents the left wing of the party, rather than the establishment and Liberal-insider-favoured right wing candidate, Sandra Pupatello. Combine that with most of McGuinty's cabinet resigning their ministerships and even also resigning their seats, and you end up with a very different Liberal government, which has been much further to the left than McGuinty was in 2011-12, and probably further to the left than McGuinty was from 2003-11 as well. It wasn't Wynne who attacked the teachers' union. In fact, a major plank of her leadership platform was repairing relations with the teachers. Yes, of course they're the same party and there are a lot of continuities, but I have to say that all signs point to the Liberal base rejecting McGuinty's rightward turn just as much as the left wing voters who are wavering between the NDP and the OLP in this election rejected it. Kathleen Wynne is hardly the same leader as Dalton McGuinty. She put forward a budget--not an election campaign but a budget, i.e. something that would have become law had the NDP voted for it--that was the most left-wing piece of legislation the province has seen in probably 20 years. So what if it didn't subsidize auto insurance? We shouldn't be subsidizing cars any more than we already do, and in fact we should be trying to encourage other forms of transportation because global climate change is a reality and it's going to harm us all very much.

Essentially, the OLP is a more left-wing party than most people give it credit for. It's almost certainly left wing of the national Liberals, even under Golden Boy Trudeau himself. Wynne is a centre-left politician, and her government has given all signs towards being a centre-left government.

Pinterest Mom posted:

Polling data suggests that ONDP is doing very well in SW Ontario - up 5-10 points since the last election. It really seems that everywhere south and west of Toronto, ONDP is seriously competitive in places it hasn't been before and where not even the 2011 federal NDP was able to compete.

sliderule posted:

Just curious: by what metric?

eXXon posted:

Speaking of which, Green leader Mike Schreiner is on the Agenda on TVO right now.

308 posted:

Abacus shows tie in Ontario, PC edge among likely voters

WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 2014

Abacus shows tie in Ontario, PC edge among likely voters

After the back-and-forth see-sawing of the polls since the start of the provincial campaign in Ontario, it is comforting to see a poll with results that more comfortably fit into what the other pollsters have been saying. Whereas some polls see a PC lead and others see a Liberal lead, the new poll by Abacus Data for the Sun News Network splits the difference, putting the Liberals and PCs in a tie. But then the poll also agrees with what Ipsos Reid has been showing as well - that the Tories have an advantage among likely voters.

The results from Abacus differed only a little from the previous projection, so this is the first update in some time without a dramatic swing in one direction or the other. The PCs retain their lead at 35.8% (or between 34% and 39%), while the Liberals dropped slightly to 34.3% (or between 33% and 38%). The New Democrats were up to 23.4% (or between 22% and 25%), while the Greens held steady with 5.2% (or between 4% and 7%).

The Liberals also remain ahead in the seat count, with 44 to 41 for the PCs. But the NDP has rebounded, back to 22 seats.

While the precise seat estimate favours the Liberals, the ranges favour the Tories. They are projected to take between 38 and 54 seats, just grazing the minimum needed for a majority. The Liberals sit at between 32 and 52 seats, while the NDP is at 16 to 23 seats.

Recall that these are just the most likely outcomes. There is a 9% chance that the Liberal total will fall between the High to Maximum level (52 to 64 seats). That increases to 14% for the PCs (54 to 67 seats).

Regionally, the PC numbers have fallen back down to earth in Toronto, primarily to the benefit of the NDP. The Liberals have been steadily dropping in the 905 area code, while they have spiked in eastern Ontario. The NDP have been making gains in southwestern Ontario, and northern and central Ontario remains a three-way mess.



We have not heard from Abacus at the provincial level in Ontario since August 2013, so there are no trends to look at.

The PCs and Liberals were tied in the poll among all eligible voters with 33%, while the NDP trailed not too far behind at 26%. The Greens were at 6% and 2% of Ontarians said they would vote for another party. Of the total sample, 14% were undecided.

Among likely voters (determined by Abacus according to how respondents answer a half-dozen questions related to likelihood of voting and attention paid to the campaign), the PCs moved ahead with 36%, while the Liberals were unchanged at 33%. The NDP and Greens each dropped a point to 25% and 5%, respectively. Note that the projection model uses the likely voter numbers.

Among eligible voters, the Liberals led in Toronto with 40% to 27% for the NDP and 26% for the PCs, while they were also ahead in eastern Ontario with 42% to 31% for the PCs and 20% for the NDP.

The Tories were in front in southwestern Ontario with 38% to 30% for the NDP and 23% for the Liberals. The PCs also edged out the Liberals in the GTA/Hamilton-Niagara region with 37% to 33%, with the NDP at 23%.

The New Democrats led in northern Ontario with 37%, well ahead of the Liberals at 28% and the PCs at 27%.

Abacus defines its regions by postal code, so M is Toronto, L is the GTA/Hamilton-Niagara region, K is the east, R is the southwest, and P is the north.

The poll had oodles of information, and I invite you to check it out. What I found most interesting is how Abacus sliced up the electorate. It found 16% of Ontarians to be 'core PCs', with 10% being 'core Liberals' and another 10% being 'core NDP'. That's the base.

Swing voters represent the rest. The largest group are Liberal-NDP swing voters, representing 21% of the electorate. This partly explains the Liberals move to the left. Another 12% are PC-NDP swing voters, while just 10% are Liberal-PC swing voters. Another 13% are complete swing voters, willing to vote for all three parties. Things are not always as simple as the left-right spectrum. This is something that Abacus will be tracking, and it will be interesting to see how these groups move over the next few weeks.

POSTED BY ÉRIC AT 10:02

geese posted:

If any of you live in/around downtown Toronto and want some temp work, the ONDP is hiring a bunch of paid canvassers for some of the downtown ridings. PM me and I can give you more info. I promise you won't have to say a single nice thing about Andrea Horwath, in fact her name will probably be verboten.

Jimbozig posted:

So, uh, why are the ONDP and OLP two different parties at this point? They seem to be occupying the same ideological ground, so to speak. I mean, they are proposing slightly different programs, but I find it hard to believe that either party would be much against the milquetoast slightly-left-leaning policies the other party proposes. Why even bother splitting the centre-left vote? Just merge already.

quote:

Edit: Although I guess with the Sun ad and all that, maybe Horwath's plan is to start trying to split the PC vote instead??

Ipsos Reid posted:

Ontario Race Tightens: Hudak PCs Slip (35%, -4), Horwath NDP Gain (28%, +4) and Wynne Liberals Stall (31%, +1) among Decided Voters

But Ballot Box Bonus Belongs to Progressive Conservatives (41%, +6), Not Liberals (30%, -1) or NDP (26%, -2) among Likely Voters

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Toronto, ON – The Ontario provincial election race is tightening, with a 7-point gap separating first place from third among decided voters, according to a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted for CTV and CP24. Most Ontarians remain entrenched in their desire for change, but no consensus is emerging on which party and leader should take the reins at Queen’s Park following Election Day on June 12.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath is beginning to cut through the noise created by the frontrunners, while Tim Hudak’s controversial jobs plan appears to have halted the momentum that the Tories were building, and Kathleen Wynne’s support levels are stagnant. Among likely voters – those who say nothing short of an emergency could stop them from getting to the polling station – the Tories hold an 11-point lead over second-place Liberals.

If the election were held tomorrow, the Progressive Conservatives under Tim Hudak would receive 35% support among decided voters (down 4 points since last week), while the Liberals under Premier Kathleen Wynne would receive 31% support (up 1 point). The New Democratic Party, led by Andrea Horwath, would receive 28% of the vote (up 4 points), while 6% would vote for some other party, including the Green Party led by Mike Schreiner (down 1 point). Two in ten (19%) Ontarians remain undecided (down 1 point).

The results within the major regions of the province show some competitive dogfights:

-In the 905 area of the GTA, the Tories (39%) have a 5-point lead over the Liberals (34%), while the NDP (24%) and others (3%) trail.
-In the 416, Toronto proper, the Liberals (40%) have an 8-point lead over the NDP (32%), while the Progressive Conservatives (22%) struggle in third place, and others lag behind (6%).
-In Southwest Ontario, the Tories (38%) have a lead over the NDP (32%), while the Liberals (21%) are in third position over other parties (10%).
-In Central Ontario, the PCs (45%) enjoy a lead over the Liberals (34%) and NDP (17%), while other parties (4%) are not competitive.
-In Eastern Ontario, the Tories (46%) are also in the lead, ahead of the Liberals (35%), NDP (16%), and other parties (3%).
-In Northern Ontario, the NDP (48%) remains very strong, with the PCs (26%), Liberals (17%) and other parties (10%) struggling to keep up.

Ballot Box Bonus Belongs to Progressive Conservatives…

The data reveal that while the province-wide race is tightening among the general population, among the 47% of Ontarians who say that ‘nothing short of an unforeseen emergency could stop me from getting to the voting booth and casting my vote’, the PCs (41%, +6) remain well ahead of the Liberals (30%, -1) and the NDP (26%, -2), while support for other parties drops down to 3% (-3). Tory voters are the most committed to show up, while the NDP and Liberals might struggle to get out their vote.

Moreover, a majority (53%) of current Tory voters are ‘absolutely certain’ that this is the party that they will support on June 12, compared to 42% of NDP voters, 37% of Liberal voters, and 25% of those who would vote for another party.

The Tory vote is most committed to their party and most committed to show up and vote.

The Potential for Vote Switching…

With most NDP and Liberal voters are not absolutely certain that they’ll stick with their party, and with 19% of Ontarians completely undecided about whom they would vote for, the potential for a significant shift in the standings still exists.

-Liberal voters are more likely to name the NDP (41%) as their second choice than the Tories (14%) or some other party (12%).
-Tory voters are more likely to name the NDP (25%) as their second choice than the Liberals (15%) or some other party (14%).
-NDP voters are more likely to name the Liberals (39%) than the Tories (19%) or another party (19%) as their second choice.
-These data suggest that the potential for significant changes in support is more plausible among the Liberals and the NDP than it is among the Progressive Conservatives. In other words, at this stage the PCs only have limited room for growth from vote switching; the Liberals and NDP have a greater potential for growth if supporters of these two parties decide to rally around one party at the expense of the other, something that the data suggest is a distinct possibility.

Most (72%) Ontarians Say it’s Time for a Change…

Nearly three quarters (72%) of Ontarians are of the opinion that ‘it is time for another provincial party to take over and run the province’. In contrast, three in ten (28%) think that the ‘Liberal government under Premier Kathleen Wynne has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected during the next provincial election’, a figure that typically tracks closely to the percentage of the vote the incumbent receives on Election Day.

And while one in three (32%) Ontarians believe that Liberal Leader Premier Kathleen Wynne would make the best Premier of Ontario, the leader of the most popular party – Tim Hudak of the Progressive Conservatives – polls well behind (30%) 3rd party NDP Leader Andrea Horwath (38%) as the major party leader who would make the best Premier of Ontario.

In short, the Tories are more popular than their leader Tim Hudak, while NDP leader Andrea Horwath is more popular than her party.

Gully Foyle posted:

I just got an e-mail from the ONDP actually bragging about the advertisement on the Toronto Sun, as if it was an accomplishment or something. I don't understand what the hell is going on there. I'm supposed to be happy that they tried to present their ad as news? I'm supposed to be happy that they managed to give money to a right-wing tabloid newspaper to ignore whatever journalistic ethics they have (I know, its the Sun, they don't have any)? And then in the same e-mail you ask for more money do the same sort of poo poo.

Rutibex posted:

It's not alien; all you need to do is understand sports fans to understand how the average person sees politics.

brucio posted:

Weren't the other 2 parties planning on canceling the gas plants too or am I misremembering the last election?

DutchDupe posted:

Well, when the very first question is about Liberal corruption...

DutchDupe posted:

Does anyone even buy Hudak's shmulk folksy bullshit?