Category: Provincial Politics

Looking more closely at what is happening to the Ontario New Democrats you realize that the signs have been there all along. This is a party without the will to exist. It has lost impetus, direction, raison d’etre and is adrift without effective leadership. Maybe, as political apparatchiks, we see this first but it will be clear to all after the vote on June 12.

There was a television clip the other day of Leader Andrea Horwath trying to respond to a question about her leadership. She was challenged in an open letter from a group of long-time New Democratic Party supporters. These people were “deeply distressed by the current campaign.” Andrea Horwath publicly laughed and said that it shows how democratic the party can be.

Only a fool would laugh at long-time supporters such as Michele Landsberg and Judy Rebick. These people are deadly serious. They are threatening to take their vote from the New Democrats and they take many thousands of votes with them. They might relent but the damage has been done. Andrea Horwath is toast.

Mind you, Horwath is no loss. As the Pillsbury Dough girl of the campaign, she only provided a few laughs. Her running to the right of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals has been a wonder. We all expected her to refuse to support the Liberal Budget but it was her lack of effective response to it that left us confused. She seems to be running this campaign from notes in the back pocket of her jeans. There is no theme, coherency, or any attempt at effective communication.

When Horwath said that she was not supporting the Liberal provincial pension plan because there will be a federal election next year and a new government would fix the Canada Pension Plan, she astounded both Liberals and New Democrats. You wonder if she has that in writing from either Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau.

The only people left in a quandary by these events are the news media. They have to rely on the polling information and the pollsters have been running well behind what is happening. It is far too early to say what impact all this will have on the vote other than to acknowledge that the Liberal Party is heading for a majority. We can assess that better after the debates. Oddly enough the Northern Debate that is only between Andrea Horwath and Kathleen Wynne will take on more importance. Key will be how Wynne acts towards Horwath. The kinder Wynne is to her, the more votes the Liberals will be racking up.

Conversely, the nastier Horwath is towards Wynne in either of the debates, the lower the vote the New Democrats will get. This is why we love politics.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

What always divided Canada’s social democrats, be they liberal or socialist, was never dogma or heroes. It was the unions. The liberals saw Canada’s unions as regressive. They were reactionary, self-centred, living in the past and, in too many cases, tied to international unions that worked against this country’s nascent nationalism. When the Canadian Labour Congress wed the old Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and created the New Democratic Party, it was the dominance of the unions that created the depth of divide. This was not the party of Tommy Douglas.

At the same time, the New Democrats saw the Liberals as intellectual snobs and trending more to the right politically. It was the shared dislike and distrust between the two parties that created the phenomenon of working class electoral districts switching between the New Democrats and the Conservatives. Instead of being positioned as an answer to the need for reform, the Liberals were the enemy.

But time heals and necessity accelerates process. Since the Rae Days of the mid 1990s, unions have been drifting away from the Ontario New Democrats. What was once a rare union forming brief alliances with the Liberals has become a flood of support. Leaderless and aimless, Ontario’s New Democrats have crashed. They zigged to the right when they should have zagged to stay on the left of the Liberals.

And all the credit goes to Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. This is the guy who is promising to create a million jobs if Ontario voters let him fire a hundred thousand civil servants. He honestly believes that if he lowers our business taxes even further than they have been and destroys the union movement in Ontario, it will magically create jobs.

Can you blame the unions for fighting back? They are being disowned by the New Democrats and will be screwed by the Conservatives. In the time honoured tradition of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend…” the unions are lining up with the Liberal Party. The movement started with building trades and teachers and now service workers are crossing the line. What started a few years ago as a squabble between some of the unions has turned into a stampede to the Liberals.

How could any member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Ontario support the New Democrats after they pulled the plug on the Liberals just when the union was getting the deal the union had worked for years to get from the Ontario government? They were finally going to have home care workers earning above the poverty line.

So this is strategic voting folks. There is no equivocating on this issue. There are only two choices on June 12. You may vote for Timmy Hudak’s Conservatives if you wish. We will hope you are happy with each other. The other choice is Ms. Wynne’s Liberals. You need not worry if your hand shakes a little marking your “X.” Some liberals have that problem also. Good luck. We are going to need it.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

And here we thought the New Democrats were going to wing it through this election without a platform. They fooled us again! Here we are with three weeks more to go and Leader Andrea Horwath has announced a platform—such as it is.

The New Democrat document seems to be mainly about health care. That is certainly an area of concern for many in Ontario and there is no question that there are those among us who might wish for a better answer than our inadequate Health Minister Deb Matthews. The woman has never gotten ahead of that portfolio and seems to always be playing catch-up.

The New Democrat suggestion of using more nurse practitioners in hospital emergency rooms is a good one. At the same time, the caregiver tax credit would work best with the increased payments for professional caregivers proposed by the Liberals.

What blows everyone away is that the New Democrats have jumped decisively on the balanced budget bandwagon. This must be their way of competing at this stage with the Conservatives. They are sure going to balance those books but just not as fast as those nasty Tories. You would think that any sensible socialist would adamantly say “Jobs and the economy first, deficit second.

The funniest promise the New Democrats are making and have just reiterated in their platform release is that they are going to appoint a cabinet minister of savings and accountability. They have sure one-upped Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto with that one! This new minister is going to be like that paper towel commercial that shows a bunch of fat guys running around soaking up spills.

There is no coherent theme or direction in this platform and it is almost the scrapings from the floor at the last New Democrat policy conference. To not try to give it an overall idea or even an interesting title indicates a hurried and ill-considered approach. It is like telling the voters that “We are here but not serious.” It is no way to win an election. The party will still come third in the election but that is not saying much.

You should get your résumé up to date if you are thinking of applying for the job of leader of the Ontario New Democrats. There will be an opening.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

All along, we were assuming that Ontario Conservative Leader Timmy Hudak was saving his ace in the hole for late in his campaign. He would have had it as his clincher. It was allowing the sale of beer and wine in convenience stores. It was assumed that he intended to show that Premier Wynne is living in the past and that New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath is afraid of the Brewers’ Warehousing union. All for naught!

Would you believe that Timmy has dropped his plan for revolutionizing beer and wine sales in Ontario? He says the plan has been put on the back burner. He has been told by too many of his base Conservative vote that freedom for beer and wine sales is a no-no. The poor schmuck has been screwed by his own myopic church-going supporters.

It could have taken up the entire last week of the campaign. Timmy wanted to visit every one of the 7500 convenience stores in Ontario and sew up the votes there. It was a no brainer. Timmy wanted every purchaser of a lottery ticket to be told to vote for his local Conservative. It was the way the voter was going to be able to buy beer conveniently.

It would have meant that the Toronto Star would have its editorial hands tied for the last week of the campaign. If the Toronto Star wants convenience stores to sell beer and wine, the newspaper would have had to back Timmy. (The Toronto Star is capable of that.)

For once in the campaign, the Toronto Star would have to point out that Premier Wynne and her dinosaur provincial Whigs are blocking progress. The Whigs are letting a foreign monopoly make all the profits from Ontario’s favourite suds. The one-time Ontario-owned Brewers’ Warehousing and its ubiquitous In-and-Out beer stores have fallen into the evil grasp of foreign-owned brewers.

The only politician tied in a pretzel over this convenience store issue was the Pillsbury Dough girl, New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath. Her and her caucus had flatly refused to discuss the sale of wine and beer by convenience stores. It is hardly that the party is stuck in the past but it is trapped by some of the unions. While fewer Beer Store employees are actually union members today, they still hold sway over the New Democrats. The party can hardly afford to lose much more union support.

But it was too hard to believe that such a badly misled party as the Ontario Conservatives might have been the only party willing to free the province from its archaic approach to beer and wine sales. It would have made sense when you consider that the Tories are desperate, the Liberals living in the past and the New Democrats frightened. And Timmy Hudak’s supporters told him to drop it? What the hell have politics come to in this province?

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

One of the problems politicians face is that voters often take you literally. If you are stupid enough to tell voters that you are going to create a million jobs by firing another 100,000 people who are working, you leave them struggling with the mathematics. The key to this is to explain the mathematics first.

We point this out as something of a public service for the million or so voters in Ontario who are impressed with Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s forcefulness. These folks were going to vote Conservative anyway but they like to mention Timmy’s forcefulness. And besides, he’s a family man and he represents all those family values that the good ole boys appreciate.

And besides, Timmy is going to get rid of all those damn windmills that are wasting our money trying to find a wind to generate some expensive electricity. Timmy is covering all the bases in this election. He and his friend Mayor Rob Ford are going to cancel all that fluffy light rail transit in the Toronto area and just build subways. They know that if they build them, the riders will come. And Timmy is not going to bother electrifying the GO trains as he is just going to run more trains, faster and give two-way service all day. This is despite the fact that the trains have to be electrified to run faster and provide better service—which is the entire point.

But we are still working on Timmy’s Three “R’s.” What is confusing people is that Timmy’s million jobs hardly add up. At this time, there are less than 600,000 people looking or interested in working in Ontario. Even if he could fire 100,000 civil servants, Timmy has a shortfall of at least 300,000 people to fill all his jobs.

But if Timmy fires the number of teachers he is promising, we are going to have some quite crowded classrooms. Timmy can solve both problems by allowing more child labour. Instead of bringing in foreign workers to do the dirty jobs, we can use school dropouts. With the new enlarged class sizes, nobody will notice that some of the kids are being left behind.

But we should bear in mind that Timmy will also be lowering the minimum wage. Most of us will need two jobs to make ends meet anyway.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Here we are less than half way into the Ontario provincial election and the pollsters are getting more attention than the politicians. Get a life folks. This is far from over.

Where does this election stand when as many as half the voters are not even aware of when the vote will be held? Sure there are lots of active, knowledgeable voters who would love to stick it to the arrogant Liberals but they know there is no alternative. What do you expect them to tell the pollsters? They want to get even.

But Ontario voters are not stupid. They are savvy voters with deep concerns about the economy in this province. They agree that the Liberals under McGuinty did lots of things that did not like. They see nothing new or relevant about Kathleen Wynne as premier. They know that Timmy Hudak is just a cheap clone of former Premier Mike Harris. He is not even as bright or as interesting a person. How do you even equate that guy to federal Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper?

Do you know why the pollsters can claim any accuracy in their reading of the entrails? They do rolling polls throughout the campaigns and at the end they are often right.

But less than halfway into a campaign, the pollsters have no idea what is happening. It is like a camp counsellor going around a large dormitory of kids to wake them up for breakfast. You have to go back and check on half of them just to see if they made it out of bed. It is like about half the voters at this stage will ask: ‘What election?’

When many pollsters are using automated telephone calls to households where three-year olds answer the phone, you expect accuracy? And they are just as bad as the Internet survey panels that ask about your favourite douches and then ask: ‘And how are you going to vote, sir?’

As a politician, what you really want from the pollsters at this stage of the campaign is to see how voters are responding to key policies and some early trend analysis. How people are going to vote is more a reflection of how they might normally vote. You do not get much thinking in the answers.

What you would dearly love to know at this stage of the campaign is how about ten per cent of the voters might vote—if they get to the polls. These are the voters who will really decide the election and the pollsters have absolutely no idea who they are.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

The City of Toronto is in the most trouble. It really needs a break. The city and even the province are suffering from hyper-politicossis. It is a rare disease that can happen when too much political activity drives the voters to distraction. Even worse, they take out their frustrations on politicians. With a provincial election, federal by-elections and the longest running municipal election in history, the voters are starting to fray around the edges. After all, if Mayor Ford can take time out to go to rehab, the citizens should also be able to take a few days off.

Even those of us who make a hobby out of the political scene are starting to feel the strain. We have a wealth of material. We no longer plod along hoping that there will be something new to write about tomorrow. We keep writing and find that we have three entries scheduled for two days from now. Some will even publish all three—greatly confusing their readers. Those of us more considerate of our readers try to pick the most pertinent and, hopefully, best written.

But credit for the prolific writing really should go to the politicians—bless them. On the provincial scene, Conservative Leader Timmy Hudak is a goldmine for the progressive writer. He is Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and Josef Stalin, comfortably rolled into a ball for your easy reading. Ayn Rand was the rabid adventurer of the right who confused millions with her best selling fiction. Milton Friedman was the pragmatist from the right-wing Chicago School and Josef Stalin was the hard case dictator who knew just what was best for you. You might think Timmy is an idiot but he is really those three, comfortably packaged for your derision.

And then there is provincial New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath. You never know whether that woman is from the left or the right or coming straight for you. She defies labels—other than being the giggling Pillsbury Dough girl. The only problem is you need her for more than laughs. Without a strong vote for Andrea, you end up with a Liberal majority government and what fun is there in that?

Can you imagine four more years of Kathleen Wynne as Premier of Ontario? That is enough to make any truly progressive liberal heave. You would swear that all the silly running that woman is doing is addling her brain. She is the most convoluted image of a premier this province has ever seen.

What was that old commercial: You deserve a break today? All voters should take four really deep breaths and not think about anything political for the next ten minutes. Betcha you cannot do it!

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

Members of the provincial Liberal Party in Babel are watching their e-mail in-boxes. We are waiting for news of our Liberal candidate for the June 12 election. You would think that with all the support Kathleen Wynne got from this riding in her run for the Liberal leadership, it would be ready with a candidate for her first date with Ontario voters.

That seems to be a problem in electoral districts that are run by the old guard. They scare off anyone who might have ideas or gumption and stick to the old tried and true. That is why there is a schism between the federal and provincial Liberals in Babel. It is also why we so rarely write about Babel in this blog. Nobody really cares.

But in microcosm, it reflects much of the Liberal Party’s problems in Ontario. There are not just two widely divergent liberal parties in this province, there are about seven. Understanding the problems this causes also gives you an understanding of politics in Ontario. And there are foolish people who think just Quebec is conflicted!

First and foremost, there are two sort-of related parties in Toronto and area. The reason there is any similarity between them was the cost savings of former Premier Mike Harris. He made the province use the same riding boundaries as used for federal elections. It reduced the number of people being elected to the legislature and saved the bother of periodically realigning riding boundaries provincially—let the feds do it. As Toronto is very much the heart of liberalism in Canada, it was the federal organization that became the dominant force in most Toronto and area ridings. It kept things simple.

But the parties are more insular in rural areas. The Liberals tended to become separate entities with segregated memberships. Northern Ontario is a special needs area for both federal and provincial parties. Windsor and South-western Ontario are way out in left field, so to speak. Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, London and Ottawa are urban orphans with minds of their own.

But the news media treat Ontario as a cash cow and do not bother trying to understand its needs and directions. Radio and television are just commodities today that serve no needs but their own. Print media outside of the major urban areas are dying from neglect.

But knowing this does not produce a candidate for the Whigs of Babel. The powers that be will get around to telling us—eventually.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

There must be a rule for Conservative Party leaders in Ontario that, during an election campaign, they have to commit some form of political suicide. Ontario Conservative Leader Timmy Hudak came to Barrie last Friday and did the deed.

Timmy not only proved he is a failure in economics but that he must have also failed basic mathematics. Here he is promising 1,000,000 jobs for Ontario—without any plan to make it happen—but he wants to start by firing 100,000 provincial employees. While it might have been a bravura performance, it did not make any sense. Why he thinks 1,100,000 jobs will appear by magic instead of just 1,000,000 was never explained.

Timmy’s vision for Ontario really is a wonder. He never has made use of his degree in economics. In politics, he was an acolyte of former Premier Mike Harris. That should have been a lesson in what not to do but Timmy believes in the Harris way.

In 2009 when Timmy became leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, the party saw him as a new broom. They hoped he would be able to bring change and renewal to a stumbling political party. What they got was an ideologue in a time warp of an old and disproved economic theory. Timmy wants Ontario to be a right-to-work area as a bottom feeder in North America. He wants us to compete with Mexico with the lowest wages, the lowest business taxes and the least in worker rights.

His promises of plentiful jobs, lower taxes and a new broom hit a cord with many people when he went into the 2011 provincial election as the frontrunner in the polls. He was confident. All Timmy had to do was maintain the momentum for a five week campaign.

But Timmy could not do it. People began to question his promises and they found he could not explain them. He not only stumbled in responding to questions but he went too far with some of his answers and people realized that he was just copying promises that Mike Harris could never keep either. His promises were hollow, he had no concrete plan and his party lost that election.

And for the last two years, Tim Hudak has cheated the voters of Ontario. He was Leader of the Opposition in the Legislature yet he left the job to the New Democrat’s Andrea Horwath. He condemned budgets before he knew what was in them. He was always negative and never constructive. He presented policy documents that lacked research, reason or a future for the province. He railed against unions. He has turned off more voters than any previous Conservative leader in Ontario.

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]

On that two-deck-high campaign bus, Ms. Horwath’s picture has been reproduced bigger than life. The Ontario New Democrat leader looks good. In fact it is too good. It seems to be trying to lay a patina on the New Democrat campaign that does not exist.

It appears that Andrea Horwath is running in this provincial election as the Pillsbury Dough Girl. Poke her and she giggles. There is no substance, or co-ordination, or strategy, or tactics, or policies for the voter to assess.

It is though that bus rolled out of the paint shop and gained momentum only because the campaign is heading downhill. Maybe the bus should stop at every grocery store on its route so that the candidate can hand out cents-off coupons to the voters. The bus needs a carnival sideshow barker to give the spiel:

“Step right up folks, today we have your one-time pennies off coupon on Ontario electricity. And here you thought the price was going up but your kindly NDP is going to raise the price and give you a bit of the money back. Step right up and vote for your one-time offer.”

Ms. Horwath must keep looking back down the campaign road wondering when her brain trust is going to catch up with some meatier policies for her to lay on the voters. The only concern might be “What brain trust?”

Maybe the brains of the New Democrat campaign are a group of small business owners. The platform that we have been allowed to peek at to-date seems to have small business owners in mind. The $12 minimum wage promise must be a joke when any authority on the subject says the poverty level in Ontario is anyone earning less than $14 per hour. There are also promises of tax breaks for small business. Why? We are listening. Why?

Do the New Democrats now love small business and just hate big business? And where is the dividing line now?

If they really believe in small business, you would think the New Democrats would be on-board with selling beer and wine in convenience stores. That is the smallest business there is but them selling beer and wine is a no-no with New Democrats. It must be that there are a few union workers left at Brewers’ Warehousing. Those few votes will trump thousands of convenience store owners and operators any day. Ms. Horwath and her New Democrats are so predictable!

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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry

Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]