Provincial Politics – Page 135

Do the NDP and Liberals need a trial marriage?

May 18, 2012 by Peter Lowry

This romance is not getting off the ground. Are we too shy to be the one to make the first move? And you do not have to do it for love. Nor is anybody pregnant. The simple facts are that the Conservatives consolidated with the right and finally won a majority government. We let that happen because there was no corresponding consolidation on the left. If the Liberals and NDP do not join forces, we will both be wandering over the scorched earth of a Canada in the punitive hands of the malcontents of the far right.

Canadians do not want nor do they deserve what Stephen Harper and his sycophants are doing to this country. And neither proportional representation nor preferential voting are going to save the day as long as Stephen Harper’s people can win the country with just 40 per cent of the popular vote. He can count, you know!

What we do know about this marriage is that some of our old swains are going to dessert us. The NDP is going lose some of the direct union support. The Liberals are going to be cut in with the mass desertion of the party’s right wing. That is fine. Unions were useful but they had been steadily drifting over to the Liberals anyway. The right wing of the Liberal Party is no loss as those people did us more harm than good.

If Dalton McGuinty was not one of those hidebound conservatives in liberal clothing, we could have a trial marriage here in Ontario. The Ontario Liberal Party desperately needs the humanizing influence that Andrea Horwath’s party could bring to the Liberal caucus. And we would certainly wish Dalton McGuinty well, over there in Tiny Tim Hudak’s caucus. Those two deserve each other.

The critical test for the marriage of the federal wings of the parties is Thomas Mulcair. He needs to be willing to undergo another leadership contest. The best guess is that his ego would tell him to go for it. And he could win.

It also solves the problem for the Liberal leadership. Bob Rae is not the darling of the Liberal left wing. He never has been. Too many of the Liberal left were turned off by his failed leadership in Ontario in the 1990s. Besides, the leadership of a combined new Liberal Democratic Party opens all kinds of interesting possibilities.

The Liberal caucus in Ottawa has some excellent younger contenders who can wait the one or two terms in Parliament if Mulcair is leading their party. There is another possibility in Nathan Cullen. As it stands today, Mike Crawley, president of the Liberal Party of Canada, should be talking to his counterpart in the federal NDP. The wedding bells are ringing.

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Looking at proportional voting.

May 17, 2012 by Peter Lowry

THE DEMOCRACY PAPERS #5- Revised It was in 2007 that The Democracy Papers were written to make the case for our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting in North America. Despite changes being rejected firmly in Ontario and twice in British Columbia, people still complain. The complaints are understandable. No system is perfect. Neither is democracy but it is better than the alternatives.

Have you wondered why those who support proportional voting only mention two examples of legislative bodies that are elected by that method? There are other examples and some of them have important lessons to share with Canadian voters.

The poster child of proportional voting is New Zealand. That country has had mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting for the past ten years. All most Ontario voters know about New Zealand is that the people speak English, the South Island has the mountains and the small country exports a lot of frozen lamb. The Canadian voters who can name the prime minister of New Zealand might not be more than two in a thousand.

The other example, only mentioned in passing, is Germany. Proportional voting has existed in some of the German states and in that country’s federal government since the days of the Weimar Republic. MMP was just a temporary compromise after the Second World War.

Proportional voting is one of the most common voting systems in the world as many third world countries use it to overcome low literacy rates among voters. It is much easier for an illiterate voter to choose a party symbol rather than deal with the complexity of candidates’ names. Canada does not have a major problem with voter literacy.

There are many variations of proportional voting. The best example of pure proportional voting is the system used to elect the Knesset of the State of Israel. This has been the system used since the first election in the new state in 1949. The number and make-up of political parties shift as the do sands of the desert areas of the country. The large cabinets are usually made up of representatives of various parties.

An important example of mixed-member proportional representation is the House of Representatives that forms part of Japan’s Diet. The appointed members and elected members do not always enjoy friendly relations. Riots in the Diet are an embarrassment to their countrymen.

A closer example of proportional voting is in the United States where the system is used to select the President. The Electoral College, charged with selecting the President, is elected state by state on a proportional basis. If the Americans used FPTP voting for President, Al Gore would have won the election in 2000 against George W. Bush.

A number of cities in the United States have also experimented with proportional voting systems. Most notable was New York City. It implemented proportional voting in 1936 in an attempt to clean up imbedded corruption in the city government. This voting system was revoked after a decade by what many claimed were the elites who were unhappy about the number of radicals, blacks and communists who were getting elected. More importantly, the proportional system earned the enmity of the major newspapers and the experiment ended.

Most of Europe, as well as the European Parliament, use proportional systems of one sort or another. One notable exception is France. The French instituted proportional voting after the Second World War but switched back to FPTP in the late 1950s. With the exception of the federal election of 1986, the French have preferred their system of run-off elections that ensures all successful candidates have a majority of votes.

The mother of parliaments, Great Britain, has held onto first-past-the-post voting in single candidate ridings. Despite this, the country has gone along with proportional voting on representatives to the European Parliament. The devolved governing bodies of Scotland and Wales which could be looked on as provincial bodies (unless you are a Scot or Welsh) are using MMP voting.

While the majority of countries in South America use proportional representation to elect their governments, only Bolivia and Venezuela use mixed (both constituency and list candidates) representation. Closer to home, the next major country to use mixed representation is Mexico. It is possible that those promoting MMP have decided not to say to Canadians: “Let’s have a government just like Mexico’s.”

What becomes clear as you examine the various countries and their electoral systems is that the dynamic countries that offer the leadership to the rest of the world are mainly those countries that have retained first-past-the-post electoral systems. The countries that have opted for proportional systems are mainly countries that are trying (though not always succeeding) to develop a consensus approach to governance.

For all the weaknesses and frustrations of first-past-the-post, the conclusion is that North Americans like it. They know it is a system that forces candidates to take the time, make the effort and show the determination to win. Our first-past-the-post electoral system challenges the candidates, not the voters. It is the voters who benefit.

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Toronto casino is a human rights question.

May 16, 2012 by Peter Lowry

What right does anyone have to tell you where or when you can gamble? The Toronto Star is feeding Torontonians sanctimonious claptrap in its fight against having a Toronto casino. The posturing politicians at city hall are worse. They have no idea what their constituents want done about casinos. And if even just one in ten of Toronto’s citizens want to have a casino in the city, what right do those who do not want to go to a casino to stop it?

Grow up TorStar! Act like a newspaper that cares for our rights. Are you going to demand a plebiscite for new churches next? That will be fun. You can spread vicious rumours about the secret rites that might be practiced at prayer meetings. You can warn against the dangers of tithing. You can spread distrust about the morals of the pastor. Do you want a city that will toe your myopic editorial line?

Gambling is not something we should only enable in back rooms, run by sleezebags and with games of questionable honesty. People gamble. It is a very human activity. People were tossing the bones in wagers before they developed dice. Playing cards predate Margaret Atwood. The Roman Church first used the vernacular to call: Under the ‘B,’ three. When the hockey season finally ends, we can still get together for a friendly poker game.

Is there something moral in the Star dissing a casino? Are you purer than the pure? We went to a casino the other evening, had a great dinner, saw a fabulous live show (The Trans-Siberian Orchestra) and won a few bucks at the craps table. We each had one alcoholic beverage all evening and were home in bed shortly after midnight. We cannot figure out what we did that you consider so wrong. And, oh yes, the casino treated us to the dinner and show.

If you are worried about gambling addiction, you are barking up the wrong tree about that. Look at the great job we are doing in Toronto on banning street drugs. We have had years to eliminate alcohol addiction. There are still addicted smokers polluting doorways around town. Barring casinos in Toronto hardly stops addictive gamblers from gambling in Toronto.

Listen up TorStar: Canadians have a right to gamble if they want. Just look at recent elections results and tell us that we do not gamble.

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

Brush up your calculus for proportional voting.

May 15, 2012 by Peter Lowry

THE DEMOCRACY PAPERS #4- Revised It was in 2007 that The Democracy Papers were written to make the case for our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting in North America. Despite changes being rejected firmly in Ontario and twice in British Columbia, people still complain. The complaints are understandable. No system is perfect. Neither is democracy but it is better than the alternatives.

In October 2007, Ontario voters were presented with a referendum ballot that asked them if they wish to have mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting. This is a system in which each of the political parties provides a list of people eligible to be appointed to 30 per cent of the seats in the legislature. If chosen, these selected people will not have a constituency and will not be directly responsible to the electors.

The referendum was defeated. By almost two to one, Ontario voters rejected this form of voting. You would think it was settled. No such luck.

People still want to have seats in the legislature and in Parliament for the losing parties, proportional to their popular vote. They think this is simple. It is not. When you agree to proportional voting, you will find you have to learn a new math. It was in the plan for MMP produced by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. What the citizens’ assembly attempted to do was give more legislature seats to smaller political parties by appointing members to the legislature instead of electing them. They asked for a very confusing, if not mind-boggling, mathematical process appointing 39 people to the legislature.

With this new math also comes a new language for elections. The simplest of these terms is quotient. We learned that one in the lower grades at school because it is what you call the answer when you divide one number by another. The example given is when you divide the Ontario population of 12,160,000 by 90 electoral districts and you find there will be a quotient of 135,100 people per riding. Those are very large ridings.

But the quotient according to this new math can change if you have an ‘overhang.’ This is one of the more interesting of the new terms. Overhangs occur when your party wins more local ridings than the number to which it would be entitled according to the party vote which has been separated from the candidate vote.

In effect, the system will penalize parties that win more seats than the citizens’ assembly think they should. Under the new game rules, parties who overhang will not get any of their list candidates appointed to the legislature. A party with more elected seats than all other parties combined could thus be restricted in its ability to form a government. The final results are determined by a calculation using something called the ‘Hare formula.’ This formula is used to help distribute seats to losing candidates.

This means a candidate who has lost the election in his or her riding can still be a member of the legislature because of the Hare formula. Technically, loser candidates are known as ‘list candidates.’ These are people who run in ridings and are listed in order of preference by their political parties and the names are given to Elections Ontario before the election. These listed people will be available for appointment to the legislature, only if they have been rejected by the voters in their riding.

What this means is political parties get the decision making power over that of the voters. If the party’s candidates are rejected by the voters in a riding, the party can still appoint them. This conclusion is not surprising. Since the citizens’ assembly members were themselves chosen by lottery, there was no requirement for them to understand democracy.

Under this formula, to form a majority government, a party has to have a minimum of 65 members in the legislature, holding either riding or proportional seats.

Luckily for Ontario voters, all this confusion was swept away by the people (one per riding) hired by Elections Ontario. These people were to explain MMP voting to Ontario residents. Luckily, Elections Ontario decided to spend just $6.8 million on all of their educational efforts. The ‘Yes’ side thought they should have spend at least $13 million of taxpayers’ money to help people understand the proposal. Judging by the mathematics involved, that figure was low.

But the funniest error of all was the union support that was doing the riding by riding organizing for a pro-MMP organization called Fair Vote Ontario. The unions thought that MMP will bring the NDP more seats in the legislature. Now there is a group that really needs to study the mathematics.

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

Do the NDP and Liberals need a trial marriage?

May 13, 2012 by Peter Lowry

This romance is not getting off the ground. Are we too shy to make the first move? And you do not have to do it for love. Nor is anybody pregnant. The simple facts are that the Conservatives consolidated with the right and finally won a majority government. We let that happen because there was no corresponding consolidation on the left. If the Liberals and NDP do not join forces, we will both be wandering over the scorched earth of a Canada in the punitive hands of the malcontents of the far right.

What we do know about this marriage is that some of our old swains are going to dessert us. The NDP is going lose some of the direct union support. The Liberals are going to be damaged by the mass desertion of the party’s right wing. That is fine. Unions were useful but they had been steadily drifting over to the Liberals anyway. The right wing of the Liberal Party is no loss as those people did us more harm than good.

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

Touting voting systems without knowing cost?

May 7, 2012 by Peter Lowry

THE DEMOCRACY PAPERS #3- Revised It was in 2007 that The Democracy Papers were written to make the case for our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting in North America. Despite changes being rejected firmly in Ontario and twice in British Columbia, people still complain. The complaints are understandable. No system is perfect. Neither is democracy but it is better than the alternatives.

If ‘mixed-member proportional’ (MMP) voting had become law in Ontario, it is taxpayers who would have paid, and paid and paid! The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform that came up with this idea seemed to have ignored the costs. And you do not just multiply the number of appointed members (39) by $110,775 per year that we were then paying each of our MPPs. The salaries for these unelected supernumerary legislature members would only have been the beginning.

To $4.2 million in salaries, you have to add far more for the care and upkeep of these party stalwarts. For example, if you have not parked a car in downtown Toronto in the past few years, you might have no idea how much it costs to park all the MPPs’ personal autos at Queens’ Park. Suffice to say, if they all travelled to the legislature by Toronto Transit Commission, we could probably buy each of them a nice compact car every couple years from the savings.

And do not forget that they have a subsidized lunch room and paid meals if the legislature sits late. This is even a better deal when the legislature is not sitting. Our MPPs collect additional pay and expenses for each day of committee meetings they attend during these times. If the chair of the committee can arrange it, they also can get excellent perks by holding meetings at luxury locations with a decent golf course.

Nobody should complain about the cost of constant travel by members of the legislature if they are going to and from their ridings. They represent the people in those ridings and need to meet with them on a regular basis. The proposed political appointees to the legislature will only represent their party. Can we hope the 39 political appointees will all be fromToronto?

The really expensive travels for our MPPs are on what are called ‘fact-finding missions.’ These are often arranged by the party whip after the doors are locked at party caucus meetings. Imagine, if you will, the whip or party leader asking, “Who hasn’t been to Europe yet this year? We have a lovely cruise down the Rhine for those who want to look as though they are checking on municipal sewage solutions.”

The party stalwarts get their pick of these plums. Conversely, the caucus bad apple who made the mistake of arguing openly with the party leader will get offered a fact-finding mission to examine policing for unauthorized weapons on the streets of Baghdad. (This probably explains why so few politicians are seen to argue with their party leader.)

As the 39 party appointees would obviously all be good party people, we can assume that they could get first pick at the travels if they are not kept busy with cabinet appointments. That is its own expense item as cabinet members are not only paid more but do not have anything as mundane as parking problems. They are driven at the taxpayers’ expense by government-paid chauffeurs. No cabinet member is allowed to worry about things such as having toonies and loonies for parking meters. (That is outside downtown Toronto where what you really need for parking is a paid-up, no-limit American Express card.)

The good news for party leaders with the citizens’ assembly proposal was that they could list all their potential cabinet ministers at the top of what the citizens’ assembly calls ‘list seats. (Political people call them ‘loser seats’). That way, if the cabinet hopeful loses in his or her riding, the leader still gets a chance to get them into the legislature.

Mind you, if out of the 90 members to be elected from ridings, your party gets 50 seats, you would expect to feel like a winner. Yet, you might be a loser if you do not get as high a percentage of the party vote. If the voters perversely only gave your party 40 per cent of the party vote, the complex formula might refuse you any list seats. You need to have 65 members in total for a majority government.

Obviously there is endless speculation among political junkies about what could happen under MMP voting. It is a potpourri of ‘what-ifs?’ Luckily for them, the citizens’ assembly did not have to worry about any of this. The assembly members were chosen by lottery on the basis (one voter from every riding in Ontario) that they probably knew nothing about politics or voting systems. And it appears that they really knew nothing. They were indoctrinated and since they did not want to appear to be wasting the taxpayers’ time and money, they chose one of the options presented to them.

And then Ontario voters decided. In October 2007, they said ‘No.’

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

The myths of proportional voting.

May 6, 2012 by Peter Lowry

THE DEMOCRACY PAPERS #2- Revised It was in 2007 that The Democracy Papers were written to make the case for our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting in North America. Despite changes being rejected firmly in Ontario and twice in British Columbia, people still complain. The complaints are understandable. No system is perfect. Neither is democracy but it is better than the alternatives.

There are many myths being told as to why we should have proportional voting in Canada. This is despite it being rejected by voters when proposed in British Columbia and in Ontario.

The first of the myths told by the proportional voting supporters is the suggestion that you have been wasting your vote when your candidate did not win. This myth is spurious. They are saying that your opinion has been treated as worthless. You went to vote so that your voice would be heard. You went to vote to express your belief in democracy. You went because you and the other people in your area had a choice to make as to who would represent you. Win or lose, you were expressing your democratic opinion.

You can be pleased when your candidate wins. You can be disappointed when your candidate loses. Your vote is never worthless. Candidates, politicos and statisticians spend many hours pouring over those results. Winning and losing candidates learn from them. They can help the loser to be a winner next time. They can show trends. They can be extrapolated by parties to forecast results in newly formed ridings. They are used for years to help academics learn from the past to forecast the future.

The most seriously flawed myth is that the selection of list candidates (the people whom the parties want to appoint to sit in government) will be open and democratic because the parties have to disclose their process of selection. The process of choosing all parties’ candidates has been corrupted for years.

The rule in Ontario, for example, is that no person can be a candidate for a party without the signed approval of the party leader. That means that despite the occasional attempt by a riding association to make the decision on their own, the leader’s campaign committee is the de facto selection committee. Any other explanation is nothing more than window dressing.

In most cases, you can count on a list that consists mainly of persons running for election in ridings. These are people the party leader and advisors want to be sure are in the legislature. If they lose in their riding, the list will be their second chance. It guarantees that most of the list candidates who are selected are losers. They have been rejected by the voters in their riding and are now available to be appointed.

The silliest myth of all is the one that the selection of list candidates will bring more women and minorities into the legislature. The implication is insulting. The political parties have done a much better job in recent years of encouraging women to run for office. The financial barriers have been mainly overcome with the use of taxpayers’ money. Many well-qualified women have run for office and won in their ridings. If you think there should be more, get to work and be sure they are nominated and then work even harder to make sure they are elected.

Minorities are a different matter. This has good and bad implications. There are no barriers. Ethnic background, race, religion, sexual persuasion or physical handicaps are not a problem but only representing a specific group is a problem. Every group is welcome to send people to the legislature but, in the legislature, these people must deal with many issues and they must represent everybody.

The myth that is the most confounding is the one that proportional voting systems such as MMP promote broader participation in government and more ready acceptance of government policies. That, they believe, would seem to make it very worthwhile. It would if we really want a lacklustre, do-nothing government.

The myth continues that MMP-type government will feature bargaining, will be inclusive and will include compromise. There are a few ingredients of good government that are missing. They forgot about ideas, drive and ambition. And they forgot about leadership. If you want this bland, non-competitive type of representation, you could have got the same thing by making the citizens’ assembly that selected it the Ontariogovernment. They would do just as good a job.

The citizen’s assembly was chosen by lottery, one member per riding across the province. They obviously did not know much about democracy or politics.

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

Solving voting concerns is not easy.

May 5, 2012 by Peter Lowry

THE DEMOCRACY PAPERS #1- Revised It was in 2007 that The Democracy Papers were written to make the case for our first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting in North America. Despite changes being rejected firmly in Ontario and twice in British Columbia, people still complain. The complaints are understandable. No system is perfect. Neither is democracy but it is better than the alternatives.

It was November, 2005 when the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform suggested a ‘mixed-member proportional’ (MMP) electoral system be voted on in a referendum accompanying the Ontario General Election in October 2007. These people had no little or no experience with politics, political parties or the various electoral systems they reviewed. Their proposed solution confused Ontario’s voters.

The citizens’ assembly suggested that people have two votes, one for a candidate in an enlarged riding and the other for a party. In this manner, they believe, there could be a fairer representation in the provincial legislature of the popular vote between parties. They never explain why this should be necessary.

The assembly members believed that because a party’s candidates receive maybe 15 per cent of the popular vote, then that party should be allowed to have 15 per cent of the seats in the legislature. The question is: ‘Why?’

With only 15 per cent of the vote in a general election, your party is a loser. Reality is that if your party cannot garner more than 15 per cent of the popular vote, it really needs to improve its platform strategy, reconsider its leadership and take a long hard look at its candidates. To reward your party for this poor showing is to encourage mediocrity.

What used to happen to this 15-per cent party is that it got maybe three or four candidates elected. This could be because these are outstanding people and the voters recognize this and vote for them despite their party affiliation. It could also be that there is a large concentration of people sympathetic to the party’s ideals in that riding. Or maybe so many people in that riding are related to the candidate and s/he cannot lose. Whatever the reason, it is usually not difficult to figure it out.

If, for example, you are the New Democratic Party, it is not hard to understand that the party can do well in areas of the province with a strong union vote. While the party fields candidates in ridings where there might be little union support, such as in the more affluent parts of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), these party stalwarts are there to establish their credentials in the party. Realistically, they know to limit their campaigning to showing some signs and making appearances at all-candidate meetings. And any long-term NDPer is realistic about how that works. Most of the good workers in these throw-away ridings are asked to put their efforts into ridings with better possibilities. And if the throw-away candidate makes a good showing despite the situation in the riding, they might be offered a more NDP-friendly riding next time.

Conservatives and Liberals have to spread themselves over far more ridings. While there is always a tendency to slack off a bit in ridings where a sitting member seems entrenched, there will be a renewed effort whenever the incumbent shows signs of weakness.

Until the 1990s, Ontario political parties were ‘candidate-centred.’ This meant that local riding associations used to have the right to choose their candidate without too much interference from party headquarters. While the system tended to produce the occasional maverick, everyone agreed that the stodgy legislature needed some livening. One of the problems with this was sometimes it was hard to find the right riding for a star candidate favoured by the party leadership.

Today, of course, party leaders control the ridings because they sign off on candidates so that they can be funded with taxpayers’ money. The day of the maverick has ended. Instead of being candidate centred,Ontario has been forced into a ‘party-centred’ political structure. One thing that the citizens’ assembly’s MMP voting would help to ensure is that Ontario stays locked into being party-centred.

And there is no question that party-centred politics is a natural breeding ground for corruption. The classic study of this is New York City’s Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party organization that controlled the city’s politics, throughout its boroughs, for 80 years.

Ontarians do not have to look far to see the potential problems with a party-centred system. Québec’s federal Liberals are a good example. The Montréal-based party organization appoints Liberal candidates across the province. And that is another reason why Paul Martin’s Liberals were dragged from power by the sponsorship scandal. Successive prime ministers, Chrétien and Martin had ignored the corruption-prone system at the roots of their Québec support.

But for the apolitical citizens’ assembly, political history such as this would have been a bore. They were given the option of several voting systems. They thought they were doing their job when they chose one of them. They just did not have the political experience to know in what direction their option would send the province.

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

The Kitchener-Waterloo conundrum.

May 4, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Does Ontario deserve this? Here we have been basking in the proposition that Premier McGuinty would have to be replaced by a real liberal to solve Ontario’s leadership problems. The Kitchener-Waterloo by-election could turn that upside down. It could cause Mr. McGuinty to stay with a majority. It is not fair.

By offering long-time Tory MPP Elizabeth Witmer the top job with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, the Liberals have opened up a seat in the Legislature that is a potential win for them. It was one of the few urban seats in Ontario that was held by Hudak’s Conservatives. Witmer held it in her own right and it is not one that Hudak is likely to hold with Witmer gone.

Kitchener-Waterloo voters are more knowledgeable than voters in the average Ontario riding. With two universities in the riding as well as many major high technology firms, the average voter is better educated, more affluent and more politically aware. The vote for Witmer in the last Ontario election was in part out of respect for her as a long-serving Member of the Legislature and a mild protest against McGuinty.

The voters’ problem in the upcoming by-election is that they have little choice. Unless there is a second coming and a new Bill Davis appears on the scene to rescue the Ontario Conservatives, these voters are not going to embrace Tiny Tim Hudak. Nor are they going to suddenly convert to the New Democrats. Andrea Horwath will do better than expected in the by-election but there is too much of a gap between the reality of the last NDP vote in the riding and what the party would need to win.

The party with the most serious candidate problem is the Liberals. They must have somebody sitting in the wings, capable of carrying the banner, or they would not have made the move on Witmer. Eric Davis, the previous candidate for the Liberals, might not be the choice for the party this time, if the Liberals want to guarantee the win. The Liberals need someone who can come across as their own person.

That is probably the solution for the Conservatives as well. Witmer’s son has already ruled himself out but there are always other possibilities. The Conservatives desperately need a candidate who does not come across as an ideologue.

They will also have to count on Tiny Tim staying away from the riding.

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

Ontario’s schizophrenic Whigs.

April 29, 2012 by Peter Lowry

We hate to talk so much about Ontario’s Whigs but we are worried about them. We have never heard of collective schizophrenia before. To see signs of disconnection with reality, actions that are unrelated to intent and such obvious delusions from the Ontario government are matters of very serious concern. Maybe if the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) adds some shrinks to its bargaining unit, their next sit-down with the government negotiators might give us some answers.

It is getting so bad that recently one of Ontario’s top medical teaching specialists—one of the guys who earns and actually deserves more than $500,000 a year—ignored the recommendations of the resident who had done the detailed examination and launched directly into one of our occasional political discussions. He said he could care less about more money but he wanted to know where the Ministry of Health was headed. There were no good answers for him.

Like him, we also had high hopes for Deb Mathews when David Caplan was dumped from the Health Ministry. Mathews has a lot going for her and she took the initial orientation in stride despite it being just in time for a tough Ontario election last year. Sure, she was blind-sided by the Ornge helicopter business but that was a legacy that was none of her doing. She is cleaning house as quickly as possible.

What confuses the electorate in Ontario is that we have a government in this province that cries poor-mouth one day and the next day tells us our economic growth is better than forecasts. The Treasurer in Ontario supplies crying towels with his neoconservative budget and then rails against the New Democrats who want a two-per cent surtax on the filthy rich. And the Treasurer has the gall to tell us that the NDP’s two-per cent surtax is “high-spending.”

What we really cannot get over is how they can brag so loudly about how their plan is working while demanding that the public sector are going to get a pay freeze. What did the civil servants do wrong that they have to be the goats?

The Whigs tell us that Ontario is a North American leader in job creation and they have yet to get any of the public sector people to agree to their pay freeze. When Standard and Poor’s put the province on ‘Watch,’ it was not a down grade. The ratings people are as curious as we are to see if the Ontario budget can actually work.

The health specialist had the last word in our budget discussion. He closed the chat by saying, ‘Lose 20 pounds by the next time you come and see me.” It makes you wonder what he might say to our chubby Ontario Treasurer Dwight Duncan.

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