Ready, aim, smear. The campaign has been launched in Ontario. Soon all the candidates will be down in the muck wallowing in the futility of claim and counter-claim. And the losers in this mud wrestling contest are the people of Ontario.
Ontario deserves better. After more than two years of turmoil at Queen’s Park, Ontario voters are looking for stability, direction, honesty and straight talk. They need a return to economic growth, high employment, intelligent governance and a more promising future.
But what party can honestly promise that? They have all shot themselves in the foot on the way out of the starting gate. The Liberals came out with an angry diatribe against both their opponents. The New Democrats resurrected the gas powered generating plants of the McGuinty era that seems to be stuck in their craw. The Conservatives were alternating between sneering and jeering but delighted to see the end of any projected populist measures in the budget that might have done some good.
The Conservatives under Leader Tim Hudak lead the race in the excesses of dishonesty. He dumped all over the Liberal plan for a provincial pension supplement. It was not as though he had checked with businesses to be sure they do not want a decent retirement for their workers. He has already made it very clear that if he ever gets into the Premier’s chair, he will declare war on unions and fire civil servants, nurses and teachers to give more tax relief to the rich. Maybe his million jobs plan is really the number of jobs he would cost us.
New Democrat Andrea Horwath’s day has come and gone. She gets the credit for calling the election and nobody knows what she intends to do for an encore. If the Liberals really run on the New Democrat inspired left-wing budget goodies, what does that leave for the New Democrats? Andrea Horwath can hardly go around the province for the next five weeks simply reminding people how incompetent the Liberals are at running Ontario’s electrical supply.
Nor can Liberal Leader Wynne spend all her time attacking Horwath and Hudak. It seems pointless to attack Horwath as we might have to wait a long time for Horwath to come up with something positive to discuss. And nobody wants to take Timmy Hudak seriously. That is much too frightening a proposition.
And that is why none of the pundits can really tell you where this election is headed. We will do our best to analyse it as it goes along but the good news is that if one party by chance comes out with a majority, you are guaranteed new leaders for the other two. That might help.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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