Listening to the Babel Conservative candidate doing his own radio commercial the other day, there was a feeling of sadness. The sadness was for the voters here in Babel. While this is an attractive Ontario town with a long history, its growth has been as a detached bedroom of Toronto. By bus, GO Train and personal cars, there is an exodus every day to Toronto. There is no loyalty to where these people live.
Too many of them are going to vote for this Conservative candidate because of the leader he represents and not for what he contributes to his neighbours or can contribute at Queen’s Park. He contributes nothing. It is a waste of money to send him down the highway to Toronto as our Member of the Provincial Parliament.
But it is what his Conservative party represents today that is even more disquieting. It is anger. It is frustration. It is hitting back. Why would an otherwise rational person vote for a party whose leader lied his way through that awful debate the other evening? Does anyone seriously think Timmy Hudak or any other Tea Party Tory can create a million jobs? There are not enough unemployed to fill a million jobs.
And that is why we are forecasting 35 to 40 seats for the Conservatives.
The Liberals, on the other hand survived the debate and stuck by their reasonable platform of social benefit. They know the economy is in trouble and they are using well proved Keynesian economics to address it. And if they can build a better economy that can create just 150.000 new jobs in the next year, we will all cheer.
And that is why we are forecasting 60 to 65 seats for the Liberals.
The New Democrat’s Andrea Horwath proved she could be loud, obnoxious and wrong the other night and nobody is going to miss her as her party finds a new leader. Her repeated efforts to tell voters that she thinks Premier Wynne is corrupt fell on deaf ears. Her biggest problem is that she offered no solutions to the need for jobs and a stronger economy in Ontario.
And that is why we are forecasting 10 to 15 seats for the New Democrats.
Since there are still just 107 seats in the Ontario Legislature, there is little leeway in these predictions. All we know for sure is that we will go to the advance poll today to cast our votes for the local Liberal. That might be a lost cause in Babel but the Liberals are going to do well in Greater Toronto Area and in the other major cities.
The good news will be that both the Conservatives and New Democrats will have an opportunity to find better leaders. We Liberals do not.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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