Announcing proposed changes in Ontario election statutes last week, Premier Kathleen Wynne gave the credit for instigating change to Ontario’s Chief Electoral Officer. If she now moves the changes through the legislature with the support of all parties, we could have some worthwhile legislation.
The least contentious change being suggested is to move the fixed date of the next scheduled provincial election from the fall of 2018 to the spring of 2018. While the majority party might prefer to wait until the spring of 2019, common sense suggests that there is no need to annoy voters with a six month or so extension of the mandate.
There might be an argument over the proposal to leave the 11 northern Ontario provincial ridings as is while adding 15 new ridings in the south. We have to recognize that is quite a high disparity in population between those ridings and southern Ontario ridings. When you consider that the original concept of “riding’ was the distance a person on horseback could travel in a day you can understand the challenges of representing one of those northern districts.
Why the Liberals want to “pre-register” 16 and 17 year-old non-voters is not so clear? It would be like registering them with a political party at birth. It might not offer the get-out-the-vote benefits that are hoped for.
But the most contention over the Chief Electoral Officer’s recommendations will be the question of third party advertising. This has been a serious blot on Ontario elections for quite a few years and the situation was blatant in the most recent election. Since the falling out between Ontario’s teacher unions and the provincial Liberals, all parties will have very political positions on the subject.
While maybe the teachers only helped win a minority for the Liberals in 2010, their gross expenditures on behalf of the Liberals in 2014 helped produce a sizeable majority for them. Why the Liberals are now in the midst of a knock-down, drag-out fight with the teachers has everybody wondering. Maybe it is just an attempt by Wynne’s Liberals to show that they are not in the unions’ pockets.
Since the new Conservative Party leader would not have a clue about teachers and Liberal Party relations, he will just be obtuse on the subject. The New Democrats on the other hand want to shaft the Liberals and win back their old allies, the teachers. Speculation on this subject should keep us amused for part of the summer.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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