News   May 03, 2024
Assembly's Blueprint for Sustainable Urban Living in the GTHA
 563     0 
News   May 03, 2024
RAD's State of the Market 2024 to Feature Talks on AI and Real Estate
 355     0 
News   May 03, 2024
Congratulations to our Avontuura Guides Winners!
 201     0 

2018 Ontario Provincial Election Discussion

The thing I can't really figure out is how someone can support the Federal Liberals and not the provincial ones.

McGuinty eventually left with super low popularity to be replaced by Wynne.
She had a short honeymoon and has not dropped even farther.
It is obvious that it is not the individual, it is the party that people are upset with.

So along comes a federal Liberal government, the uses the same provincial people, and promises the same policies. so how can someone support one and not the other.
 
BurlOak said:
It is obvious that it is not the individual, it is the party that people are upset with.

So along comes a federal Liberal government, the uses the same provincial people, and promises the same policies. so how can someone support one and not the other.
Click to expand...

You answered your own question... Clearly its not the party that people have an issue with - it is the people.

Wynne was one of McGuinty's senior ministers, and she kept a lot of McGuinty's baggage (ie. the exact same scandal prone/tainted MPP's). The people didn't change at all with McGuinty's departure.
 
Tons of new full-time jobs appearing in Quebec, yet not in Ontario.

Considering that we share the same currency and a fairly similar economic makeup, I wonder why?

Each of these new jobs helps build a foundation onto which future companies judge where it's best to open up new offices or where entrepreneurs are attracted- we are risking out missing out on Ontario's full potential and lagging behind (like we are in the video game industry with Quebec seizing the lead in the 90s).

There's a surprise leader in Canada's race for smart global jobs (spoiler: it's Quebec)

When there’s a skateboard ramp in your office, and an in-house barista to serve you coffee in between coding tasks, chances are you’re in California. Unless, of course, it’s Quebec.

Simon De Baene is installing the Silicon Valley perks at his Montreal-based software company GSOFT, which expanded its workforce by 60 per cent in the past year, with more to come. That’s just one example of the mini-boom that’s vaulted Quebec, long seen as Canada’s economic laggard, to the top of the country’s job-creation league.

And not just any old jobs: it’s smart ones, the kind Canada’s policy makers want to replicate nationwide, as they seek new sources of growth after the oil crash. Quebec’s unlikely position in the vanguard of that effort, two decades after it almost seceded, has been rewarded by investors who made its bonds the best performers among 10 provinces last year.

“We have an incredible quality of life in Quebec: great engineers; we’re creative; and the cost of living is really good,” said De Baene. “We have the ideal environment to build up successful organizations.”

Montreal, epicentre of the job gains, is one major Canadian city without runaway home prices or exorbitant power rates. It’s Toronto without the hangups. Meanwhile the provincial government’s finances are improving, and the weakest exchange rate in more than a decade is helping companies win international orders.

Quebec added 85,400 full-time jobs in 2016, more than the other nine provinces combined, and growth in its labour market accounted for 42 per cent of the Canadian total. The unemployment rate hit a record low 6.2 percent in November, and held below the national average for a fourth straight month in December, something that’s unprecedented in data back to 1976.
Click to expand...

http://montrealgazette.com/news/loc...race-for-smart-global-jobs-spoiler-its-quebec
 
Last edited:
If I’m Patrick Brown I’m doing everything in my power to quash coups among riding associations in an effort to keep the crazies out of the party. Like 2007, 2011 and 2014, the election is on the platter for the PCs, it’s just a matter of keeping their inevitable missteps limited.

With that being said, maybe this time is the final straw for the Liberals. Maybe even the PCs can’t scew this up. I’m amazed by how much I’m hearing about energy bills, from even the most apolitical people at work and in my family. It's a tangible issue that you get reminded of every single month on your bill. It severely affects your quality of life. The culprit, rightly or wrongly, is perceived as Wynne.
 
Last edited:
jje1000, I noticed that too regarding job creation and the strength of the Montreal metropolitan area at the moment. Last year it was the Vancouver area that created most of the jobs in Canada; however, a few years back Toronto created more jobs than all of Canada combined. This makes me really question how accurate these statistics are over short time intervals. However, if you look at some of the present winners in the Canadian corporate world from Saputo, to Couche-Tard, to Dollarama, many of them are Montreal Based.

Another question I have related to that Montreal article and even here in Ontario regarding "smart or innovation economy jobs" is do these industries actually contribute much to economic activity? For all the hype I'm not sure all these start-ups, tech companies, innovation and media companies, etc. actually boost economic activity. From what I see the economy rises and falls due to boring dinosaur sectors and real R&D and the monetization of innovation is almost exclusively the domain of large Corporate entities. I look at the all the glossy print and cash burn of some of these hot plays but if you actually look at their bread and butter operations it's about as underwhelming as owning a couple of McDonald's franchises.
 
I'm no expert at this (and this is just my opinion), but it does seem like the tech sector is doing well across the country- which is something that Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal will naturally be poised to be able to take advantage of.

The current issue with Ontario though, is that our dino sectors outside of the banks seem to be at a standstill, while in Quebec, their dino sectors (i.e. Couche-Tard, the MTY Group, WSP Global), are actively growing and doing acquisitions, as well as their more traditional software and engineering sectors.

On top of that, investing in smart/innovation economy jobs can be sometimes beneficial in the future- a prime example would be the video game industry, which got Bloc and Liberal support back in the 90s- industry connections are made and local talents are grown, which are things important to companies looking to expand or start up. So combine that with a cheap cost-of-living and relatively good universities and you've got a winner on the table.

We could potentially see a similar pathway from Quebec's investment into AI-technology, where this skill set and university specialization could lead to robotics manufacturing and other high-tech industries. It's the same way with our auto industry where keeping and building on what was there is far easier than starting from scratch when all your competitors have matured.

There is something telling that there's been plenty of full-time positions made in Quebec while in Ontario nearly all our job growth is part-time, that overall industry optimism is higher in Quebec, and that there's more venture capital activity going in Montreal than Toronto.

The Ontario government needs to study why this is happening instead of constantly releasing press releases touting how well our economy is doing. We can- and should be doing far better than we are at the moment.
 
Last edited:
TrickyRicky said:
Another question I have related to that Montreal article and even here in Ontario regarding "smart or innovation economy jobs" is do these industries actually contribute much to economic activity? For all the hype I'm not sure all these start-ups, tech companies, innovation and media companies, etc. actually boost economic activity
Click to expand...
The wages they pay are real, and contribute back to the economy through consumption in goods.
 
BurlOak said:
The thing I can't really figure out is how someone can support the Federal Liberals and not the provincial ones.

McGuinty eventually left with super low popularity to be replaced by Wynne.
She had a short honeymoon and has not dropped even farther.
It is obvious that it is not the individual, it is the party that people are upset with.

So along comes a federal Liberal government, the uses the same provincial people, and promises the same policies. so how can someone support one and not the other.
Click to expand...

It's never made sense to me either, but I also never understood how people thought McGuinty was the sole problem and Wynne would somehow fix the Ontario Libs.

My theory is this:many Liberal voters want to believe the rhetoric and platitudes of Justin Trudeau because it aligns with their values. Environmentalism is a good example. "I care about the environment and this party has a plan to combat global warming!" With the Ontario Liberals, we've seen how these "green energy" policies played out. They didn't reduce emissions significantly and they cost regular Joes a ton of money. Most people are realistic and are upset about that, even people who voted for Wynne & McGuinty. But they'll blame it on Wynne's incompetence or corruption, not a failing with the actual idea of green energy policy itself. So when Trudeau marches up to the podium and announces the same failed policies that the Ontario Liberals did, people believe that the result will be different under Trudeau.

I'm not trying to pick on the Liberals because I think Conservatives do the same thing, but it's how I believe that people justify these things to themselves.
 
While most of Ontario was voting for federal Liberals lead by Jean Chretien, they also voted in the Mike Harris government.
 
Videodrome said:
While most of Ontario was voting for federal Liberals lead by Jean Chretien, they also voted in the Mike Harris government.
Click to expand...
Historically, Ontarians have always voted one party at the Federal level and the other at the Provincial level.

This is my biggest indication that Kathleen Wynne's Liberals are on the way out in 2018.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rbt
People are not tired of them being in power. They are tired of them doing a terrible job.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top