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2018 Ontario Provincial Election Discussion

Rufus8 said:
If we had a functioning judicial system Wynne and McGuinty would be in handcuffs awaiting a swift and transparent trial. Not gonna happen. The Ontario Liberal Party is a criminal conspiracy. They are not geared to public service their one and only goal is to line the pockets of their paymasters. The general public are completely bamboozled by the goings on. If Horwath promised to undo the Hydro One sale, NOT repurchase stocks, I would vote for her in a minute. It was clearly a behind the scenes maneuver to plunder the province's assets. Why are there no legal challenges to the corruption of the Ontario Liberal government? When are we going to return to some level of rational governance?
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I can't express how much I support virtually all of what is stated here (although I personally can't see voting for Horwath). What troubles me is that, as far as I can see, not one comment on here even mentions the financial state this province is in. It is a disgrace! I am not an economist but I'll hazard to guess that when interest rates go up we will be screwed. I think currently interest payments are the third highest category of expenses below only Health and Education and this is with historically low interest rates. What happens when rates go up?

I believe that when the McBurgler (McGuinty came to power the provincial debt was $132B and now it is about $300B and it is projected to go to $350B by 2020/2021 and this is (I think) despite doubling revenues over the same time! Can you imagine doubling your income over a 15 year period and end up with 3 times the debt over the same time period! These people (I'm being kind here) cannot manage money.

I haven't even got into the ethical issues with this party.

And no...I am not a member of the Conservatives although they do often come closer to my beliefs financially (but often not socially).
 
I pointed out in another thread that the Federal Debt went up by 28% in the last 10 years, while increasing transfer payments for health and infrastructure. In that time, Ontario debt went up by over 100%. So Ontario Debt would be $200B if we had comparable quality of Government to what we had in Ottawa.

That's $100B that that guys wasted.
 
droyces said:
Can you imagine doubling your income over a 15 year period and end up with 3 times the debt over the same time period! These people (I'm being kind here) cannot manage money.
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15 years to double? Man, that's only 4.7% growth per year and that's before you adjust for inflation to get real growth. Government stock seriously under-performs the market.

More to the point, most major companies double revenue in 8 to 10 years deal with a similarly sized escalation in costs as the government. Darling companies like Apple have seen revenue increase by 40x over 15 years

If you want government to run like a business then get prepared for a massive acceleration in government revenue growth.


More seriously, Ontario's biggest budget item (health care) despite having lower growth rates than anywhere else in Canada, and lower per-capita spending than any other province, is still growing at a faster rate than general revenues. Doctors are already threatening work-action due to what they feel is low compensation; I don't look forward to a 90's style medical brain drain returning.
 
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Wynne needs to step down to allow a fresh face to take over or she might drag the whole party down with her. At least Dalton had the humility to do that.
 
I don't want to absolve the Ontario Liberals of anything specific here, but:

I think we should all let go of the idea that government can - or even should - "run like a business" in any substantive ways. Governments exist for fundamentally different reasons and operate in fundamentally different economies from households or private businesses.
 
Towered said:
Wynne needs to step down to allow a fresh face to take over or she might drag the whole party down with her. At least Dalton had the humility to do that.
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I don't know what it is "humility" or whether he is up against the gas plant mess that he can't shake.

AoD
 
When even Cohn discusses the weak support for the Liberals, you know that there's trouble:

https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...-lightness-of-liberal-voter-support-cohn.html

If this current negative newscycle does not let up soon, people's negative opinions of the Liberals will likely be entrenched, and the undecided portion will start to move against the Liberals.

The throne speech was one of the last chances they had at showing Ontarians that they were serious about energy prices... but their solution fails to address the issue at large.
 
Towered said:
Wynne needs to step down to allow a fresh face to take over or she might drag the whole party down with her. At least Dalton had the humility to do that.
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You really think Ontarians are stupid enough to fall for that same trick again? Switching leaders when the corrupt party remains will not change anything, just as it didn't when Wynne took over.
 
Maybe the social conservatives may form a new political party over the health curriculum?

Feeling abandoned on sex ed, social conservatives boo both Wynne and Brown

Still seeking repeal, a mom of four opposed to the province’s curriculum said at a Queen’s Park protest that “most parents don’t want their kids learning about masturbation alongside Canadian history.”​

See link.

That's one way the Liberals will win the next election, by splitting the right-wing vote. After all, the left-wing is split between the Liberals and the NDP.
 
On the other hand, there is nowhere for the social conservatives to run so they may just hold their noses and vote conservative for the economic issues. Alternately, they may vote for a fringe party or simply not vote at all, but I think don't think this election is such a one-issue election that would force people to do such a thing.

This is a similar issue with those who think the NDP isn't left enough- there's no more room to go left in main stream politics.
 
Two years ago, the Liberal leader (Wynne) was the media darling with charisma, likability, and charm. Now she's hated and the source of the problem. Four years ago, it was McGuinty who was hated. Are voters willing to try every Liberal MP as the Premier for a year or two before they finally realize that it is the entire Liberal Party that has lead to this corruption and mismanagement.
 
So if Wynne was liked two years ago but is now hated, what specifically has she done in the last two years to get that hate? The hydro prices, gas plant scandal, etc. date back to the McGuinty era.

Patrick Brown admits courting social conservatives was a ‘mistake’

“Frankly, I’m very comfortable with the fact there’s been a falling out. I don’t lose any sleep over the fact that Charles McVety and Campaign Life are upset,” the PC leader said, adding he now regrets voting against same-sex marriage and abortion when he was a Conservative MP.

“If Charles McVety wants his ten bucks back for membership, he can have it. If he wants to vote for someone else, he can vote for someone else, so be it,” he said.
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So Patrick Brown wants to run a "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" government. He almost sounds like a Liberal now. He seems to be deliberately shaking off his past as a social conservative. There's bound to be debate over whether this is a genuine change of heart or if he's just doing this to be more electable, and he's already being painted as a flip flopper. But he's making the right noises to make himself a more palatable alternative to Wynne. On the other hand, the Liberals are planning to have balanced budgets starting next year so that takes away a lot of the ammunition the Conservatives might have about overspending. The HST rebate on hydro is aimed squarely at voters too. It should be an interesting election.

BurlOak said:
You really think Ontarians are stupid enough to fall for that same trick again? Switching leaders when the corrupt party remains will not change anything, just as it didn't when Wynne took over.
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Try taking off the partisan goggles. The Liberals are no worse than the Conservatives when it comes to corruption. So if you're convinced that the government is corrupt, the question becomes would you rather have corrupt Liberals in power or corrupt Conservatives?
 
I think the Liberals had a bit of a dead cat bounce when Wynne took over. People didn't really know here and at first.

Now after being in power, I find that when dealing with continued controversies she comes across as arrogant, flippant and wishy-washy.
 
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