I decided a while ago to vote for the party that comes closest to promising good governance, to respect the electorate, responsible spending, ministerial authority and responsibility, and ethical conduct while in office.
Unfortunately, that’s never in any parties’ platform as demonstrated in the last Ontario election. The Conservatives came the closest, but only because they didn’t have an actual platform. The other parties promised more spending, bribing voters by burying us and future generations in debt.
While I would probably never vote NDP again, at least I respected Horwath (not so much Singh).
That said, I have lost all fate in the liberal party of both federally and provincially. They seem to be in it only for themselves, and are surprised/angered when people don’t agree with them. They are no longer the liberals I used to vote for.
I thought the Liberal campaign was completely out of touch. It was simply dreadful, and they rightly deserved to be where they ended up. I got the feeling that they thought: “Well, the electorate has had four years to come to their senses. Of course they’ll vote for us—no matter what we say. Why? Well, because we’re Liberals”.
They need a voice with a vision. Give people something to believe in, and unlike Trudeau, deliver on it. Mike Harris, vilified as he is, is the only politician I can think of in my lifetime who said "elect me, and I'll do this", and then did. Sadly, he botched everything with his second term, but at least it happened once.
The Ontario Liberals led their Federal counterparts out of the wilderness (ex. Gerard Kennedy mentored PM Katie Telford and her avatar, Justin Trudeau), maybe they can lead them into the ditch? 😊
"Liberals put forward a comprehensive range of interesting proposals that covered a wide swath of public policy. " I'd agree on the quantity (there were a lot of proposals) but I'm not sure I'd agree on the quality.
Put another way -- the two proposals that seem to catch media attention were around handguns (not particularly an area of provinical jurisdiction) and the $1 a ride transit thing. The transit thing seemed really gimmicky and only provided that headline price for a few years. Talk to transit agencies, and what they need is a long-term, stable source of funding to allow planning, maintainance and expansion. Ask riders or potential riders and it seems the biggest limitation is convienience, not price. So -- what problem was this trying to solve? Yes, ridership has fallen off during the pandemic and one might guess this could help, but it seems like a vague thesis in search of some work to become an actual policy proposal.
Plus, the guy selling these ideas was not particularly convincing or compelling. That matters too -- regular voters seem very influenced by their sense of the leader and a few big issues and Del Duca seemed to stumble on both accounts. Ford's shift towards the centre also really crowded him out.
I sound like a broken record here, but the Ford government's biggest weakness is they aren't terribly competent. Maybe they'll improve in their second term (in which case, they'll be tough to beat). But, continually highlighting those stumbles while having sensible, easy-to-understand alternatives sets the Liberals up to be the better alternative. They didn't do that this time and history shows that 'boring works' in Ontario. Find a new leader that connects with a broad swath of Ontarians and keep hammering home the 'we need government that works' line while demonstrating what that looks like. Ford is about to waste billions on a highway that will likely take a long time to build and provide very limited benefits. An alternative would be to subsidize truck traffic on the 407, which apparently is underutilized. If they keep hammering on smarter alternatives over four years and maybe people will take them seriously next time. They have to earn it!
"Boring works" so well only 43% of Ontario voters could be bothered. As usual more people voted ABC but not in enough numbers to matter. All parties have a lot of room to improve.
This line caught my attention: "Resurrecting the party starts with a new leader. The operative word here is “new,” and everything about Steven Del Duca’s eventual successor should demonstrate a break with the Liberal party’s past." It begs the question, why would anyone want to identify as a Liberal? What do they stand for? The answer is a whole new party that has nothing to do with the Liberals or their very checkered past.
Health and education are false issues. Both are monopolized and unionized, meaning that change and innovation are virtually impossible. I wish some politician would tell this truth.
The language of the party needs to become pragmatic above all else - differentiating from its competitors. Leave the Conservatives to step on every identity politics landmine - they can't help it. Equally, let the NDP claim every virtue signalling hot-off-the-press phrase of the week that turns off mainstream moderate blue-red swing voters. Be the voice in our politics that says government can help you, in pragmatic tangible ways. Avoid the symbolic (as much as one can in that line of work).
The party that literally fetishizes state monopoly health care ran on no policy to fix our mediocre system. The party totally beholden to teachers unions literally ran on bringing back the waste of time that was Grade 13.
I wouldn't be surprised if the major issue of the next Ontario election concerns the provincial debt and the budget constraints due to the increasing interest payments on the debt after years of trying to get inflation back under control. If that's the case, then the Liberals will need to find a new Paul Martin-type leader or risk becoming irrelevant. I can't even imagine what an NDP election platform would look like under those circumstances.
Not that I'm supportive of a merger but I'm extremely dubious of the claim that "There are too many places in northern and southwestern Ontario where a merger would push NDP voters to the PCs". Is that really the case??
Climate was sixth issue; of the top five, three were about medical services availability. (Also homelessness, but the top was housing, obviously.)
Liberals claiming they can bring more prosperity than Conservatives face an uphill battle, psychologically, always. But a downhill battle convincing that they can bring better care and services.
Perhaps the Liberals can make all the years to come about how bad medicine is in Ontario, and how Doug Ford, who bungled the pandemic, is at fault for every bit of it.
No doubt someone will make that case. But it won't be true (which is not to say it won't be successful). Because the erosion of health care (including ignoring the lessons of SARS), occurred substantially under the 15 years when the province was governed by the McGinty-Wynn Liberals. Remember them? The public did; and saw no reason to adjust their judgement of 2018.
If ONLY serving parties were not blamed anyway for the sins of their predecessors. Rachel Notley was somehow to blame for oil prices falling before she took office, the same ones that got her into it!
I have to admit, I'm shocked by how forgiving the public has been of pandemic incompetence. No more so that Quebec, which has by far the worst deaths-per-million in Canada, the one that really ruined my otherwise-convincing graph showing that "hating Justin Trudeau" was the highest COVID risk factor. Quebec was twice as bad as Ontario (1800 deaths/million vs 900) and yet Legault is perhaps the safest leader in Canada.
I decided a while ago to vote for the party that comes closest to promising good governance, to respect the electorate, responsible spending, ministerial authority and responsibility, and ethical conduct while in office.
Unfortunately, that’s never in any parties’ platform as demonstrated in the last Ontario election. The Conservatives came the closest, but only because they didn’t have an actual platform. The other parties promised more spending, bribing voters by burying us and future generations in debt.
While I would probably never vote NDP again, at least I respected Horwath (not so much Singh).
That said, I have lost all fate in the liberal party of both federally and provincially. They seem to be in it only for themselves, and are surprised/angered when people don’t agree with them. They are no longer the liberals I used to vote for.
I thought the Liberal campaign was completely out of touch. It was simply dreadful, and they rightly deserved to be where they ended up. I got the feeling that they thought: “Well, the electorate has had four years to come to their senses. Of course they’ll vote for us—no matter what we say. Why? Well, because we’re Liberals”.
They need a voice with a vision. Give people something to believe in, and unlike Trudeau, deliver on it. Mike Harris, vilified as he is, is the only politician I can think of in my lifetime who said "elect me, and I'll do this", and then did. Sadly, he botched everything with his second term, but at least it happened once.
Too bad this couldn't translate into Federal electoral results.
The Ontario Liberals led their Federal counterparts out of the wilderness (ex. Gerard Kennedy mentored PM Katie Telford and her avatar, Justin Trudeau), maybe they can lead them into the ditch? 😊
Off a cliff would be better, but I'll take a ditch as an alternative.
"Liberals put forward a comprehensive range of interesting proposals that covered a wide swath of public policy. " I'd agree on the quantity (there were a lot of proposals) but I'm not sure I'd agree on the quality.
Put another way -- the two proposals that seem to catch media attention were around handguns (not particularly an area of provinical jurisdiction) and the $1 a ride transit thing. The transit thing seemed really gimmicky and only provided that headline price for a few years. Talk to transit agencies, and what they need is a long-term, stable source of funding to allow planning, maintainance and expansion. Ask riders or potential riders and it seems the biggest limitation is convienience, not price. So -- what problem was this trying to solve? Yes, ridership has fallen off during the pandemic and one might guess this could help, but it seems like a vague thesis in search of some work to become an actual policy proposal.
Plus, the guy selling these ideas was not particularly convincing or compelling. That matters too -- regular voters seem very influenced by their sense of the leader and a few big issues and Del Duca seemed to stumble on both accounts. Ford's shift towards the centre also really crowded him out.
I sound like a broken record here, but the Ford government's biggest weakness is they aren't terribly competent. Maybe they'll improve in their second term (in which case, they'll be tough to beat). But, continually highlighting those stumbles while having sensible, easy-to-understand alternatives sets the Liberals up to be the better alternative. They didn't do that this time and history shows that 'boring works' in Ontario. Find a new leader that connects with a broad swath of Ontarians and keep hammering home the 'we need government that works' line while demonstrating what that looks like. Ford is about to waste billions on a highway that will likely take a long time to build and provide very limited benefits. An alternative would be to subsidize truck traffic on the 407, which apparently is underutilized. If they keep hammering on smarter alternatives over four years and maybe people will take them seriously next time. They have to earn it!
"Boring works" so well only 43% of Ontario voters could be bothered. As usual more people voted ABC but not in enough numbers to matter. All parties have a lot of room to improve.
The world would be a better place without Liberals, Period. They have and are doing too much damage to Canada
This line caught my attention: "Resurrecting the party starts with a new leader. The operative word here is “new,” and everything about Steven Del Duca’s eventual successor should demonstrate a break with the Liberal party’s past." It begs the question, why would anyone want to identify as a Liberal? What do they stand for? The answer is a whole new party that has nothing to do with the Liberals or their very checkered past.
Health and education are false issues. Both are monopolized and unionized, meaning that change and innovation are virtually impossible. I wish some politician would tell this truth.
They need a Justin Trudeau to save them, at least get them back to opposition status.😊
The language of the party needs to become pragmatic above all else - differentiating from its competitors. Leave the Conservatives to step on every identity politics landmine - they can't help it. Equally, let the NDP claim every virtue signalling hot-off-the-press phrase of the week that turns off mainstream moderate blue-red swing voters. Be the voice in our politics that says government can help you, in pragmatic tangible ways. Avoid the symbolic (as much as one can in that line of work).
The party that literally fetishizes state monopoly health care ran on no policy to fix our mediocre system. The party totally beholden to teachers unions literally ran on bringing back the waste of time that was Grade 13.
They deserve to lose bad and be in the doghouse.
I wouldn't be surprised if the major issue of the next Ontario election concerns the provincial debt and the budget constraints due to the increasing interest payments on the debt after years of trying to get inflation back under control. If that's the case, then the Liberals will need to find a new Paul Martin-type leader or risk becoming irrelevant. I can't even imagine what an NDP election platform would look like under those circumstances.
Not that I'm supportive of a merger but I'm extremely dubious of the claim that "There are too many places in northern and southwestern Ontario where a merger would push NDP voters to the PCs". Is that really the case??
I'm tired of the liberals federal and provincial gun laws and trying to continually change them.
Very valuable graphic from Abacus over at the National Observer's cry-in-their-beer over Doug Ford as climate disaster:
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/06/07/analysis/climate-silence-ontario-election
Climate was sixth issue; of the top five, three were about medical services availability. (Also homelessness, but the top was housing, obviously.)
Liberals claiming they can bring more prosperity than Conservatives face an uphill battle, psychologically, always. But a downhill battle convincing that they can bring better care and services.
Perhaps the Liberals can make all the years to come about how bad medicine is in Ontario, and how Doug Ford, who bungled the pandemic, is at fault for every bit of it.
No doubt someone will make that case. But it won't be true (which is not to say it won't be successful). Because the erosion of health care (including ignoring the lessons of SARS), occurred substantially under the 15 years when the province was governed by the McGinty-Wynn Liberals. Remember them? The public did; and saw no reason to adjust their judgement of 2018.
If ONLY serving parties were not blamed anyway for the sins of their predecessors. Rachel Notley was somehow to blame for oil prices falling before she took office, the same ones that got her into it!
I have to admit, I'm shocked by how forgiving the public has been of pandemic incompetence. No more so that Quebec, which has by far the worst deaths-per-million in Canada, the one that really ruined my otherwise-convincing graph showing that "hating Justin Trudeau" was the highest COVID risk factor. Quebec was twice as bad as Ontario (1800 deaths/million vs 900) and yet Legault is perhaps the safest leader in Canada.
http://brander.ca/c19#jtpoll