05.14.2014 07:28 AM

Ontario Election 2014, in 140 characters or less

Oh, and also this:

  1. No one is paying attention yet. Still.
  2. Amount of media coverage the election is getting, not surprisingly, is miniscule.
  3. The Ontario Liberal sexist Facebook stuff may seem like no big deal to some. Danielle Smith will tell you otherwise.
  4. Horwath has had the best visuals, hands down.
  5. Hudak’s job cuts thing is his version of John Tory’s religious school funding.

30 Comments

  1. W the K - No, not Warren says:

    That’s pretty well it so far.

  2. doconnor says:

    Isn’t not that the PC’s ideas are too radical. They where conventional wisdom in Mike Harris’s day. That are too discredited.

  3. Matt says:

    Gotta disagree on Horwath. The pressers I’ve seen of hers, she’s been pretty weak answering questions.

    As for the Liberal candidates, you think they rushed to find candidates and didn’t do proper vetting?

  4. Matt says:

    Did you see former Liberal finance minister yesterday?

    He say he warned the government years ago massive cuts would be needed to achieve their promise to balance eliminate the deficit.

    Pretty pompous for a guy who added $154 billion to the debt while in charge of the provinces finances.

  5. Paul Brennan says:

    hard to beleive Wynne didnt turf the 2 guys with facebook gems.. those are gimmees in terms of impressing the electorate and keeps goofballs away in future

  6. Jeff S says:

    Nearly two-thirds of Ontarians disapprove of Tim Hudak’s plan to cut 100,000 public servants to streamline government, a new poll suggests.

    The Forum Research survey also found 63 per cent do not think the Progressive Conservative leader will be able to create his promised one million new jobs, while 26 per cent feel he can deliver and 11 per cent don’t know.

    Similarly, 26 per cent approve of cutting 100,000 public-sector workers — such as teachers and bureaucrats — while 62 per cent do not and 11 per cent aren’t sure.

    “The number is just shocking people. One hundred thousand is a lot, ” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said Tuesday.

    “They may be too far out there, ” Bozinoff said of the Conservatives’ controversial platform pledge to reduce the broader public sector over four years to spur the creation of what the PCs calculate will be 1,030,688 private-sector jobs by 2022.

    Indeed, Hudak’s restraint proposal has taken a toll on the party’s popularity as the June 12 election campaign heats up.

    Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals now lead with 38 per cent support to 33 per cent for the Conservatives, 21 per cent for Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats and 5 per cent for Mike Schreiner’s Greens.

  7. !o! says:

    Agree, but I still think the Wildrose suffered much more than the liberals will– in their case, the racism/sexism confirmed a suspicion people already had about the party, they were the unknown outsiders with a reputation for being bigots. In the case of the liberals, the character of the government is a known. They get branded as false progressives by the left, and wasteful by the right, so those labels get some resonance amongst people that harbor those suspicions, but sexism doesnt play off of any preconceptions, so this incident, on it’s own, may not be as big a deal as if it was uttered by a WR candidate in the run up to the AL election.

    • Matt says:

      I don’t think the subject of the comments is the issue necessarily.

      It has more to do with the Liberals judgement in picking them to run for the party.

  8. Matt says:

    Gotta love the “Forum Research poll for the Toronto Star” editions.

    Last week:
    PC – 38%
    LIB – 33%
    NDP – 22%
    And they were predicting a Liberal government.

    This week:
    LIB – 38%
    PC – 33%
    NDP – 21%
    Predicting a Liberal government

    Doesn’t seem to matter to Forum who’s leading, the end result is always a Liberal government.

    • Paul Brennan says:

      Its Honderich and his silver spooned elite of 70 friends…with Ford gone they are back to old habits…trouble is they are selling off assets over there – Harlequin ..to pay newspaper bills…they should reduce their budget for paying pollsters and work on challenges facing them…

    • !o! says:

      yeah, forum being forum, about all you can certainly take away from this poll is this observation:

      35% are leaning PC, but only 26% of respondents think that cutting 100k jobs is a good idea.

  9. debs says:

    this is the ad campaign one of the candidates should use, the danes are no slouches. lol.
    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gT4lhERDZ8s

  10. Bill Templeman says:

    Warren, 308.com had the popular vote projection on May 12 at: PCs 39.6%, OLP 31.1% & NDP 25.3%.

    Today (May 14) the new numbers are PCs 36.5%, OLP 35.7% & NDP 22.4%.

    So the PCs dropped 4.1%, OLP gained 4.6% and the NDP dropped 2.9%. The Hudak 100, 000 job cuts effect? Scared NDP voters turning to the Libs out of fear?

    How does that equal advantage NDP? Isn’t that advantage Liberals?

  11. Bill Templeman says:

    Sorry, bad arithmetic. The PCs dropped 3.1%

  12. Rick says:

    RE: 308.com – his methodology works pretty wel, but works better with more data, and especially more frequent data. When Ipsos Poll came out, result was big swing to PCs. Right before that, was a swing to Libs based on Innovative Research Group, and now a swing to Liberals based on Forum poll. but with several days in between polls, the methodology relies on the most recent poll more than older polls – resulting in swings from poll to poll. Once we start getting daily or every other day polls, 308.com will get to be pretty accurate for predicting the final outcome.

    Hudak has a platform that could work and get a majority, but he has to explain it well, and come off as someone who has the right plan, sincerely. If he can do that, I think voters will swing to him if they realize what a mess the finances are in. I think he controls his own destiny – a strong debate performance and good campaigning will get the PCs the win. But a bad debate performance will lead him to the unemployment line as Wynne wins.

    Also very strange to think that the Left party is the Liberals and the centre party is the NDP. never thought I would see that come into play.

    • doconnor says:

      “he has to explain it well”

      Giving that even a little investigation into his claim revel they make no sense, so that doesn’t seem likely.

      For example there aren’t 100,000 civil servants to fire. There are only about 92,700 direct employees of the province. His cuts will have to include all crown corporations, all school boards, all hospitals (he claims to exclude nurses), and all municipalities (who decide for themselves who to fire).

      He can’t create 1 million job because there are only about 500,000 unemployed people in Ontario right now.

      Not only must he not explain it well, he must prevent anyone else from explaining it.

      • Matt says:

        He didn’t say “civil service” He said public sector. Huge difference.

        • A lot of headlines say “civil service” and that is what a lot of people will think. If they knew he included teachers, hospital staff, hydro workers and municipalities, they probably would not agree.

  13. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Strategy-wise…

    Get the potentially controversial stuff out right off the get-go.

    Four weeks from now it won’t be the main topic of discussion.

    The Liberals dismal record and budget will be.

  14. Matt says:

    Re: The public sector job cuts –

    Even Smokey Thomas, head of OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) publicly acknowledged in 2012 there could be as many as 60,000 unnecessary management positions in Ontario’s public sector.

    http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/20/ontario-freezing-capping-top-bureaucrats-salaries

    • doris says:

      But it will not be the management jobs that go. Look at Harris fired all the snowplow operators kept the managers to administer the soft contracts that he handed out to his friends the former senior MTO managers. Just one example of many of the way the Cons handled the cuts last time. Fired all the nurses and kept the managers. never changes for the Cons

  15. John says:

    Who let the idiots out of the village?

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