187 Search Results for wynne

Posted this a year before the Ontario vote. It’s still true.

— 03.20.2018 07:56 AM

Let’s recap.

  1. The Ontario PCs raised $16 million last year, and the Ontario Liberals – the, you know, government – raised $6 million.  Ten million less.  The government.
  2. The most powerful mayor in Canada – a very, very popular guy who has helped the governing Liberals out of many tight spots – has all but declared war on them. And Ontario’s extremely ambitious Transport minister is Number One on John Tory’s hit list, now.  Not good.
  3. And, last night in the Sault, the Ontario Liberal Party came third in a crucial by-election – and the PCs, who haven’t held that seat since the 1981 election, crushed them with more than 40 per cent of the vote.

Screen Shot 2017-06-02 at 8.29.54 AM

That’s just the past week. Previous weeks have been just as crummy, if not more so.  The budgetary goodies, the Hydro rate cut and youth pharmacare haven’t really done what they were supposed to do.

Radical change is needed.  Three suggestions:

  1. Fire the Wizard.  The “chief strategist” is doing to the OLP what the Wizard and his pals did to the LPC ten years ago: killing it.  Get rid of that crew, now, and bring in people who know how to win.
  2. New blood, new ideas.  The OLP desperately needs both.  Caucus – and some excellent staff in the Premier’s Office and minister’s offices – say the same thing: the OLP brand is strong, but it needs excitement.  It needs new and better ideas.  It needs new blood, in the form of some impressive candidates and thinkers.
  3. Reflect.  I know Kathleen Wynne.  I’ve worked with Kathleen Wynne.  I admire Kathleen Wynne.  And I know that Kathleen Wynne will not let the Ontario Liberal Party go down to third place in 2018.  She will do the right thing.  If she is dragging down the party, she will make the selfless decision.

As of this month, the election is twelve months away.  That leaves enough time – barely – to make some big changes.

Let’s make them, now.

 


Comments (0)

Don’t count Horwath out

— 03.17.2018 01:05 PM

Check this out:

An NDP government would provide Ontarians with dental benefits and pay off students’ post-secondary loans, said leader Andrea Horwath in a speech Saturday that gave a glimpse into her party’s election platform.

“We know we can do better to make sure that everyone can build a good life, right here in Ontario,” she said, outlining five key parts of the party’s upcoming promises for the June 7 election, which also includes improvements to health and long-term care, returning Hydro One to public ownership while cutting rates, universal pharmacare, and boosting corporate tax rates.

“We can help people be healthier, and make more life affordable in Ontario, if we help more people go to the dentist,” she told the NDPs provincial council.

“We are going to make sure every working person in Ontario has dental benefits. And we will make the largest investment in public dental coverage in Ontario’s history — so that every senior can get the dental care they need. And every person on social assistance can get the dental care they need.”

The dental program will be called “Ontario Benefits” and will be portable, moving with Ontarians when they switch employers, she said.

It’ll be pretty hard for Wynne to attack her over this, given the spending spree that is about to be unleashed in the upcoming budget.  Ford can attack it, but everything Horwath is saying is pretty populist.

This election is going to be fun.  Don’t count Horwath out of it!


Comments (35)

This all could have been avoided

— 03.17.2018 08:47 AM

It makes me so bloody mad.

This:

Of the 1,637 Ontario voters surveyed online between March 12 and 14, Campaign Research found that 43 per cent of decided voters intended to support the Progressive Conservatives in the June election, 27 per cent backed the Liberals, and 23 per cent supported the NDP.

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s net approval rating was found to have dropped, with almost 70 per cent stating they disapproved of her, and only 19 per cent approving of her.

When you put yourself ahead of the party – when you start to believe you are the party – you end up paying a steep, steep price.

I’m told there are more Campaign Research results coming shortly – showing that the Ontario Liberal leader is pulling down the Ontario Liberal number.

This all could have been avoided.


Comments (10)

Doug Ford in ten tweets

— 03.11.2018 09:55 AM

I hate Twitter threads, but I got started and kept going. Here it is.


Comments (45)

Ten reasons why everyone should take Doug Ford seriously

— 02.05.2018 04:36 PM

When I quit the Olivia Chow mayoral campaign – because she’d not told the truth to the media, among other things – guess who was the first person to call me down in the States?

Doug Ford.

“Warren, old buddy,” he said.  “We’ve had our differences, but I want you to chin up.  Rob and I like you and respect you.  Let’s get together when you get home.”

When you’re a political chew toy, you tend to remember calls like that one: you remember who called, and who didn’t.  So, we stayed in touch after that.  We did TV political panels together, and we talked pretty regularly. I told him he shouldn’t run for mayor again, because John Tory was doing a great job, and John would cream him.  He should run instead to be Premier, I told  him.

There’s clearly a market these days for populist conservatives who defy the conventional wisdom, and say what they think, I told him.  And there were lots of reasons why he’d be a formidable PC leadership candidate.

Here’s ten.

  1. Doug’s working hard:  Every plugged-in PC is telling me the same thing: “Doug’s working the phones.  Doug’s reaching out.  Doug’s doing all the right things.”  He’s doing what a candidate has to do, in a race as short as this one: he’s working his tail off.
  2. Doug’s disciplined: I think his musings about scrapping a carbon tax are a mistake  – we need it (as a province) and his party needs it (because it finances their entire platform).  But apart from that, he hasn’t blown any feet off, and he’s saying the kind of stuff card-carrying Conservatives love.
  3. Doug has early support: Planning a rally this early in a campaign is a big risk: it takes a lot of time and hard work to get hundreds of people to come out to one of your events.  Well, Doug got out thousands out for a Toronto rally last week, and in a very short time frame, too.  It gave him momentum, and the visuals were pretty stunning – not everyone there was an old white guy.  At all.
  4. Doug’s evolved:  A few weeks ago, I watched TVO’s fun Political Blind Date show, because Doug and Jagmeet Singh were on, and because I like both of them.  Jagmeet was engaging, warm and likeable, as you’d expect.  But so was Doug – big time.  I was shocked at how he had evolved as a politician.  Gone is the shouty city councillor, always being forced to defend his brother’s bad behaviour.  In its place was a HOAG – a Hell Of A Guy.
  5. Doug’s better at retail:  The TVO show also revealed something else.  You could tell that the participants in the broadcast – the Dippers who agreed to the match-up, and perhaps the TVO producers who came up with the idea – expected Doug to be what he had always been: a bit of circus act, a trained bear riding a tiny bike in the centre ring.  Someone to be laughed at.  Well, guess what?  He was way better in the mano-a-mano segments than Jagmeet was. Way.
  6. Doug has a USP: A Unique Selling Proposition, that is.  It’s easy to see how to some disengaged voters – that is, 99 per cent of voters – would see Kathleen Wynne, Andrea Horwath, Caroline Mulroney and Christine Elliott as all kind of the same thing.  You know: female, centrist, careful, establishment.  Doug is none of those.  He offers the only clear alternative, for the voters who are after one.  (Voters are always after one.)
  7. Doug gives quote: The guy is a quote machine.  The microphone loves him.  He never uses a 20-dollar word when a two-dollar word would suffice.  He never uses jargon and acronyms and Newspeak.  He talks about values.  He knows facts tell – but stories sell.  Doug Ford is a one-man media machine.
  8. Doug dominates vote-rich GTA:  An important Mainstream poll – little-noticed in last week’s madness – apparently showed that only one PC leadership candidate was very strong in the part of the province that decides who gets to be government: Toronto.  In 416/905, he dominates.  That matters.  Remember: his brother crushed George Smitherman, and Doug came within 60,000 votes in his mayoral run.  Ford Nation knows how to win in GTA.
  9. Doug ain’t dumb:  I worked for a populist-type politician who everyone – from the Martinites to the media – always dismissed.  They always put him down.  They always said he was dumb, when he was way (way) smarter than all of them.  Doug Ford, so far, is running a very smart campaign.  If he can keep his mouth under control, he’s got a real shot at winning.
  10. Doug is reaching out:  He did with me.  And I know he’s reaching out to many others who have criticized him in the past: “The door is open,” he’s telling them.  “Just walk through it.” In a leadership race – and in an election – it’s all about connection.  Doug is connecting.  He’s reaching out.

Can Doug Ford win?  Damn right he can.  Underestimate him at your peril.


Comments (24)

Premiers: who’s up, who’s down, who cares

— 12.19.2017 08:50 AM

I don’t put much stock in Angus Reid’s little Premier’s popularity poll thing, and neither should you.  I think the Reid folks do it mainly for fun, and to get some free publicity, and it unfailingly it provides both.  Their release is here.

That said, a few observations:

  • Brad Wall, unless I’m wrong, will go down as perhaps the most-liked provincial Premier in recent memory
  • John Horgan should be enjoying more of a honeymoon
  • Dwight Ball, once politically DOA, is somehow back – how come?
  • Brian Pallister, who has fallen figuratively and literally, could very well be a one-term wonder
  • Philippe Couillard has been trying to please everyone, and has ended up pleasing no one – he’s in trouble
  • Rachel Notley up? Jason Kenney needs to consider the possibility that his extreme social conservatism is driving partisan Alberta Liberals and Alberta Party folks to the NDP Premier
  • Brian Gallant must be happy he didn’t go through with that snap/surprise early election this Fall, eh?
  • Stephen McNeil: I have no comment, and you likely don’t either
  • Kathleen Wynne rounds out the bottom, again, but is up for the third consecutive Reid poll – she’s headed in the right direction

What does it all mean, O Smart Readers? Comments are open!


Comments (26)

DoFo Hoho NoMo

— 12.15.2017 11:16 AM

You can’t shine Shinola, Ramona. Nice Ford Nation bumpersticker, BTW.

A poll suggesting Doug Ford trails Mayor John Tory by single digits ahead of next fall’s election is “flawed” and could misguide Toronto voters, an experienced pollster warns.

The Firm Digital, a new polling agency, released the results of a poll it claims reached 15,576 Torontonians. In addition to showing a far tighter race for mayor than established pollsters suggest, it also put out ward-by-ward lists in early December purporting to show the re-election chances of local councillors.

CBC Toronto is not publishing the full polling results because of a number of concerns raised by its internal research department, primarily that the poll lacks a randomized sample.

However, Doug Ford and at least one city councillor have trumpeted the results, while the Toronto Sun also ran an article on the research — although unlike the politicians the newspaper noted the results are controversial.

…Ramona Benson heads The Firm Digital, a new polling company that says it’s completed the largest poll on Toronto’s mayoral race to date. (Submitted by Ramona Benson)

Benson is not your typical pollster. Using her full name, Ramona Benson Singh, she ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in Richmond Hill in 2014, and also hosts a community-level television show on Rogers. 

Recently, Benson has appeared in Facebook videos for Ontario Proud, a social media group devoted to attacking Premier Kathleen Wynne and the provincial Liberals.

 


Comments (1)

A Ford Nation poll, inaccurate 21 times out of 20

— 12.03.2017 08:01 PM

Look, I get along well with Doug Ford. I shouldn’t, given that I am a Bolshevik, in comparative terms. But we get along.

So.

There’s this poll that mysteriously appeared tonight, dropped on a Sunday night for what is called “rip and read” – designed to secure lots of uncritical play on Monday morning.

I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of the “poll,” because life’s too short. But here’s some of the stuff it says:

  • “When asked, if the election was held today who they would vote for Mayor, 38.66% of respondents support John Tory, compared to 32.91% for Doug Ford, 28.43% of voters are still undecided.”
  • “With John Tory’s lead of 5.75 percentage points what is significant from this massive sample is that in 2014 Toronto mayoral election John Tory won with a 6.55 percentage points lead with 40.28%, to Doug  Ford’s 33.73% and Olivia Chow at 23.15%.”
  • “With such narrow percentage difference between John Tory, Doug Ford and the undecided falling within the margin of error, the race to become the next Mayor of Toronto is up for grabs with less than one year before Election Day.”

Hmmm.

Along with being ungrammatical, and ridiculously self-promoting, here’s what is odd about this “poll.”

  • The outfit who cooked this thing up calls itself “The Firm Digital.” Ever heard of them before? Neither has anybody else.
  • Reputable firms always carefully describe their methodology. These guys don’t.
  • They get some pretty basic stuff wrong. For example, with a sample of this size, their margin of error is actually 0.78 per cent, not 4.1 per cent.
  • They claim to have done this gargantuan poll by telephone. But most Fortune 500 companies couldn’t afford to pay for a telephone survey with that many respondents. So who paid?
  • They haven’t included any tables. Why not? Every reputable polling firm always includes tables. What are they hiding?
  • Go to their website. It’s a splash page, basically. Nothing else. And if you Google Firm Digital, you see that the firm only started this year.
  • Oh, and this: their “CEO,”‘ Ramona Benson, has appeared for months playing a “reporter” in the videos of the rabidly anti-Wynne group, Ontario Proud. Not exactly neutral behaviour for a “pollster.”
  • Any reputable polling agency that my firm works with are registered with the MRIA – the Market Research and Intelligence Association. These guys aren’t.

Anyway: it doesn’t add up, folks. At all.

I’d say that something is rotten in Ford Nation, but you knew that already.


Comments (0)

From the archives: Dear good people of Sudbury

— 10.24.2017 04:41 PM

[Originally published January 2015.]

You’re in the middle of a by-election and whatnot, but this shouldn’t take long. Stay with me.

The notion that Kathleen Wynne – one of the most honest politicians you could ever care to meet – would ever, ever need to offer a job or an appointment to a former candidate to step aside is this:

It’s crazy. Crazy.

Here’s why: as leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, she doesn’t need to offer anyone a consolation prize, or an appointment, or even the time of the day. The reason why is right there, in black and white, in the constitution of the Liberal Party of Ontario: candidates can get appointed “in the sole and unfettered discretion of the Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party.” Section 11.8, folks. Check it out.

What does it all mean? Well, it means that the Opposition want you to believe that Kathleen Wynne didn’t have the power to do what she did, and that she therefore broke the law when she did something she didn’t have the power to do. But she always had that power. Ipso facto, no rule broken.

Still with me? Good. Head hurt? Mine too.

If this whole thing reminds you of the “scandal” about “deleted email” that wasn’t a scandal at all – ie., the emails still exist, and are in the Ontario government server out in Guelph – it should. It’s the Opposition, and probably the OPP, trying to manufacture a scandal during a by-election they stand an excellent chance of losing.

Let me sum up with this: to break a law, you need a law to break. Here, the only law that is relevant is one that gave Kathleen Wynne the power to do, you know, what she did do. Period.

So. There you go, good people of Sudbury: the truth. May it guide you between now and election day.

Sincerely,

Warren

P.S. One more thing. Section 11.2.5 says anyone who “engages in conduct or a pattern of conduct which shows lack of respect for other people” shouldn’t be a candidate. I’d say secretly taping a bunch of people, then broadcasting the results all over Kingdom Come, ain’t terribly respectful. But that’s just me.


Comments (23)

“In fact,” CP24, you’ve got your “facts” wrong

— 09.14.2017 07:30 AM

Check this out:

Wynne’s lawyers served legal notice to the PC leader, demanding an apology for suggesting Wynne is “standing trial.” In fact, it is the alleged actions of Liberal backbenchers in the lead-up to a byelection in Sudbury in 2015 that are being questioned. Wynne is considered a witness in the case and testified in a courtroom for hours Wednesday.

Um, no.

“In fact,” CP24, before you get all lecture-y about “facts,” you need to get this “fact” right: no “backbencher,” of any affiliation, is on trial in Sudbury.  None. It’s Wynne’s advisors Pat Sorbara and Gerry Lougheed.  They’re not backbenchers.

I really like both Kathleen Wynne and her lawyer Jack Siegel, but I’d advise them against taking this much further.  Brown clearly misspoke, to be sure, but then he clearly corrected his error a few minutes later.  If they pursue it, they just keep reminding everyone about what is going on in a Sudbury courtroom, and they open themselves up to a painful civil discovery process.  Which never ends well.

It’s eight months or so until the writ is dropped.  Get ready for more of this kind of stuff.  If Ipsos is to be believed, it’s Tories 39, Grits 32 and Dippers 22, with a pretty substantial desire for change.

That may not be a “fact,” either, but it certainly suggests to me that the parties aren’t far apart – and that’s why the legal demand letters are flying this week.

 


Comments (5)