Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak just announced that he won’t support the wage freeze bill. So, does that mean an election is going to happen, even though a year hasn’t gone by since the last one? Hudak and NDP leader Andrea Horwath are blasé about that, apparently.

They shouldn’t be. If an election is held anytime soon, we will win. And, as I said to a Citizen reporter last night, Dalton McGuinty is consistently underestimated by the media and his opponents.

You’d think they’d know better, by now. But they don’t.

UPDATE: Some Lib commenters are worried. I like it when we are worried – I like it when we take our opponents seriously. Thus, my ten-point answer on why we will win.

1. The wage freeze, and efforts to contain the fiscal problem, are popular with voters. They know it’s necessary.
2. Hudak is very unpopular. His party is a rural rump – no urban strength any more. He is a huge asset for us.
3. Horwath remains an unknown. Detested by her own caucus. NDP dropping federally. She stands for nothing – nothing.
4. Federal Liberal leadership race will boost the Liberal brand in Ontario – it has already started, in fact.
5. McGuinty is consistently underestimated by his opponents. Try as they might, Horwath and Hudak cannot get anyone to hate him.
6. We have the biggest political machine in Ontario. It is well-funded, well-organized and solidly behind McGuinty.
7. Our team, which won in 2003, 2007 and 2011, has remained intact and united. It has grown, in fact.
8. No so-called “scandal” has implicated a sitting Liberal in any way, shape or form. Voters are skeptical of scandalmongering (eg. Harper won majority after being found guilty of contempt).
9. Campaign from the left, govern from the right. Chretien did that in similar fiscal circumstances. Didn’t hurt him, at all, did it?
10. The biggie: Horwath and Hudak will be pushing for an election a few months after the last one. Voters, and our team, will shred them for it.

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It’s starting up on Twitter, and I couldn’t readily find what he said. Here it is, in case you wondered, as I did:

“I actually think one of the great stories that was missed by journalists was that Mr. Mulcair, with his arm twisted behind the scenes, helped to hasten Jack Layton’s death.”

What is a disgrace isn’t this damned fool. He is what he is. What is a disgrace is that Stephen Harper, and his party, chose this damned fool over the likes of Alison Redford.

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On the politics of destruction, on strong central government, on wealth and ideas, on having fun.

My God Almighty, I miss this man.

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…which would have been helped if there had been at least one source speaking on the record.

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From today’s second reading:

“Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you.”

So: can a conservative read James 5:1-6 and actually remain one?

As Fight The Right speculates: if Christ was here, right now, he’d be with the Occupiers.

Not the conservatives.

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Yep, that’s me. Busted. Boy, those iPolitics folks sure are smart!

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An observation.

The media can go on and on about (a) how the Liberal Party is irrelevant, in general and (b) how Justin Trudeau is not up to the job, in particular.

But boy oh boy, they sure are writing lots about both subjects, eh? Check out the best aggregator on the planet, National Newswatch, this morning. There’s so much about Trudeau and the Libs, I couldn’t meaningfully link to all of it.

A dead party? A man-boy, unfit for power? The media’s actions belie their words.

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This week, Ottawa-based media were in a frenzy over the prospect of a Justin Trudeau Liberal leadership bid. It was a revelation that really wasn’t one. But it portends a return of the CRG assassins, and soon.

Stephen Harper, as some of his former aides have publicly acknowledged, has long been obsessed with destroying the Liberal Party of Canada. He wants to grind the once-great party’s bones into dust, and cast it to the winds. As such, Harper sees the Grits continued existence as unfinished business.

That’s not all. Many Conservatives are wary about the prospect of a rejuvenated Liberal party. Justin Trudeau (who possesses charisma, charm, fisticuffs and a storied political name) and Marc Garneau (who possesses the best CV on the Hill, military honours, and was a national hero when he became the first Canadian in space) are a real and present danger to Conservative hegemony.

With discipline and drive, either likely leadership contender could wrest Official Opposition status away from Mulcair — and power, four years after that, from Harper. That is why it is in the collective interest of both the Conservatives and the New Democrats to commence muddying Trudeau and Garneau’s reputations and records. Much is on the line.

In the coming months, then, you will be told — over and over — that Justin Trudeau is a lightweight (he isn’t), that he lacks maturity to be a national leader (he doesn’t), that he is all sizzle, and no steak (the jury’s still out on that one).

If Garneau takes the plunge — and many Liberals pray that he does — the Con and Dipper opposition research apparatchiks will have a far tougher time mining for dirt. Garneau is not merely a fine Parliamentarian — he is one of the finest Canadians of his generation.

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Boy, that didn’t take long.

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I agree with most of what my brother Powers says: she’s entitled to have a dissenting view, but – given the position she holds, and the position she took – she bloody well be ready to explain herself.  She didn’t.

It’s obviously a mistake to think that a certain demographic (in this case, women) are wholly of one view on a contentious subject (in this case, when life begins).  Not all Conservatives are pro-life, not all Liberals are pro-choice, for example; the vote reflected that.

As Tim notes, having a view not shared by most women is not Ambrose’s sin.  Her sin is being unwilling (or unable) to explain why she voted the way she did.  I doubt that it’s fatal to her career, but I am reasonably confident that she did herself no favours, at all, in the eyes of one Stephen Harper, MP.

Who, by the by, voted with most Liberals and New Democrats.

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