09.07.2012 08:26 AM

Last night in Ontario

Here’s my straight-up views on the by-elections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo.

  • Liberals: We won huge in Vaughan, in a seat that is comfortably Conservative federally. I didn’t expect we’d win as big as we did.  In Kitchener-Waterloo, we got clobbered in a seat held by the Conservatives for a generation. I didn’t ever expect to win, but I certainly didn’t expect we’d get clobbered, either. We got the message, however. We have work to do.
  • New Democrats: Their win in K-W was significant. Hats off to them. In Vaughan, they were a distant, distant third. They can dismiss that if they like. They probably will, because they’re insufferably pious and pompous. They also have a genetic tendency to equate by-elections with general elections.  I like it when they do that.
  • Conservatives: They lost, badly, in Vaughan, when they should have been much more competitive. They were humiliated in K-W, a riding that has been theirs, as noted, for a quarter-century. My biggest concern, now, is that we will lose Tim Hudak, who – as Jacques Parizeau did after the 1995 referendum, blamed voters, sneering in a prepared official statement that they’d been “bought,” quote unquote.  Like Rob Ford, Hudak is a major Liberal asset. I will pray again, tonight, that his party shrugs off the by-elections and sticks with him. Please, God.

We, however, won’t shrug off the results. By-elections aren’t general elections, as every sensible person knows. We got a sent a message in K-W, however, and we intend to heed it. And act on it.

24 Comments

  1. Bill From Willowdale says:

    Tim Hudak is “not up to the job.” LOL No really, he’s not. He’s McGuinty’s secret weapon and he doesn’t even know it.

  2. Lou Arab says:

    So McGuinty will be withdrawing his legislation regarding teachers?

    Or is there some other lesson to be learned?

    • Cath says:

      Yeah, I’m betting that’s not going to happen Lou. Why? Because the hard line McGuinty’s taking is popular with those outside of the civil service AND a good chunk of those PCs not happy with Hudak, and the Bill will pass with or without the NDP win in K/W.

      I don’t think too much will change on McGuinty’s part.

  3. Patrick says:

    Yeah, dude: absolute, unmitigated disaster for Hudak last night.

    The contrast with the stable, reasonable style brought by John Tory couldn`t be starker. It`s actually pretty bizarre to reflect, when you consider the two precise communities carried by the New Democrats and Liberals respectively last night, how different Ontario politics might have gone in the last year if the right hadn`t jettisoned their only credible leader for this extremist who has again proven so thoroughly off-putting to the people of Ontario.

    Chain gangs? Slurs against immigrants? War on nurses and teachers? 9/11 truther-style conspiracies that local byelections were lost because the electoral system is dominated by public sector unions in 2012?

    This guy’s a disaster, period. Whatever the outcome of the emerging NDP/LPC battle, Ontario PCs are in for a tough slog as long as this Teabagger leads their party. Finally, partisanship aside, as a citizen I ALWAYS love it when cynical, transparently self-serving political squeeze plays like the Witmer appointment blow up in their architects’ faces! Every once in a while, voters prove they’re vastly smarter than many in the political industry give them credit for.

    Congrats to all the candidates and teams who again affirmed Ontario democracy this past month!

  4. Patrick says:

    Yeah, dude:absolute, unmitigated disaster for Hudak last night.

    The contrast with the stable, reasonable style brought by John Tory couldn`t be starker. It`s actually pretty bizarre to reflect, when you consider the two precise communities carried by the New Democrats and Liberals respectively last night, how different Ontario politics might have gone in the last year if the right hadn`t jettisoned their only credible leader for this extremist who has again proven so thoroughly off-putting to the people of Ontario.

    Chain gangs? Slurs against immigrants? War on nurses and teachers? 9/11 truther-style conspiracies that local byelections were lost because the electoral system is dominated by public sector unions in 2012?

    This guy’s a disaster, period. Whatever the outcome of the emerging NDP/LPC battle, Ontario PCs are in for a tough slog as long as this Teabagger leads their party. Finally, partisanship aside, as a citizen I ALWAYS love it when cynical, transparently self-serving political squeeze plays like the Witmer appointment blow up in their architects’ faces! Every once in a while, voters prove they’re vastly smarter than many in the political industry give them credit for.

    Congrats to all the candidates and teams who again affirmed Ontario democracy this past month!

  5. Dan says:

    And you should act on that message.

    You’re a fan of creating a united progressive party. But whenever Liberal and/or NDP leaders shut the door on that, a lot of Liberal minions start indulging complaints about unions, environmentalists, young people, and so on. In other words, when you hear that you can’t merge with the NDP, you guys become more conservative.

    That’s a funny way to grow the Liberal party. If you need a united progressive party to stay in power in the long run, and the so-called leadership won’t let you, then you need to take it right to the voters. Build a united progressive coalition of working class and middle class voters who are tired of getting squeezed.

    If you don’t, then the Ontario NDP will. The federal NDP already has.

    Dalton is making your job harder, Warren. You’re gonna have a hard time repeating the same pitch to progressive voters if you don’t actually engage them in the budget process.

    That’s not pious and pompous. I’m giving away the game. It’s up to you whether you want to act on it.

    • DanR says:

      The Libs in Ontario have always been closer to conservatives. It’s bs that they are in any way progressive. Same with the federal libs: both Chretien and Martin were more about big business than the average working family. together, they marshalled in some of the most pro-business policies ever, not skipping a beat from the Mulroney days. There isn’t a sliver of light that can get between a Liberal and a Conservative.

  6. Mulletaur says:

    Grits win one, lose one, Dippers win one, lose one – and the Tories lose two.

    No wonder Tea Party Timmy looked so sour this morning.

    The knives will be out for him now. Quite right, too.

  7. WDM says:

    Tim Hudak’s absurd conspiracy theory, despite it being nonsensical, was actually quite fitting. Really shows the difference between his brand of politics, and the brand that was practiced by Elizabeth Witmer, the departing MPP.

  8. ottawacon says:

    Hudak’s rather wild-eyed tsunami screed completely ignores the element that should have Tories sharpening the hatchet. It is completely par for the course that a government will struggle in by-elections, particularly one facing difficult budgetary circumstances, no great surprise that the Liberals lost 12% of the popular vote from the general election. But the Tories lost about the same, in a riding where they draw 40%+ as a matter of course. Unless there was a very large movement (almost 12% of the vote) from PC to NDP, which seems improbable, the PCs are now losing some support to both the Liberals and the NDP.

  9. Kev says:

    The correct interpretation:

    Liberals: won in Vaughan, a seat that is comfortably Liberal provincially. In K-W, to use WK’s own words, “they were a distant, distant third. They can dismiss that if they like. They probably will, because they’re insufferably pious and pompous.”

    Dippers: won huge in K-W.

  10. Larry says:

    It seems irresponsible for Tim Hudak to suggest unions “bought” KW. What is he insinuating? Were campaign financing rules broken? Were voters bought off? It’s not as though it was close.

  11. reformatory says:

    Liberals were expected to win in Vaughan, and NO it is not a federally comptorable conservative seat. It is and has for the most part alwats been a liberal bastion. it was forever in Bevilaqua’s hands, until a star candidate Fantino came along and the voters know they could send a member to Ottawa that wold be in cabinet. It was also once in Palladini’s hands provincially when he was in Harris’s cabinet. So Vaughan seems to be shaping up to be a bell weather riding always electing candidates perceived to have a seat at the governing table.

    KW- if Liberals say they did not plan to have that seat and salivated at it’s prospects- they are lying. The fact that it went to the NDP means their plans backfired and the mood of this by election at a time with all the teacher stuff and other stuff going on means that KW citizens did not feel that the liberals deserved a majority.

    Now if the liberals really did learn anything then they will partner up with the NDP as Kinsella is professing the federal liberals do.. and get back to progressive gov’t in Ontario. Instead it seems like McGuinty is intent on cooperating with the Hudak tories to ram through unpopular legislation.

    It appears McGuinty’s days are numbered. He may still get some Tory defections and still get his majority- but he won’t be around to fight the next election. The NDP will form new alliances with the unions who are now intent to abandon the liberals (since McGuinty turned his back on them).

    As for the Tories, say hello to Premier Christine Elliot…. soon enough they will muster the drive to dump Hudak and until they do– McGuinty will have free reins. Well at least 3 more years free rein that is.

    Christine Elliot is plotting and planning as we speak. You heard it here first folks!

  12. Political Outsider says:

    The Liberals got clobbered in K-W because they spent the campaign attacking their strongest supporters: the teachers. That’s what you get when you take strategic advice from Bob Rae.

  13. Cath says:

    Christine Elliott WAY better than Hudak IMO. Nice opponent to Horwath too. Add Kathleen Wynne to that mix and now we’re talking.

  14. Tim says:

    So now Premier McGuinty is still going to have to make out like President Gas. It won’t bother him one bit. Everybody I know who’s met him says he’s the real deal.

  15. Joe says:

    All the Libs have to do is let bargaining happen. No legislation. No threats. No heavy hand. No politics. Just straight talk. The governing Lib’s would be surprised what that would get them.

  16. James Bow says:

    A couple of points of interest. One, Steve Paiken revealed last night that Witmer had confided in him that she expected the NDP to win Kitchener Waterloo. In her words, people wanted to send a message to McGuinty, and they wanted to send a message to Hudak. You say that McGuinty heard the message, I hope so. Hudak… not so much.

    Also, in an interview in the Record, Witmer revealed the real reason why she abruptly quit as the MPP for the riding: her husband is fighting cancer, and she needs to spend more time at home with her family.

    • DanR says:

      Or, she got a pretty plumb deal at $188 K per year?

      • James Bow says:

        No, he actually is fighting cancer. She decided to quit before the job offer came along. Of course, there’s every possibility McGuinty saw the opportunity and gave her a soft landing, but she couldn’t deal with caring for an ailing husband and all of her time as an MPP.

        Ironically enough, a similar thing happened a few years back. It’s how we lost John English as the Liberal MP for Kitchener Centre — a good man and a decent MP. It was a shame he couldn’t run again, but he had to care for his wife.

        • Cath says:

          good post James.

        • Skeeter says:

          Oh, so is chairing the WSIB a part-time gig of some sort? Unless it is minimal hours, for 188,000 a year no less, and much closer to home than Toronto (which it is not), then resigning as an mpp and subsequently taking the better paying job at wsib is at odds with her reasoning. She’s in no different position other than a $100,000 raise on top of her previous $88,000 a year salary.

  17. !o! says:

    “Like Rob Ford, Hudak is a major Liberal asset.”

    Love it.

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