Jane Twinney's Newmarket Council website tells us she attended Brock University in 1982 “where she took an interest in political science and business economics”.

Jane wants to see local businesses hiring more employees and that's good.

So, with her business economics background coupled with the experience of running her own business, Jane will understand why Tim Hudak’s “Million Jobs Plan” doesn’t add up.

We see the "Plan" unravelling before our very eyes. Hudak has confused so-called “person years” with “people’s jobs” and overestimated eightfold the number of new jobs he expects to be created under a PC Government at Queen's Park.

So...  will Jane repudiate Hudak’s faulty math at tonight’s candidates’ debate in Newmarket or will she agree with her leader? Will she come clean? Will she tie herself in knots? Either way, it will be a delicious moment to savour.

Jane on the Campaign Trail

In a youtube video to supporters Jane says she hopes to meet everyone on the campaign trail. Good for her! But, mysteriously, the youtube video recording her day on the campaign trail which I had been so looking forward to viewing “has now been removed by the user”.

Here is Jane Twinney accepting the (uncontested) PC nomination for Newmarket-Aurora back in March. Frank Klees delivers a well-honed valedictory, without a note, telling us he got where he is because of the values instilled in him by his parents and not because of some “high-falutin” education. The eloquent Mr Klees certainly knows how to tickle the erogenous zones of the Newmarket Aurora conservatives. 

What do young people make of the election?

Next week Newmarket-Aurora candidates will find out what young people make of the election

Top marks to Tim Greenwood for organising an election event for young people next Thursday, June 5, from 7pm-9pm at the Valley View Alliance Church at 800 Davis Drive. All the candidates are signed up.

Tim, a youth employment worker in York Region, explains the event is non-partisan and “its purpose is to create awareness of this election and the issues amongst young people… and to help candidates understand the issues that are of most importance to the youth”. This could be one of them.

I am told that “adult allies” are welcome but will be expected to stay in the background.

Meanwhile the main candidates debate takes place tonight at Newmarket Theatre from 7pm with an open house from 6pm.

The Aurora debate is on 7 June. More details to follow.

NDP struggles for lift-off

Professional pundit, Robert Fisher, tells Matt Galloway on last Friday’s Metro Morning that the NDP platform is not a game changer. Over at the Globe and Mail Adam Radwanski sticks the knife in and twists. You would expect the paper to be critical – and it is. He says Horwath’s long awaited policy goals lack substance. Since the unveiling last week of the underwhelming NDP platform, Andrea Horwath has been given a roasting by the media – and by people who should be her close supporters. She fires back. We read that Ontario’s NDP platform sounds awfully conservative. And definitely to the right of the Liberals. Her policy goals are hard to take seriously.

Star columnist, Martin Regg Cohn, says Andrea Horwath's NDP has lost its moral compass.

Can it get much worse than this?

Probably.

Changing the Way We Vote

The Ontario Liberal Platform makes an explicit pledge to change the voting system if they win the June 12 election.

This is a seriously big deal but I am unclear about the mechanics of bringing it in.

“Kathleen Wynne’s Plan for Ontario” says this:

ALLOWING CHOICE IN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. We will give municipalities the option of using ranked ballots as an alternative to first-past-the-post in their own elections.

But how would such a decision be made by the municipality?  By the Council? With or without formal consultation with local residents?  Would there be a local referendum? And could the decision be reversed?  I am sure the answers are out there in some background policy paper. I just can’t find it.

Unsurprisingly, Liberals favour the ranked ballot (also known as preferential voting) because it is likely to benefit them. In Ontario, NDP voters' second preference would, by a large margin, go the Liberals.