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- Written by Gordon Prentice
The NDP platform, published this morning, is good in parts but there are huge gaps where there should be detailed policy.
On the positive side, freezing tuition fees sounds like a good thing to me. Similarly, restoring passenger services on the Ontario Northland Rail is something crying out to be done. Other pledges too make sense. You decide.
But, curiously, there is nothing about pensions. Pensions are a big deal. Just ask anyone who has a lousy one. The last NDP platform (Plan for Affordable Change) reminded us that: “For the two out of three Ontarians who do not have a workplace pension, we will develop an Ontario Retirement Plan to provide a defined benefit pension to people who want one.” What’s changed?
The Platform is full of wishful thinking. And in the absence of detail I have no way of reassuring myself what is promised will, indeed, come to pass.
$250 million annually is to be allocated for priority transit projects including “all-day two-way GO train services to Kitchener-Waterloo and year-round daily GO train service to St Catharines and Niagara Falls”.
But what about the Barrie line? No all-day two-way GO train service promised here.
The NDP plans to spend an equivalent sum ($250 million) annually to widen 60km of highways every year. This is complete lunacy. These widened roads will simply fill up with traffic a year or two after the tarmac is laid. That $250 million should go into the GO train network if the NDP is serious about addressing gridlock.
The Liberals, tainted by scandal, are in rehab, promising to be good in future. They are formally launching their Election Platform on Sunday afternoon in Thunder Bay. Kathleen Wynne told the Toronto Star’s editorial board earlier today that there would be no surprises. It would be a “fleshed out” version of the Budget.
Presumably it will be fatter and more substantial than the NDP's anorexic Platform. Six pages long and thin on detail and explanation.
Anyway, you pays your money and you takes your choice.
The Toronto Star has again called for more election debates – while recognising that, at this stage, it may be difficult to fit them in.
As it happens, Tim Hudak tells us what he really thinks of these debates by pulling out of the one on Northern Ontario issues. We are told it is a scheduling clash, but what is more important than participating in a televised debate? What exactly will he be doing instead?
21 days to go.
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- Written by Gordon Prentice
The candidates’ debate in Newmarket Aurora, hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce, is set for Friday 30 May 2014 at 7pm in the Newmarket Theatre. Voters will have the chance to quiz the candidates informally at an open house from 6pm but many will have checked them out first on-line.
Social media makes it easier than ever to get a handle on the candidates and get a sense of where they are coming from.
Progressive Conservative Jane Twinney hopes to succeed Frank Klees who steps down from Queen’s Park after 18 years. She starts as favourite in a riding that is traditionally conservative with household incomes way above the national average.
Jane is seen as warm and likeable – and in politics that counts for a lot – but, ideologically, there seems to be no sheet anchor determinedly holding her in position on the right of the political spectrum. She could easily break free of her moorings and drift to the left.
She is pragmatic and doesn't say a lot at meetings of Newmarket council. When she does she is often hesitant. Faced with a difficult or controversial decision, her first instinct is to consult. She rarely stakes out a position, rallying others to her banner. She will ask for everyone’s views.
Jane has a campaign site and is active on twitter. Her tweets are back-slapping records of the day's events. Everything is always lots of fun!
She invites people who visit her Newmarket council website to read her blogs if they want to keep up-to-date. Not wishing to over exert herself, Jane has written five blogs in the present council term. Her latest, dated 30 January 2014, is on the garbage problems over the winter. The one before, dated 29 November 2011. was on the YRT strike.
The bottom line: Don’t rely on Jane’s blogs to stay up-to-date.
Chris “Leadership with Heart” Ballard has a campaign website and another detailing his work on Aurora Council – which, for the duration of the campaign, is inactive. He posts on a wide variety of issues and wants us to think of him as a busy boy, keeping lots of balls in the air simultaneously. He tweets.
The NDP’s new kid on the block is Angus Duff, an academic who teaches in Oshawa. He has lived in Aurora for 15 years. His twitter account is now up and running.
Archbishop Dorian Baxter is the Canadians’ Choice candidate. He has a long and colourful career as a campaigner and candidate. He often comes bottom or near bottom of the poll. But he is resilient, affable and always bounces back. Baxter is fixated by Elvis Presley. His email address at last year’s Toronto Centre by election – where he ran for the Progressive Canadian Party - was the memorable This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. He tweets as a Canadians' Choice candidate and as a Progressive Canadian.
Andy Roblin is standing for the Green Party. He, too, tweets.
Elsewhere on the so-called campaign trail, Andrea Horwath vows to cut ER wait times in half. She says the NDP campaign platform will be fully costed when it is released “very shortly”.
The National Post’s Andrew Coyne has an interesting piece on Tim Hudak, suggesting he (Hudak) believes “commitment to a plan” might entice voters who are fed up with airy fairy promises or uncosted specifics.
We read that campaign ads will hit unsuspecting voters tomorrow morning, like a trumpet blast.
23 days to go.
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- Written by Gordon Prentice
Yesterday, we learn from the Toronto Star that Andrea Horwath promises to publish the full NDP platform “within a week”.
And not before time.
Horwath has taken a lot of stick over her unwillingness to disclose the NDP’s programme given she triggered the election in the first place.
Today (Sunday) the NDP put out an ad criticising the Liberals for wasting “tax-dollars”. True, the Liberal record is a legitimate target but people also want to know about the alternatives and what else is on offer.
Andrea Horwath cannot continue with her dance of the seven veils, dribbling out policy announcements day by day, without exasperating the commentators, the pundits and – more importantly – the voters.
Meanwhile, PC Leader, Tim Hudak, promises to build more roads, scrap LRT projects and run more frequent GO trains.
Kathleen Wynne takes the day off.
25 days to go.
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- Written by Gordon Prentice
Today, a huge red tarpaulin is draped like a shroud over the trailer on the Slessors’ car dealership site.
In giant capitalised letters, visible from the Moon, it announces:
THIS LAND FOR SALE
ZONED MIX USE HIGH DENSITY
905-752-6776 ext.229 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
So much for the “exciting new adult lifestyle community coming soon”.
The story, like so many involving developers and planners in Newmarket, is deeply ironic. The Slessors, guided by their lawyer Ira Kagan, unveil plans for a giant new development opposite Upper Canada Mall, towering over the adjacent residential area.
The proposal throws up a million issues that the Town cannot resolve within the 180 days allowed before the developer can appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board.
The Slessors accuse the Town of dragging its feet and appeal to the OMB. The Town, afraid of its own shadow and fearing the costs, immediately capitulates giving “approval in principle”.
With that “approval in principle” under their belt, the Slessors begin to extract millions of dollars from the equity of a property they had owned outright. They walk away multi-millionaires, laughing all the way to the bank.
On 27 April 2014, more than a year after getting approval from the Town, Kagan tells the OMB the project is being put on hold.
And now this hugely significant site is up for sale.
More will follow.
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- Written by Gordon Prentice
We now have a date pencilled in for the Provincial Leaders’ Debate.
Tuesday 3 June 2014.
We learn the broadcasters only want one debate and it had to be scheduled around the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Personally, I think one is too few. There is a real hunger out there for meaningful debate on substantive issues. People are totally fed up with bland politicians mouthing platitudes. (Hudak, love him or loathe him, is speaking out and grabbing people’s attention.)
So, if the broadcasters have a stranglehold on televised debates why can’t we have some on-line, hosted by the press?
In the UK the Guardian newspaper (left leaning) has teamed up with the Daily Telegraph (on the right) to offer an on-line platform to the politicians in the UK’s 2015 General election campaign. Others, too, want to get involved.
It is a terrific idea and one we should emulate.
Tim Hudak has now released the full PC election platform. The Liberals are fighting on their stillborn Budget proposals. But the NDP prospectus is embarrassingly thin. Andrea Horwath, who initially proposed a series of five debates, would never survive such a test. She would, literally, be lost for words.
Here, Toronto Star columnist, Carol Goar, helpfully reminds us of the thin gruel Ontario’s NDP is offering:
So far, the NDP leader has promised to reduce government spending by $600 million a year; cut Ontario’s small business tax to 3 per cent (it is now 4.5 per cent); downsize the provincial cabinet by a third; remove the provincial portion of the HST from hydro bills and hand out $100 per household rebates; stabilize the child care system with a one-time infusion of $100 million; offer companies wage subsidies of up to $5,000 to hire a new worker; raise the minimum wage by 50 cents a year until 2016; increase Ontario’s corporate tax rate by an unspecified amount and balance the budget by 2017-18.
Goar continues:
There are still three weeks left in the campaign. Horwath could still reach out to low-income Ontarians. But at this point, she appears to be auditioning for the role of waste-buster and austerity advocate.
Here in Newmarket, sooner rather than later, I’d like to see on-line debates between candidates for the Provincial Parliament (base salary $116,550) and for our York Regional Councillor ($51,696 plus Town salary of $64,056).
And why not?
These are big jobs open to people with big ideas.
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