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Provincial Election

Nik the Trik said:
If anything, you'd think the people who would lose their right to complain would be the people who voted for the victorious party that preceded to bungle things up.

"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
 
seahawk said:
I usually don't comment on elections, because I work a polling station on election day itself. I will make this one comment though. I don't care how you vote, just that you give enough of a damn to get out and vote. I've seen elections settled by less than 10 votes so everyone's vote counts, regardless of who you vote for. Surely as a society, we can be engaged enough to see more than 50% turnout.

I'm always amazed at how many people don't vote.  That said, this has been maybe the most confused I have been when trying to decide which way to vote.
 
Colour me surprised.  I figured a Liberal/PC minority.  I'm pretty disappointed that Deb Matthews got re-elected after all the screw ups with the health care system.  Some of it was really out of her control and not really her fault but on the few occasions I have been able to speak with her in a professional sense, she really has a poor grasp on the construct of the system itself.  Not exactly what you would want from someone running the whole thing.  Especially moving forward with the financial constraints of a smaller federal budget and an aging population.
 
I'm going to run in the next election.  My plan is to have people pay no taxes.  If we need money we'll just borrow it.
 
Ontario made history by officially electing the province's first female and openly gay premier.

Not that surprised that it was a Liberal majority.  Ontarians really didn't have much choice to choose.  Let's face it, the PC party's Tim Hudak was not well liked with his platform of cost-cutting measures plus the fact that his math didn't compute. Plus, being a Mike Harris prot?g? didn't help as Ontarians are mindful of those Mike Harris years. (*shivers*)


Horwath on the other hand is well liked and presented a reasonable platform, but because of this province's past experience with an NDP government, Ontarians were leery of the NDP being the ruling government.  Remembering also that one extreme (NDP at the time) gave way to another extreme (PC's & Mike Harris).  It's doubtful Ontario was prepared to go that route again (from a middle of centre Liberal govt. to Hudak's Tories).

Which left us with Kathleen Wynne.  Her Liberal party platform was the better balanced of the other two parties and people probably felt she was the best choice to govern as premier, scandals and all.
 
crazyperfectdevil said:
my question is how does the ndp respond to this...they helped trigger this election and ended up with absolutely no leverage

By triggering an election, Horwath accomplished two things: a) the resignation of Tim Hudak and b) the loss that caused the PC party to be in disarray.

Well done, Andrea.
 
crazyperfectdevil said:
my question is how does the ndp respond to this...they helped trigger this election and ended up with absolutely no leverage

Exactly.  They look pretty dumb today.  Did they help get rid of Hudak? Sure, the election they triggered ended up with that as part of the result, but their own goals should have been far more lofty than to see Hudak fall flat on his face.  With the Liberals now in a majority, the NDP are in a far far worse position than they were before this. They now have 4.5 (or is it 5?) years to sit and wait for another chance at relevance.

I think both the PC and NDP completely blew a huge opportunity to take down the Liberals.  Hudak's team blew themselves up with ridiculous ideas and Howarth really promised nothing other than that car insurance rate cut the NDP drag out every election. 

Huge misses by both. 
 
crazyperfectdevil said:
my question is how does the ndp respond to this...they helped trigger this election and ended up with absolutely no leverage

I think internally the NDP would rather be where they are today. The "leverage" they had as a member of a minority coalition is pretty slight.
 
Nik the Trik said:
crazyperfectdevil said:
my question is how does the ndp respond to this...they helped trigger this election and ended up with absolutely no leverage

I think internally the NDP would rather be where they are today. The "leverage" they had as a member of a minority coalition is pretty slight.

Better than the zero leverage they have today.

Previously, they were getting concessions in budgets from the Liberals, including the last budget which they bizarrely  chose to defeat. So they had a bit of a voice.
 
Corn Flake said:
Exactly.  They look pretty dumb today.  Did they help get rid of Hudak? Sure, the election they triggered ended up with that as part of the result, but their own goals should have been far more lofty than to see Hudak fall flat on his face.

I think that's why they'd rather be where they are though. They're not going to take votes from the Conservatives so for them to have any sort of dreams of ever forming a government they have to set themselves up as being in opposition to the Liberals which is pretty hard to do from the confines of a patchwork coalition.
 
Corn Flake said:
Better than the zero leverage they have today.

Previously, they were getting concessions in budgets from the Liberals, including the last budget which they bizarrely  chose to defeat. So they had a bit of a voice.

Like I said above, I think they'd rather be throwing stones which they couldn't really do from inside the house.
 
I can build/erect concrete forms.  Tie rebar.  Pour concrete.  Finish concrete.  Fit pipe.  Weld.  Plumb pipes from 6' to 1/4 inch.  Run heavy equipment, crane, etc.  Paint.  Frame.  Trim.  Chalk.  Install specialized equipment.  Run duct work.  Etc.  Above board, I don't do electrical however.  My job title would be labourer.  Labourers don't just run a shovel.
Now a OCOT inspector can show up and tell you can't do work you've been doing safely for years.  Construction employers can't hire people anymore.  Can't invest in them.  Now they'll have no staff, just call a union hall for work.  It'll cost more, but there's no other choice.  That $25 million project I worked on is now going to cost $30 million.
 
i don't know how slight the ndp's leverage was...i'm not saying this means they're right..but a lot of talking heads seemed to think the last budget was fairly ndp friendly ...and the convervatives are still the official opposition aren't they?  ..so i don't see how this election moved the ndp forward...like they must have a reason for doing what they did..and hindsight is 20/20 ..but it does seem like this was a mistep. 

the party itself questioned its own leadership during the election didn't it? 
 

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