Say what, Howie?

The Globe has an other story on the equalization fight between the McGuinty Liberals and the Flaherty/Harper Conservatives. And it has an interesting nugget from Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton:

"Is the McGuinty government really saying that the federal government should change the tax system so that they take less money from Ontario? How fair would that be for the rest of Canada?"

Perhaps Howard might want to consider what’s fair for the people of Ontario, whom he's supposed to represent, instead of sanctioning this province shipping $20 billion to other provinces to let them cut corporate taxes while our economy suffers.

Another interesting observation, this one from Ontario Conservative leader without a seat John Tory:

However, Ontario's opposition parties accused Mr. McGuinty of using his complaints about the equalization formula to deflect attention from the fact the province's economy is falling far behind the rest of Canada because of Liberal government policies.

OK, so if I accept that its McGuinty’s policies that are hampering the Ontario economy, does that also mean that a) Jean Chretien and Paul Martin can fairly take credit for the boom times of the mid to late 90s, and b) Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty are to blame for the slowdown of the national economy?

Because whenever I make those arguments, the right tells me governments can’t take credit or blame for the economy. Just curious.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Margaret Atwood, Jim Balsillie, and other interesting political contributors

I thought it'd be interesting to take a look through the Elections Canada database for donations to political parties in the last quarter of 2007, and see what names popped-out.

To refresh everyone on the overall numbers, the results for the fourth quarter of 2007 were as follows:

Conservatives
44,324 contributors for $4,892,921.63
Liberals
13,618 contributors for $1,944,946.11
NDP
15,698 contributors for $1,424,524.23
Green
3390 contributors for $414,274.84
Bloc
3,888 contributors for $336,384.00

Continued gradual improvement for the Liberals. Sure, we still lag way, way, way behind the Conservatives. But we also don't have the CBC to pick on, so it's a tad more challenging. Still, while it's a work in progress, there is progress.

That's another story though. As I said I was more interested in talking a gander at some of the names donating to the various parties. I kept my browsing to donations of $500 and above, because otherwise I'd be scrolling forever and I don't have that kind of patience. Here's a few names from each party that jumped-out:

Liberals

Naturally, as a Liberal a few more names here were recognizable to me, such as:

Gordon Ashworth, the LPC's National Campaign Director.


This name was a surprise, author Margaret Atwood.


As was Research in Motion founder Jim Balsillie.


Raymond Chretien is a our former ambassador to the U.S., and is Jean Chretien's newphew.


Former Liberal MP and minister Anne McLellan.


Former Liberal MP and minister Pierre Pettigrew.


I believe this Gordon Wilson of Powell River, BC must be the same Gordon Wilson that was a leader of the BC Liberal Party, then former the Progressive Democratic Alliance, and then became a BC NDP cabinet minister. Interesting.


Among current parliamentarians, I noticed MP Navdeep Bains ($500), Senator Larry Campbell ($500), Senator Jerry Grafstein ($1000), Albina Guarnieri ($1000 to Michael Ignatieff's campaign), and Senator Serge Joyal ($500).

Less names naturally popped-out at me from the other parties' donor lists, but here's a few that did.

Conservative Party

You'll remember Jim Dinning as the entertaining but failed wannabe successor to Ralph Klien as leader of the Alberta PCs. (Off topic, but go to his Web site and you're told "You have reached this page accidentally12a.". I guess so Jim, I guess so.)


Tim Powers is a lobbyist and regular Conservative commentator on the pundit circuit.


John Reynolds is a lobbyist, Conservative insider, former Conservative MP and election campaign co-chair. Yvonne is his spouse.


Don Mazankowski was a Mulroney-era cabinet minister. Lorraine is his spouse.


NDP

Marion Dewar was a long-time mayor of Ottawa and was briefly an NDP MP.


Howard Hampton, of course, is the current leader of the Ontario NDP.


Green Party

It's author Margaret Atwood once again, this time donating to the Greens. I double checked, and she didn't donate to the NDP, at least not this quarter.


And media pioneer and CityTV founder Moses Znaimer was another interesting Green contributor.

And being an anglophone from the west, while I skimmed the BQ contributors list I can say I recognized any.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Angry angry Howie

I share Howard Hampton’s frustration. While as a partisan Liberal I’m happy that there has been so much focus during the campaign on the faith-based schooling issue, as it has proven to be kryptonite for The John Tory Team, as a voter I’m disappointed that not enough attention has been paid to other issues.

So, I do understand Hampton’s frustration, I share his sentiments, and I think he said some things that needed to be said. But two problems:

1) His rant just went on too long. He had made his point well early but he kept on going, the smoke blowing out of his ears, and at some point he crossed the line from impassioned and forceful to whiny and pathetic. He lost his cool.

2) At its core, he’s saying he hasn’t been able to get his message out. To blame the media for that is slightly pathetic. If the NDP has failed in getting its message out, and the polling numbers would seem to back that out, then the NDP has no one to blame but itself.

So, while it will please and energize his base (which was probably the point, stop the bleeding) by crossing the line from impassioned to angry Hampton will just come off as whiny, ineffective and lacking leadership skills to the rest of the electorate, in my view. Did he look like a Premier? Not at all.

On the plus side for Howie, he sure got his message out this time, didn't he? Unfortunately though, we're talking about how angry he is, not about his issues, so maybe not so much.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

SES puts Ontario Liberals in majority territory

New numbers out this morning from SES echo the weekend's Ipsos numbers, also saying the McGuinty Liberals have widened their lead over the Tory Conservatives to 10 points.

The phone survey, conducted Sept. 28-30th, puts the race as follows:

Liberals: 44 per cent (+3)
Conservatives: 34 per cent (+1)
NDP: 15 per cent (-3)
Greens: 7 per cent (-1)
*10 per cent undecided

It looks like the Liberal gain came from the NDP rather than the Conservatives, indicating perhaps a stop Tory/anti-Conservative vote shifting to the Liberals. I thought this note from SES was interesting:

Interestingly, in the last seven days support among women who support the NDP has dropped and resulted in a corresponding increase in female support among Liberals.

Interesting indeed. And troubling no doubt for Hampton and the NDP. This may cause them to increase their attacks on McGuinty and the Liberals in the last week of the campaign, not that they've been shy on that front to date.

Speaking of Hampton, he hasn't been losing support personally and neither has McGuinty, who has a three point (but within the margin) lead on Tory for best Premier:

Dalton McGuinty 32% (+3)
John Tory 29% (-2)
Howard Hampton 18% (+3)
Frank de Jong 3% (-1)
None of them 6% (-1)
Unsure 12% (-2)

I'm not sure if we'll have another public poll before e-day to see how Tory's major flip-flop yesterday on faith-based schooling plays. I'm sure the parties will have their own internal polling shortly, it would be interesting to see the results. The next poll for us though may be the only one that counts, on Oct. 10. It'll be like a giant free vote.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

Live blogging the Ontario leaders debate

6:30pm: Time to live blog the Ontario leaders debate. Because making quick, snarky and sarcastic comments is easier than doing in depth analysis. I've got a plate of pizza bagels, a rum and coke (because it worked so well last time). So, let's go.

6:32pm: Steve Pakin is back as host, I liked him during the federal debate. Instead of opening statements they're doing videos? I like change, but not change for change sake. Seems too commercially. McGuinty's video tackles head-on the broken promise on taxes and the health premium, explains and apologizes. I like it, defuse it up front, and take responsibility too. The NDP's ad is a positive message, and I like it. I wonder though, those workers that said Howard was the only one that helped them with their plant closed, how exactly did he help? Tory, surprise surprise, is once again harshly negative. Criminals set free by Dalton McGuinty's catch and release justice program? This is U.S. Republican-style smeers. I'm not sure if Tory's negativism is because he's desperate, or if it's just because he doesn't have anything positive to say at all. I'd ask if maybe he's a jerk, but everyone that has met him from all parties seems to think he's a good guy personally

6:35pm: A question on Tory's faith-based education plan. Unity, inclusiveness and equality doesn't mean a balkanization of the school system John, that doesn't make sense.

6:38pm: Howard does seem off, maybe he is under the weather.

6:39pm: Dalton and John go at it over public education and faith-based private schools; Hampton has to push his way in, we'd forgotten about him for a minute. He's right though, we should focus on improving the public system. I think Dalton agrees with that too (and has been), but Tory's plan is such a loser how can he resist taking shots.

6:43pm: Second question is on education too. Dalton keeps brining up the Harris record, which is good, He isn't mentioning Harris' name though, which is bad. Howard acknowledges McGuinty has raised funding, but says most of it has gone to “government pet projects.” But he doesn't say where. He says he'll fix the funding formula. But he doesn't say how. Tory doesn't say how he'll do it either, nor explain how he'll fix things while taking $500 million out of the system to add the faith-based schools.

6:52pm: Question on transit, first to Howard. He promises to upload 50 per cent of transit costs to the province, I like that but that's a huge dollar amount, how could you pay for it? He also seems to want to kill the York subway expansion, the students won't like that. Tory wants more long-term, stable funding, I can agree with that. It's not just capital funds that's needed, it is stable operating funds like he said. Dalton keeps talking about public transit plans. That's great, and very needed. But what about operating funds? All the capital spending in the world is no good if you don't have the funds to operate that snazzy equipment. The situation right now with the TTC illustrates that. The gax tax is good though. But we need more operating funds Dalton.

6:56pm: Question to Tory on downloading to municipalities, with a shot at Conservative offloading. Tory says McGuinty is continuing the trend of not doing anything...whose trend John? Your party's trend. Opps. Dalton says picking-up from the mess Tory's friends left isn't easy, but they're working on it. Howard says not only is that not happening, things are worse. He's going to upload even more stuff, I wonder if anyone is keeping a tab on the cost of all this. In the Q&A, Tory gives a shout-out to the rural towns, then returns to a running theme of McGuinty leaving everything until the end of his mandate. Would love to do everything at once and magically, says Dalton, but you stuck us with a huge deficit. You can blame your predecessor for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, says Tory, but no more. Has he told Steve Harper that? Why haven't I heard the name Mike Harris yet? Dalton doesn't like Howard's comments, but he needs to watch the muttering while someone else is speaking.

7:03pm: Broken promises, a voter video asks about recall legislation. We have in it B.C., it doesn't work. Dalton says he opposes it, we have recalls: elections. And apologizes again for the health premium thing. John Tory says everyone knew Ernie Eves was full of shit when the Cons said they'd balanced the budget, so why'd he believe him. Smirk. Tory doesn't say if he'd support recall or not, but says shouldn't be needed if people were nice. If only were so, John. Dalton says John has been calling him names, be tougher Dalton. Howard gangs-up on him too on broken promises, McGuinty outlines the progress he has made. Tory looks comfortable, but a bit smug. It's a fine line between confident and smarmy. McGuinty says Tory promises your cake and eating it too, that's what the last guy said too. Last guy. Say it: Mike Harris!

7:10pm: Question to Howard on the economy and manufacturing jobs, with a reference to the last NDP government's poor economic record. Howard seems stunned, he ignores the NDP record and instead discusses his plan. Tory says the health care tax killed manufacturing jobs? And says next to nothing concrete, Hampton was more specific on his plans. Dalton says it's not all bad. Talks about an auto industry strategy that is saving and creating jobs, a plan the Cons opposed. 1300 jobs a week lost under NDP, 1800 jobs gained under Liberals. Tory seems unwilling to defend the Conservative record. Unsurprising, this is the John Tory Team, not the Conservative Party.

7:16 pm: A question for Daddy Warbucks, John Tory, on fighting poverty. It seems he used to hang-out in disadvantaged neighborhoods all the time while running Rogers. And hey, he mentions the name of his party, emphasis on the Progressive. McGuinty outlines his accomplishments, plan and tosses in the word progressive too with a little smile for John. Howard wants to raise the minimum wage to $10/hour, I agree. He takes a shot at the MPP pay raise, that's lame. Tory commends McGuinty on the Child Tax Benefit. He said something positive. Stop the presses! Then he goes back to the health care tax, Dalton corrects him: low income families are exempt. Then we veer away from poverty into health care. Tory doesn't buy it, Dalton comes back with Tory's push for bringing private health care into the public system Interestingly, Howard helps John and brings it back to attacking McGuinty on the health tax.

7:24pm: Question for Dalton on crime, it's going down but still a concern for people, feel too many repeat offenders on the streets. McGuinty has funded police, courts, strategy on gangs, and programs to address root causes, and opportunities for youth. Howard wants more funding for outreach/root causes, and attacks Conservative cuts to those programs. Tory says it's gang warfare in the streets and it's McGuinty's fault. He hasn't “fixed” the justice system, but Tory magically will, whatever that entails. Dalton says Ontario crime rates are actually lowest in Canada, but still more to do, and says he wants Harper to ban handguns, and wants Tory's support in that. And wants to do it in Ontario. Tory says they're banned already, says need more enforcement at the border. Call up Harper for that John. God, his crime messaging is really so ridiculous. Willie Horton much?

7:29pm: We need a commercial so I can refresh my beverage.

7:30pm: Question for Howard on university tuition, should be an easy pitch for a Dipper, and he likes the question. He want a rollback of tuition to 2003 levels and a freeze, among other things, including public investment. I hope he doesn't pull a Rae and get elected, to pay for all his promises (nice as they are) the deficit will be huge. Tory wants more grants, and to look at ancillary fees. Grants aren't the answer if tuition keeps increasing, he's right on fee creep though. Dalton is going to infuse $6 billion. Said no government ever froze tuition for two years like he did – I believe B.C. did under Harcourt actually.

7:36pm: Question on nuclear for Tory, he says we need them and goes after Dalton for not closing coal plants like he said he would. He liked solar power too he says. McGuinty says the Cons nearly killed the hydro system, says nuclear is needed but downplays it to talk about renewable energy. Howard doesn't like nuclear, wants more efficiency, loans to retrofit homes and buy efficient appliances. That's good Howard, but it's not going to go far enough to address the supply issue. Dalton says Tory is making stuff up, smirk. He wonders how Howard would eliminate half of the system's supply without things collapsing, it's not realistic and its right. I wonder too. Howard points to California.

7:43pm: Question for Dalton, what are you doing with our health premium money? He says it's half of our program spending, but we're doing a lot, and lists is. He's obviously memorized a lot of statistics ad is throwing them at us, I wonder if its a bit too much. Howard wants long-term care and home care for seniors, that's good. Tory asks if we're better off today on health care than when Dalton came into government? I think so, but no one has “fixed” health care, and I haven't heard much concrete from Tory. John brings up the slush fund – during a discussion on health care. And jabbers about a secret phone number or something. Seems an odd place to jam that in. Why no talk here of Tory's private care musings? Howard brings it up, and tries to link McGuinty to it too. John Tory doesn't trust doctors on wait times. Dammed statistics! I'm not clear on what Dalton's saying Tory is taking $3 billion out of the system is about.

7:49pm: Question for Howard, is Ontario still great? There's some good stuff, is the answer, but he'd rather talk about why it sucks. So would Tory, and lists a bunch of ways that he thinks we suck. The answer: leadership, of course, and lots of negative advertising. Dalton says Tory won't fight for Ontario with the feds and the provinces, but he will. Got money from Martin for immigrant settlement. Ontario must assert itself. Howard is pack to the minimum wage, and the MPP pay raise. Dalton decides to address the raise issue and explains the process. Says the NDP's minimum wage plan is too fast. Tory is trying to say leader as many times as possible. I went back and rewound the PVR: four times in less than 20 seconds. McGuinty hits Tory again on private clinics and faith-based schools. Tory firmly commits to private health care with your health card.

7:56pm: Howard's closing statement, quick shot at McGuinty and Tory before moving to what he'd do, with specifics, I like that. Six commitments you can count on. I don't like the third-person referral though.

7:57pm: Dalton thanks the other two leaders, classy, and focuses on the progrress he has made and his plan moving forward. We've come a loing way. I like it.

7:58pm: John says it's a clear choice. Says why he's there, but no specifics on what he'd do. Leadership, blah blah. Doesn't say anything specific, but at least it's positive.

8:00pm: Pakin signs off, says hopefully you found it useful. I have my doubts.

Final thoughts: No knock-out punches that I could see. Tory continued with his harsh negativity, at least in debates that's expected. Howard seemed fine, I liked some of his policies but there's no way he could ever pay for everything he'd like to do. Dalton did well for being attacked on both sides all night. He tried to strike a line between humility and pride in the record. I thought he was a bit too stat heavy at times. And I'm shocked, shocked, that I don't recall him saying the name Mike Haris. He talked about “the conservative record” enough, why not say Harris? It was so striking it had to be a strategic decision.

Anyway, not an overly exciting hour and a half, but these things rarely are. At least no one made any stupid-ass promises like a constitutional amendment never to use the notwithstanding clause.

Time for me to rustle-up some dinner. Live blogging complete.

8:18pm: Except for a brief update because something just occured to me: no one ever mentioned MMP, or the referendum. I mean, really, a question on recall legislation but nothing on the very real referendum on electoral reform? What up with that? I could see Dalton and John, not bringing it up, but why not Howard? And why not Steve Pakin?

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

A few weekend Ontario polls

It's the weekend but the Ontario election campaign seems to be starting to heat-up.

Watching television on Friday I was teated to a barrage of political advertising. A few positive ads from the Liberals with Dalton McGuinty talking issues, and a raft of Conservative ads (actually, the same ad again and again I think) with the sound of breaking glass detailing Liberal broken promises, and blaming McGuinty for every crime committed in the past four years. And the kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby too possibly.

So, I still don't know what John Tory stands for, besides Liberals bad, free booze in casinos, and creationism if necessary, but not necessarily creationism. Really though, while I think the Cons are crossing the line somewhat on the crime front in this ad, their radio ads and their earned media, this tv ad isn't bad. The breaking glass sound serves to draw attention to the TV while cooking dinner, much like the horn honk in the federal Con ads last election.

I wonder though, while the Tory Conservatives continue their campaign to drive down McGuinty's favourables and the Liberal numbers, which is certainly something they have to do, at what point do they start working to define Tory, and what he's all about. Right now, they seem to be positioning him as simply “Not Dalton.” While they keep trying to give people reasons not to vote Liberal, at some point are they going to try to give people reasons to vote Conservative?

Polls

Anyway, a couple of polls hit my inbox this weekend I thought I'd pass along, take from them what you will.

Religious schools

The first is from our friends at SES, who surveyed 501 respondents in Ontario via telephone between August 24^th and August 26^th on Tory's proposal to bring faith-based schools into the public system. It should be noted Tory's creationism gaffe occurred Sept. 5, and thus wouldn't have been a factor in these numbers.

The survey found Ontarians divided on the proposal with 50 per cent opposed/somewhat opposed and 43 per cent in support/somewhat support. SES noted the intensity of those opposed was greater than the intensity of those supportive, which I'd conjecture means those opposed are more likely to base their vote on the issue. After the creationism gaffe, not good news for Tory.

Here's the exact question they asked, and the results:

Question: As you may know the Ontario PC Party has proposed bringing faith based schools into the public school system. Faith based schools which choose to participate in this program would receive direct funding from the provincial government on the condition they incorporate the Ontario Common Curriculum, participate in Ontario's standardized testing program and ensure teachers maintain proper credentials. Do you support, somewhat support somewhat oppose or oppose bringing faith based schools into the public system?

Support/Oppose (N=501, MOE ± 4.4%, 19 times out of 20)
Support 28%
Somewhat support 15%
Somewhat oppose 10%
Oppose 40%
Unsure 8%

Issues and the horse race

The second poll is from Ipsos Reid and looks at both the ballot box issues and the horse race numbers, including regional breakdowns. The poll surveyed 800 Ontarioins by telephone between Sept. 4 and Sept. 13, which means any impact of the creationism gaffe should be visible here.

Issues

Let's look at the ballot box issues first, the issue respondents said is or could motivate their vote:

...four in ten (43%) identify education/faith-based school funding of the top three issues (for nearly one quarter (23%) of Ontarians it’s the number one motivator), followed by healthcare (41%) as one of the top three campaign issues for them, with Taxes (19%) and the environment (18%) in a dead heat for the third issue (all issues identified were unaided, open-ended responses, allowing up to three with the primary identified separately)

That the top issue is religious education is interesting, particularly when considered with SES's point about the intensity of those opposed to this issue being greater. Tory has made this an issue, if he hadn't it wouldn't be on the radar screen, and yet the issue seems to be working against him. One has to question his strategic decision here to go big on faith based education, creationism gaffe or not.

The number two issue, but only narrowly back from top spot, is health care. This is an issue the Liberals feel well positioned on with the progress they've made in recent years, and it's one McGuinty and Co. have been campaigning on, as well as strongly on education this past week.

The fact taxes are so far back at 19 per cent has to be troubling for Tory. If he'd spent more time on taxes and less on religious schools it would be higher, and I'd have to wager the Liberals are more vulnerable on taxes than they are on religious schools/education. A change in emphasis might be in order for the Cons to raise the importance of this issue higher. They've been hitting hard on criminal justice this week but it's only at seven per cent and another of their issues, integrity/trust, is at just six per cent.

Horse race

On to the horse race numbers. Ipsos characterizes the numbers as stagnant, which would seem to indicate the creationism incident didn't hurt (or help) Tory's numbers. Indeed, the numbers among decided voters stayed pretty much the same from the last Ipsos poll:

Liberals: 40 per cent (-1)
Conservatives: 37 per cent (+1)
NDP: 16 per cent (-1)
Greens: 6 per cent (-)
Undecideds: 6 per cent or 9 per cent (they say both in different places)

In chart form:


Looking regionally it's very tight as well, although there have been some shifts. In the GTA it's Liberals 40 (-2), Cons 38 (+2), NDP 15 (-1) but within the 416 proper there was some interesting movement. The Libs still lead with 39 per cent but that's down 5 over the week, while the Cons gained 6 to move to 33 per cent. The NDP dropped 2, to 21 per cent. In the 905 its Cons 42, Libs 40 and NDP 10.

Moving outside the GTA the Libs have a slim lead. It's Libs 40, Cons 36 and NDP 17, little changed from last week.

Seat projections

Finally, though perhaps most interestingly, Ipsos has also done seat projections based on an aggregate of recent polls. Not to besmirch the good folks at Ipsos, but I find these exercises to be a bit of voodoo science, so take it with a grain of salt.

They're projecting however a slim Liberal majority (54 seats needed). Here's how:

Liberals: 56 seats (42 solid, 14 leaning)
Conservatives: 39 seats (28 solid, 11 leaning)
NDP: 12 seats (9 solid and three leaning)

Open this pdf and they break down their projections riding by riding but again, as I said, huge grain of salt, and even Ipsos says expect big changes here by E-Day.

I found this note from Ipsos interesting:

A majority (51%) of Ontarians believe that it is ‘time for another provincial political party to take over’, however four in ten (40%) believe that ‘McGuinty has done a good job and deserves to be re-elected’—instructive given that a mirrored 40% of the vote would likely yield, as noted above, a slim re-elected Liberal majority government.

If I were an MMP supporter (I'm undecided at the moment) I'd seize on those numbers.

MMP

Speaking of MMP, odd that SES and Ipsos both didn't mention the referendum. BigCityLib has an Angus Reid poll (pdf) that does. While Scott points-out it's an online poll (which are frought with issues) the results aren't good for MMP supporters:

The poll also asked Ontarians to voice their views on the referendum on electoral reform, which will take place on the same day as the legislative ballot. A third of respondents (33%) would keep the existing first-past-the-post electoral system, while 26 per cent would switch to the alternative mixed-member-proportional system. Three per cent of respondents would not participate on this plebiscite, and 38 per cent remain undecided.

Since the pro-side needs to get to 60 per cent or the status quo remains, as BCL points out if there numbers are accurate that's a long hill to climb.

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers