[LINK] Two happy news items on future ideological conflicts in Ontario

[rfmcdonald]

Both of these come from the Toronto Star--left of centre, if you're wondering.

First comes "Mayor threatens to sic ‘Ford Nation’ on McGuinty", by David Rider and Rob Ferguson Staff.

Mayor Rob Ford is threatening Premier Dalton McGuinty with an uprising of “Ford Nation” to vote him out of office if Queen’s Park doesn’t give Toronto more money.

Ford issued the threat Wednesday, two days after the Star revealed that late last month Ford sent McGuinty a request for $153 million in funding for specific projects, plus half the TTC’s annual $429 million operating budget.

McGuinty shot down the request as soon as it became public, saying the province’s top priority in its budget later this month will be taming the deficit.

Ford told Newstalk 1010 that he hasn’t spoken directly to McGuinty about the request for more money for roads ($48.3 million), public transit ($89 million), child care subsidies ($11.5 million) and a new Fort York visitor centre ($5 million).

“If (McGuinty) says no, obviously there’s a provincial election coming up on Oct. 6 and I want to work with him, not against him,” Ford said.

“But obviously if he’s not helping out the city then I have no choice but to work against him, but I don’t want to do that ...

“I don’t blame other levels of government, if it’s a federal or a provincial government. We take care of our own backyard first and if I need help from the province or the feds, then I’ll ask for their help.

“If they choose not to help us, then I have no other choice but to get out, as I call it, Ford Nation, and make sure they’re not re-elected in the next election. But I do not want to do that.”

The mayor’s political staff have privately used the phrase “Ford Nation” — a riff on hockey fans’ Leaf Nation — to refer to diehard Ford supporters who last October propelled the penny-pinching Etobicoke councillor into the mayor’s chair.

Next? "Tories say Wisconsin's drastic solutions are not for Ontario", by Robert Benzie.

Could it happen in Ontario?

An energetic 43-year-old conservative leader inheriting a daunting budget shortfall from an aging two-term liberal predecessor as the economy gingerly emerges from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Confronted with a structural deficit, but ideologically opposed to raising taxes, the ambitious rookie pushes radical changes to labour laws, curbing unionized workers’ rights to collective bargaining and forcing deep cuts to public services.

Not Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, who polls suggest could topple Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, 55, in the Oct. 6 Ontario election, but Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

“Too many politicians have failed to tell the truth about our financial crisis,” Walker declared in a budget speech that sent shock waves across the U.S. as thousands of protesters rallied outside the statehouse.

“Wisconsin is broke and it’s time to start paying our bills today, so our kids are not stuck with even bigger bills tomorrow,” said the governor, who roars around his state on a locally made Harley-Davidson Road King and has sparked much buzz since succeeding retired Democrat Jim Doyle, 65, on Jan. 3.

Walker’s two-year, $59.2 billion budget slashed $1.5 billion from schools and municipalities — while freezing property taxes for Wisconsin’s 5.6 million residents — to tackle a projected $3.6 billion deficit by 2013.

Ontario, with a population of 13.2 million, has a projected $18.7 billion shortfall on a one-year spending plan of $125.6 billion for 2010-11.

While Hudak, born one day before Walker on Nov. 1 1967, routinely expresses alarm at how Ontario’s public-sector job creation outpaces private-sector growth, he’s cool to the need for Wisconsin-style restraint.

“Ontario is a very different place than others in the world. There’s no doubt there are issues that are (having an impact) across our country making sure we spend within the ability of people to pay,” he said Wednesday at Queen’s Park.

Hudak does hint at the need for labour reform, charging “arbitrators thumb their nose” at taxpayers by imposing lucrative settlements for unionized workers.

But senior Tories insist nothing drastic is looming on that front.

“Ontarians have not given us permission to reform health-care and education, so we are simply not going there,” said one top insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of respect for the party’s policy platform committee, whose work will not be public until spring.

“It’s just Liberal spin that we would,” said the official, noting Hudak, who prefers his Chevy Avalanche pickup to a Harley, is the son of two teachers and the grandson of a union organizer.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, however, points out the Ontario Tories looked to Wisconsin for policy inspiration in 1995 when Mike Harris, Hudak’s friend and political mentor, was elected premier.

At that time, Harris borrowed much of then-Republican governor Tommy Thompson’s controversial workfare scheme to reduce welfare rolls in Ontario by forcing able-bodied recipients into training programs or jobs.

Twitch?