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rfmcdonaldUnless something surprising happens, I've decided. In the June 2014 Ontario election, I as a voter in the riding of Davenport will vote for the Liberal candidate, Cristina Martins.
James Bow wrote earlier this weekend about how the Liberals, for all their flaws, seem less bad than their competitors the Conservatives.
As for the NDP, the judgement of Andrea Horwath in calling for an election undermines the party's credibility for me.
I'll be voting Liberal because the Liberal Party, as a brand, is the least bad of the three options out there. Kathleen Wynne has done just good enough a job of leading her party, and her government, for the Liberals to get my vote.
What do you think about this all? How are you going to vote, if you're an Ontarian? How would you vote, if you aren't an Ontarian? Can we hope, one day, that we'll be able to vote for political parties not because they're the least bad but because they're the best? Or am I making much ado about nothing and assuming unreasonable things about democracy in Ontario?
Discuss.
James Bow wrote earlier this weekend about how the Liberals, for all their flaws, seem less bad than their competitors the Conservatives.
One of them is Tim Hudak’s Conservatives, that are basing their campaign on a promise to use tax cuts and harrowing reductions in regulations (such as shutting down the Ontario College of Trades) to create a million jobs.
Or, are they? Soon after Hudak announced this very sexy round number, economists have come forward questioning the math. The most serious allegation is that Hudak’s team counted person-years of work rather than actual jobs, over an eight year period. Most people would assume that created jobs are permanent and multi-year, but under Hudak’s original math, a person who gets a job at the start of Hudak’s plan for eight years hasn’t worked one job, he or she has worked eight. Rather than a million jobs plan, Hudak’s team appears to have brought forward something closer to a 125,000 jobs plan.
This would seem to be a pretty open and shut case. Numbers are numbers. Either Hudak and his team counted person-years as jobs, or they haven’t. Many, many economists have said that they have, and most of these economists appear to be non-partisan. The one economist who has defended Hudak’s plan as a million jobs plan is the guy who supplied the original numbers, who is not exactly impartial when it comes to handling criticism.
But Hudak is sticking to his guns, and this is a problem. If Hudak’s team has made a mistake, I would have a lot more respect for Hudak if he owned up to that mistake, altered his plan, corrected his behaviour, and moved on. That’s how decent people should behave in all things. That’s how accountability is supposed to work.
If Hudak refuses to accept responsibility for his mistakes, just as he refused to accept responsibility for by-election losses (blaming the unions, instead), how is he likely to behave as Premier when his government’s mistakes start hurting Ontarians in their pocketbooks?
As for the NDP, the judgement of Andrea Horwath in calling for an election undermines the party's credibility for me.
I'll be voting Liberal because the Liberal Party, as a brand, is the least bad of the three options out there. Kathleen Wynne has done just good enough a job of leading her party, and her government, for the Liberals to get my vote.
What do you think about this all? How are you going to vote, if you're an Ontarian? How would you vote, if you aren't an Ontarian? Can we hope, one day, that we'll be able to vote for political parties not because they're the least bad but because they're the best? Or am I making much ado about nothing and assuming unreasonable things about democracy in Ontario?
Discuss.
