The day began with a somewhat bummerish poll proclaiming Ontario Lib Premier to be in "minority territory", capturing a mere 40 per cent of the popular vote against the Tory Tories 35 per cent, and facing a slightly resurgent NDP and Green Party.
The day ended with a promise (backed by Ontario's first balanced budged in gawd knows how long, announced over the weekend) to upload almost a $1,000,000,000 worth of the crap Mike Harris dumped on Ontario's cities during his black reign in the 1990s.
Putting partisanship aside momentarily (because I don't think Dalton deserves another majority), you've got to think things are breaking the government's way. I would have figured the poll hit over Collegate would have been much larger, but no, and unless something new churns up, the effect of this mini-scandal has already been baked in to the final result.
As Jeff pointed out this morning, one thing about having fixed election dates is you know exactly when the vote will occur and, if you're the government, you can calculate precisely when and where to distribute the free candy. In this case--depending on how the distribution of funds works out--McGuinty has bought off David Miller and Toronto City Council.
Add to this the fact that John Tory is just another white guy in a suit, and we've already got one of those running the province, and you're looking at a strong McGuinty Minority or perhaps even another Majority.
break out the butter.
ReplyDeleteDulton is toast.
Kinsella is the kiss of death.
hmmm.... $1 billion over 4 years.... and doesn't even upload all of the services. How much more suffering will Ontario's municipalities have to go through before Mr. McGuinty will upload the whole shot. At least Howard Hampton has had the nerve to say he'll deal with the problems now, not 4 to God knows how many years from now. If Dalton thinks he can keep solving problems with quarter and half-solutions, he must really think that people's expectations are just that low. It looks like it's going to take until October 10th for him to realize that you can't dish our multi-billions in promises, have a $2.3 billion dollar surplus, and then turn around and say to municipalities that they don't have the money to pay for the complete upload of these services.
ReplyDeleteAnd you don't say that you will fix the Harris faulty school funding formula in 2010, after saying a liberal government will fix it in 2003.
ReplyDeleteReally, been there and done this one before - not!
Moonbat Jan strikes again.
ReplyDeleteTry to make sense, dear.
McGuinty: Worst. Premier. Ever.
ReplyDeleteHoward Hampton, much like myself, can have the nerve to say whatever he likes for the simple reason that there is no chance of us ever having to make good on our promises.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes - people's expectations from government are pretty low. McGuinty has the advantage of being the least bad of a sorry lot and a caucus/potential cabinet that doesn't make me want to shriek in horror like John Tory.
McGuinty won't get my enthusiastic vote, but he'll get my vote, nevertheless.
The NDP simply does not know how to deal with the corporatists who will martial against them when they take power...that's what happened to Bob Rae (in part...the internecine warfare didn't help either). Dippers end up looking like deer caught in the head-lights, when what they should be doing is calling for re-education camps for CEO's.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame them, but it doesn't inspire confidence. Good intentions can only go so far.