On Keeping Ms. Wynne As OLP Leader

This is from an email from Ontario Proud, who may be a PCPO front group:

And it's true.  I cannot see a party led by some coup leader doing better than the current leader. As for recent polls, McGuinty was down 15% back in 2011, which is similar to today's numbers after inflation.  And if politics was the UFC I would say that the OLP is good fighting on their backs. They can find Patrick Brown's weakness, and submit him.

Remember that line from Beowulf : Luck, Often Enough, Will Find A Man If His Courage Holds.

Federal NDPer Defects To OLP

OTTAWA — One of the federal NDP’s former rising stars has decided she wants to run for the provincial Liberals in Ontario.

Good luck to her.  And it shows that Wynne's OLP is still attracting talent, so good news for them too whether she wins that nomination or not.

And, yes, she is still hot.

Federal Election: Thanksgiving Dinner Edition

At the in-laws last evening, dinner never really deteriorated into a discussion of federal politics. However, it appears that the choices have been whittled down to CPC vs. LPC, with the NDP falling out of the equation. They're all longtime liberal-leaners, so I suspect when the final decisions are made it will go that way.  More interesting is the fact that one of father in-law's McDonald's friends says he'll bring PCPO leader Patrick Brown down to a local McDs one day for a chat.  I've put in a call to the Premier's office, to see if Kathleen is willing to come around and clean father in-law's eaves-troughs.  Or at least send around a minister or two to rake his back yard.  You gotta work for folks, or they'll turn on you.

Ontario To Canada: You Owe Us, You Ungrateful Pricks

Ontario has subsidized the rest of this frozen craphole of a nation since before the latest generation of carpers and whiners huddled under skins sucking their mama's tit in a Yert outside of Mushaboo.  If Ontario hadn't financed Abasand Oils, Great Canadian, and on and on, Albertans would still be struggling to rise up from the muck and mire, and hunting down mastodons with bone-tipped spears.  If not for Ontario, Newsfies would be eating their belts come the first hard winter, rather than lolling in the arms of the nanny state.  But no.  It's OK.  You don't have to say thank you.  But if things get a little tough here for a few years, suck it up and act Canadian. Alright?

By-Election Analysis And A Look Ahead

Let the NDP crow for a day.  They've earned it.  As for a Spring election, its about as likely/unlikely as it was yesterday morning, which means we'll probably have one.  And as to the likely result, well, Kathleen will be dogged by anti-wind  protesters at her rural events.  Our wild and crazy Ombudsman is launching a new and possibly embarrassing investigation into Hydro One billing.   (Not that that's an unworthy target, but check out the man's twitter-feed from last night:

@Ont_Ombudsman @RobSilver Don't drink and tweet.  Seriously.
— Bigcitylib (@Bigcitylib2) February 14, 2014

...His behavior is, let us just say, unseemly.)  But on the other hand, Tim Hudak still resembles a constipated weasal; his own party hates him and challenges his leadership at every juncture (google "Richard Ciano" and "Tim Hudak"); and his policies are so barbaric as to be judged appalling by a focus group of  cannibal rednecks.

So, for an OLP partisan, you have to be thinking that any Spring election is eminently winnable.

PS. What about Andrea Howath's NDP?  Some folks think they see a wave building.  Maybe.  I'm not noticing anything yet.

Kathleen Wynne Is The Only Adult In The Room

@andreahorwath @rmarchesempp your unwillingness to have #AdultConversation re #UserFees 4 roads led me to cancel my @ontariondp mmbrshp :0(
— Trevor Haché (@trevorhache) May 30, 2013

From The Liberal Scarf:

Hache twice ran for the NDP in Ottawa-Vanier, and as Policy Director for Ecology Ottawa, a major Ottawa-area environmental organization which he was also a founding member of. (In the interest of full disclosure, I also worked for Ecology Ottawa for several months as a fundraising canvasser.)

Horwath moved the ONDP away from promoting public transit and sound environmental policy in the last election when the ONDP platform included a plank to use your tax dollars to subsidize gas prices for big gas guzzling cars. The ONDP's latest move to shows they continue to reject real models for public transit funding, and it'll be interesting to see how the rump environmental wing of the ONDP handles Horwath embracing the Rob Ford position on public transit.

Wynne's  call for "enhanced revenue tools" can be pretty easily mocked as code for higher taxes.  But at the moment she is the only provincial leader who seems to be offering a real solution to what everyone agrees is a real Ontario problem (gridlock around the GTA). The others want to pay for transit by summoning the magic pony.   And down here in T.O. Rob Ford's entire plan for expanding the TTC has been to wait for the magic pony to show up carrying bags full of money.  Mr. Hache's resignation is encouraging in that it suggests that a few politicians out there not named Wynne have realized there is no magic pony.

The New Angus Reid Premier Numbers

Dan Arnold (Calgary Grit) says the most important thing about the Ontario Premier`s number (36% approval) is:

3. A lot of Ontarians still haven’t made up their minds about Kathleen Wynne.

But I think the real story is its noticeably better than the previous Ontario Premier's number (32%). And since the budget will almost certainly pass, our gal`s got clear sailing until 2014.

And, incidentally, here's a picture with both Dan and me in it (as well as Deb Coyne, Omar, Kyle, Scott Tribe, Jennifer Smith, and Bryan Crockett ).

Dan likes to stand in the middle of these pics because he's always the thinnest guy in the room.  That`s me seated far left.

The shot is from here. 

Hudak Tories In Wind Waffle

Lisa Thompson, Tory MPP for Huron-Bruce, introduced the  Ensuring Affordable Energy Act in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.  Its a private member's bill, but everything Thompson has said about it, for example her comments here, suggest that it is now the PCPO's de facto position on the matter.  From the assembly records:

The short title of this bill is the Ensuring Affordable Energy Act, and that’s exactly what this bill will do. This bill states that wind turbines will only be placed in willing host communities and municipalities will be given a full veto. Wind power must be affordable, meaning the cost per kilowatt hour must line up with other sources of generation. The costly Feed-in Tariff, or FIT, program will be eliminated. Municipalities will have the ability to decide whether or not they want to promote wind energy. The Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges moraine will be protected from wind turbines, and municipalities will receive their planning powers for renewable energy back.

What's important to note here is what is NOT in the bill: a moratorium on wind farms  (either permanent, or  until Health Canada reports back on the issue in 2014).  This is a 100 percent climb down from the word Hudak's MPPs were giving out not even three months ago.  Here, for example, is Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton on the topic:

 …we realize that when we make the commitment, we’re not going to build them, if they’re not built. So scrap the 50,000 projects that are in the queue.  We realize that there is going to be a cost, our lawyers have told us that there are opt-out clauses and we sure as hell are going to pay those out because it’s going to be cheaper to pay them out than to honour contracts for 20 years. So we’ve been clear that we will not going ahead with however many projects are left, if we’re fortunate enough to form the next government after the next election. But clearly there will be a cost associated with that, but it will be cheaper to buy them out than to honour them for 20 years.

What's behind the flip-flop?  We can only speculate, of course, but there is the issue of cost.  As noted through the link, unwinding thousands of wind farm contracts would likely cost into the millions.  There is also the fact that the anti-wind forces do not seem to command quite the numbers they used to.  This report, for example, and most reports re the protesters dogging Premier Wynne's tour of rural Ontario, put them at about 80, but its a pretty sad looking 80, and when one of them is wearing a placard that references the Nazi swastika...

...Tim Hudak may be finding them a little easier to ignore than in past.

Kathleen Wynne's Done Good

Full disclosure.  It's A Forum Research poll.  That said, I can't but like the underlying message:

...the Liberals would again win 53 seats in the 107-member house with the Tories taking 36, down from 37 in the most recent election and the NDP with 18, up from 17 in that vote.

One odd (to me) result:

 ...the New Democrats have tapped into one possible election-winning issue: reducing auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent.

Last Friday, Forum polled 1,033 people and found 58 per cent supported Horwath’s plan to trigger a vote if Wynne does not move to cut rates. Less than a third — 33 per cent — disapprove of the NDP threat and 11 per cent didn’t know.

Frankly, the last thing on my mind is auto-insurance rates, and I've always figured I was pretty typical in this regard.  Weirdly enough, the OFL's Sid Ryan seems to have got this one wrong too.  I guess Ms. Horwarth has better populist instincts than either of us. 

Another interesting result from Forum:

As well, 46 per cent support the teachers in their dispute with Queen’s Park compared with 40 per cent backing the government and 12 per cent endorsing neither and 2 per cent not knowing.

Not exactly surprising.  I've heard pro-teacher sentiments from people I'd of thought would be unsympathetic   But it tells you have far we have come from the 1990s when stirring up anti-teacher and more generally anti-union sentiment was a big part of the PCPO's political strategy.  These days Hudak plays the same cards and comes up snake-eyes.

Kathleen Wynne Reaffirms Support For Green Energy Act

Wind turbines for the willing could be part of Ontario's new premier's approach to green energy.

Premier Kathleen Wynne told reporters Thursday her government would not step back from green energy. But she said the voices of towns and residents must be heard as new projects go forward.

"I have made a commitment that, as we go forward, the procurement processes need to take municipal and community input into greater account," she said.

Don't quite know what "community input" amounts to.  You can never appease NIMBYs.  But good to hear nonetheless.

OLPLDR Convention Roundup

Archaic and undemocratic as these delegated convention things are (and may they be gone forever after last night), the Ontario Liberal Party Leadership Convention of January 2013 turned out to be a wildly entertaining ride and, at least for we bloggers in attendance, one helluva good party.

Of course, things didn't go according to the conventional narrative--ie a Sandra Pupatello victory--and that it would not was already becoming apparent after the first ballot, when the vote counts showed Sandra only a fraction of a percentage point ahead of eventual winner Kathleen Wynne.  People soon realized that Gerard Kennedy would prove to be the Queenmaker, and began to wonder where he would take his votes when the time came?  And the answer should have been obvious.  Kathleen and Gerard have known each other for years.  In fact,  I remember Kathleen introducing Gerard Kennedy at Citizens For Local Democracy meetings way back in the day.

Now, as they say, the real work begins.  Kathleen Wynne has a big job ahead selling herself to rural Ontario.  I'm not 100% sure she can do it successfully, and the some of the gestures she has made in that direction are, let us just say, not to my liking.  However, I think she may have more time than people think to make this sale; I am not convinced that the opposition parties will, push comes to shove,  trigger a Spring election.  The NDP is still in debt from last go-round; Tim Hudak is looking at polls showing him behind the NDP.

But whatever, at the end of the day all I really want from the new OLP is the email/cell number of their research guy and whoever they have running their war room. I will be glad to stomp Tories in Kathleen's  name.

PS.  Every leadership convention has its low moments.  Here is a shot of me the moment I realized that my guy was never going to be Premier.

Kathleen Wynne Pitch Speech

Kathleen Wynne's presentation started ominously, with break dancing old people.  Her bio basically cast her as...technocrat is too harsh a term...but someone who has spent time solving problems within "the system".  Tough but caring, maybe like your old high-school principle.

As for the speech itself, there was an acknowledgement that we are on FN territory (though Jeff Jedras thinks we swiped it from them fair and square through a treaty).  She made a FN ref  last night as well, and  has been the only OLDLDR potential to do that.  And a bit later there was an explicit reference to forging better relations with Metis, FN, and some other group I can't remember.  Her way of appealing to Northern Ontario?

A particularly good bit came about the halfway point, when she noted that the Liberals must acknowledge their mistakes "and promise not to make them again", which played to her strong suit--competence.  Her terms as minister of whatever were pretty much scandal free.

And then she dropped the bomb: can a gay woman win in Ontario?  "Not surprisingly, I have an answer to that."  Quite well done. But how will it play in Lanark?

I should say that I remember Kathleen speaking back in the 1990s.  She could be very effective at times, but would often get caught up in bureaucratese or reference some obscure Romanian existentialist.  This performance was far, far above that.  No notes.  No nothing.

Though Charles Sousa had by far the best guest suite last night, I am going to skip his presentation and do a little book shopping.  Will be back for Pupatello, though.

PS. Rumour is he goes to Pupatello after dropping out.

Tough Day For Team Wynne

A couple of flubs-ups from the Wynne campaign in the last 48 hours or so.  Here a letter from her team identifying a supporter of hers as Muslim,  who is not; here a letter in Punjabi sent to a delegate, (I think she is a delegate) who speaks no Punjabi.  Both of these people presumably got the letters they did because they have Muslim/Indian sounding names.  Racial or "ethnic" profiling sounds a bit harsh for what is going on here, but it is certainly awkward, as though I was trying to impress a Chinese guest by serving them Japanese food because I couldn't tell one from the other.

I should say that I originally had my doubts about the provenance of these letters--whether they actually came from the Wynne campaign.  So I emailed this morning and have as yet  received no reply.  Certainly the address on the first letter is one of the ones given out on her website.

Meanwhile this got tossed over the transom earlier:

Not much context of the quote is provided--you don't hear what does drive Kathleen.  However, there is a good possibility that the next OLP leader will be thrown into an Ontario election immediately after having ascended to the Premier's chair.  Therefore it seems to me your message for the OLP leadership campaign must be the same message you will take on the road in any provincial contest.  I don't care if I win isn't that message.

Pupatello And Wynne Support Offshore Wind

Offshore wind should be a slam-dunk.  After all its offshore, way out of sight of any protesting NIMBYs.  So it is good to know that the two front runners in the OLP leadership race have come out in support of the concept. From a North American Wind Power presser:

The good news is that Sandra Pupatello and Kathleen Wynne - two of the front-runners vying to lead Ontario's Liberal Party - both have expressed support for offshore wind. 

It is worth pointing out that these kinds of projects have even less environmental impact than the on-shore variety:

Siting the project further from the shoreline alleviates much of the avian impact, because 93% to 95% of such incidents happen within 1 km of the shore... 

And its also worth pointing out that the purpose, or at least one purpose, of the Green Energy Act was to get Ontario off coal.  If anyone remembers T.O. summers from the late 1980s, you might recall those smog clouds that would float in over the city and hang there for days, until your sweat tasted of chemicals. They're not so frequent anymore, and the McGuinty's government can take some credit for it.

OLP Candidates On Wind Turbines

Didn't like this bit:


Kathleen Wynne is uneasy about the quality of information fuelling the renewable energy debate.

“Where is the evidence and science in making these decisions?” asks Wynne. “I’m not sure there are conclusive arguments on either side of these issues—whether it’s health issues or environmental issues. I want to make sure we are operating on the best evidence possible.”

Actually, the evidence that wind turbines effect Ontario property values is crap; the evidence that their presence has a negative effect on the health of people living close by is crap; and the claim that they are endangering local/migratory bird populations is wildly overstated.

If the next premier wanted to make some possibly useful tweaks to the Green Energy Act, they might look at the advice of their own Environmental Commissioner.   But pandering to NIMBYs gets you 0.  They don't have a problem with the process; they have a problem with the product: wind turbines, spinning infernally, within sight of their retirement properties.

Of the three candidates who offered a response, Sandra Pupatello gave the most full-throated defense of the Green Energy Act which, incidentally, will get this province off coal--the dirtiest fossil fuel of all of them--by the end of 2013.  So good on her.

Go For It

The next premier of Ontario will almost certainly face a spring election.

I like elections.  In fact I don't think we have enough of them.  In fact between elections I like to organize "pick up" elections with my fellow bloggers to pass time until the real ones.  In any case, between now and the Spring I will start camping out at Randy Hillier's Facebook Page and wait for him to say something that sends Tim Hudak into conniptions. It happens, as night follows day.  Also:

In the mean time, jockeying to lead the Liberals is well under way with sources saying Municipal Affairs Minister Kathleen Wynne has retained a campaign manager and will announce her candidacy soon.

Kathleen's my gal.  I remember her from back in the old C4LD days.  She's badass.

PS.  No predictions, but if I had to, I would give Andrea Horwath a better shot at forming the next government than Tim Hudak.  People look at him and think "squirrely".

John Tory: My Principles Are Negotiable

From This Morning's Natty Post:

OTTAWA • John Tory's promise to fund faith-based schools is so unpopular with voters that the Ontario Conservative leader is facing defeat in his own riding.

And, amid buzz that his party is getting ready to suddenly drop that plank from its platform, Mr. Tory has ordered every Conservative candidate in the province to take part in a conference call at 10 a.m. today.

From The Ottawa Citizen, June 9th:

"I think there are some things on which you have to stand on principle and in this case the principle is fairness to people from other faiths," the former cable executive and corporate lawyer said. "I think what we want to do is replicate the experience of the Catholic schools."

Well, at least Dalton waited until he got into office before he started breaking promises.

Of course, this is all rank desperation on Tory's part. For example, he's getting his ass kicked by old C4LDer Kathleen Wynne in his own riding--down fifteen per cent, according to the Post. But I doubt such a massive flip-flop will help at this stage. If John Tory is already a promise breaker, and other than the school funding issue his platform is pretty similar to McGuinty's, why change governments?

I suppose the good news is that John Tory will be free to run as Mayor of Toronto again.