The Ontario 2018 election thread

[hazard]

It appears to me as quite impossible without convincing enough shareholders to make a majority.

[Labster]

A Hydro One spokesperson said the amount customers pay to compensate the CEO's salary is the same as before privatization — two cents on each monthly bill.

$6,000,000/year / (0.02 $ month/ customer ) / ( 12 month/year ) = 25,000,000 customers. The number seems a little off, but it reminds me how in Office Space those fractions of a cent really add up to some serious cash.

[robkelk]

The writ still hasn't been drawn up, but the attack ads have begun. (You'll see one bit of Canadiana in that article: "drop the writ". Somebody some time ago heard "draw up the writ" as "drop the writ", and that particular eggcorn has been used in Canada ever since - but only for a writ of election.)

The NDP have released their platform.

For people just tuning in: the Progressive Conservatives (PCs) are the right-wing party, and as of this posting the runaway favourites to win the election. The Liberals are the centrist party (Americans would call them left-wing) and the current government. The New Democratic Party (NDP) are the left-wing (even more so than Bernie Sanders). There's also a Green party; if they do well enough to send even one representative to Queen's Park, I'd be surprised.

[robkelk]

The PCs have promised people earning minimum wage will get an income tax credit. The Liberals and NDP have promised to raise the minimum wage $1/hour.

CBC has done the math.

[robkelk]

We finally have a point for debate!

Ontario's corporate tax rate is the lowest in Canada.

• The PCs want to lower the corporate income tax rate. (Doug Ford's family owns a reasonably large corporation; when asked whether he'd benefit, he dodged the question by saying he'd be taking a pay cut by becoming Premier.)
  
• The Liberals want to leave it as-is.
  
• The NDP want to raise it.
  
• The Greens want to raise it, but lower the employer's contribution to the provincial health plan (which covers everyone in Ontario).
  

It's a graduated scale, depending on how much profit the company makes. Nobody wants to touch the corporate tax rate for the first half-million dollars of profit, so this only affects big business.

[robkelk]

Doug Ford doesn't like supervised injection sites - he'd rather see the resources go toward drug rehabilitation.

Which makes sense to me. Treat the cause, not the symptoms.

[hazard]

The thing is, supervised injection sites are an excellent way to get in contact with drug addicts so you can start on rehabilitation.

Addiction is not something you can reasonably treat by just tossing people into isolation without a source of their addiction. You need to convince them to want to cut back on their drug use, or to drop it entirely.

[robkelk]

Fake News - on purpose.

Ford isn't letting actual reporters ride the campaign bus, but he's brought along his own interviewer.

---

.
ProPublica wants to know what political ads are appearing on Facebook

[hazard]

Forcing advertisers to tell you what they are advertising is usually a good idea.

[robkelk]

Forcing advertisers to tell you what they are advertising is usually a good idea.

Forcing advertisers to tell you they are advertisers is also usually a good idea.

---

It's 31 days before the election, and CBC Toronto has started a daily news roundup for the campaign, including a daily snapshot of how well the three major parties are doing in the polls.

The Campaigner - May 7

[robkelk]

The Campaigner - May 8: "Ford and Wynne like each other's smiles"

There was a televised debate yesterday evening. (I was driving, so I didn't get to see it.) Ford complemented the current premier on her smile; after a moment of surprise, she extended the same compliment to him. And from what I've heard, that was as polite as the debate got.

Details on the debate here. Only the leaders of parties with representatives in Parliament were asked to participate, which means the Green Party and the Trillium Party didn't get to take part. (Fun fact: The trillium is the official flower of Ontario.) Of the thre parties that did take part, the right-wing and centrist parties each dropped in the polls after the debate, while the left-wing party rose in the polls by as many points as the other two lost combined. This may have been because the NDP's leader stayed on-topic instead of attacking the other leaders, which we can't say about the other two.

Parliament will be dissolved at 2pm tomorrow, when the writ of election will be signed, officially starting the election campaign.

[robkelk]

Liberal candidate plays to an outdated stereotype on his webpage, gets flack for it

Conservative candidate hires actors to pretend to be party supporters at yesterday's leaders' debate

[robkelk]

I suppose it had to happen eventually...

The None of the Above Party is running candidates in some ridings (not the one I live in, though - at least, not yet).

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 9 - the election is officially on.

Poll Tracker aggregates current and previous poll results. Updated daily.

---

EDIT:
The Campaigner, May 10 - NDP moves ahead of Liberals in the polls; Ford cuts short a press conference after being asked whether he knows how a bill becomes law

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 11 - Ford shifts his attention to the NDP, now that they're polling higher than the Liberals.

And there was a leaders' debate in Parry Sound this morning, where they focused on issues of interest to Northern Ontario. (And Ford still likes Wynne's smile - video here.) I'm not begrudging Northern Ontario voters a dedicated leaders' debate; I'm just puzzled why they held it in Parry Sound. (As a comparison, that's like holding a debate about issues of interest to northern New York State in Poughkeepsie - sure, it's north of the really big city, but it's hardly in the northern part of the province.)

[robkelk]

I have been remiss at keeping this up to date...

The Campaigner, May 12 - Ford still likes Wynne's smile.

The Campaigner, May 13 - Ford takes Sunday off to play bingo, Wynne is surprised that reporters didn't ask any questions at her campaign stop, and Howarth gets her hair pulled by a youngster. A quiet Sunday on the campaign trail.

The Campaigner, May 14 - The Green Party releases its platform. The Liberals and NDP accuse each other of not being able to do basic math, and the NDP reject the suggestion that they and the Liberals form a coalition government if the PCs win a minority.

The Campaigner, May 15 - It's all about power. Electricity, to be specific. "Doug Ford showed up at a hydro rally for 6 minutes. Plus the memes are now going after Horwath too." The memes are things like "you won't even need to pay taxes" to qualify for welfare under an NDP government - never mind that this is the current state of affairs. (If you earn enough to pay taxes, you earn too much to qualify for welfare. Somebody's scaring people with the threat of business-as-usual.)

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 16 - "Wynne doesn't mind being the underdog". Which is good, because if the election was held today and the polls are correct, the Liberals would have 2 seats, far behind the NDP's 38 and the PC's 84. (According to Polltracker.)

The NDP is out-polling the Liberals, Greens, and all the smaller parties combined... but they're still 10 points behind the PCs.

Oh, and all three of the major party leaders are campaigning in the Greater Toronto Area today.

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 17 - "Doug Ford doesn't have a platform yet — but he does have a campaign song". A song titled "For the People", which is a nice American phrase. Somebody should remind Ford that we fought the War of 1812 in part to be not-Americans. (Oh, and the last time a party in Ontario wrote a campaign song, they were voted out of office.)

Oh, and Ford attended a fundraiser after securing his nomination - a no-no under Ontario election rules.

"We have been made aware that the Leader was misinformed by the organizer about the nature of the event," said Ford campaign spokesperson Melissa Lantsman.

The capitalization of "Leader" was in the original quote.

And an opinion piece: Ontario's election is the cruellest game of 'Would you rather?' imaginable. "Would you rather vote for the incompetent incumbent, the profligate wildcard, or the fake fiscal conservative?" Somebody needs to remind Robyn Urback that there are more than three parties running.

[hazard]

"For the People" is also a common authoritarian sentiment, left and right both. Looks to me that Ford is running on being 'nebulously useful' the way the Party for Freedom is here in the Netherlands, don't have a platform to defend (except for the xenophobia and general disgruntlement with politics in the case of the PVV) and make a lot of promises about how you'll make things better without explaining how.

[DHBirr]

"We have been made aware that the Leader was misinformed by the organizer about the nature of the event," said Ford campaign spokesperson Melissa Lantsman.

The capitalization of "Leader" was in the original quote.

Well, that doesn't bring up any unpleasant implications at all.  Il Duce, Der Führer, El Caudillo ... I'd say Ford is following in the goosesteps of "some very fine people"!

*****
“We’ve had our differences, but he’s seen the light … and I made sure he moved toward it, instead of coming back.”

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 18 - the PC candidate for Brampton East steps down amid allegations of customer data theft from the company that runs the toll highway through Toronto. The NDP asks Elections Ontario to investigate whether the data was used in the PCs campaign.

The Campaigner, May 19 - "Horwath writes off Wynne: The choice is Doug Ford or me". Meanwhile, the PCs promise to let corner stores sell beer and wine. (Currently, one has to go to the Beer Store for beer, the LCBO for wine, or a very small number of large grocery stores for a small selection of both.)

[robkelk]

No Campaigner for May 20. Must have been because it was the middle of a three-day weekend.

The Campaigner, May 21 - "Kathleen Wynne's Liberals calling out NDP's 'major math mistake'". But what's $1.4 billion? (The NDP budgeted a $700 million liability as an asset. They admit the error but won't be changing their platform, instead continuing with deficit budgets for longer than expected.)

The Campaigner, May 22 - "Horwath doubles down — and says a new premier is coming" Considering that the incumbent is currently polling at a 0.4% chance of winning the most seats, this prediction is what we in Canada call a "no-brainer".

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 23 - When candidates ask the party leader to stay away, you know the party's in trouble. In this case, the party is the centrist Liberals.

The Campaigner, May 24 - Scandals steal the campaign spotlight.

And remember when I started this thread I mentioned that nobody thought the left-wing party had a chance to win? Well, that was then. CBC Analysis: Ontario's NDP must face the cruel economic realities of government: Don Pittis. "As polls point to a possible New Democrat win, pie-in-the-sky economics just won't cut it"

Two weeks before election day, and the PCs are the only major party who still haven't published a fuly-costed platform. Ford says he'll release one, but won't say when. (The Liberals released their platform as a pre-election budget, as is usual for incumbent parties in Canada.)

See where the party leaders have been campaigning - and where they haven't.

[robkelk]

The Campaigner, May 25 - Wynne isn't giving up yet.

The left-wing party passed the centrist party in popularity back on May 8. They passed the right-wing party in popularity today. (Of course, if raw popularity was all that mattered, Clinton would have defeated Trump in 2016.)

Advance polls are open, for those unable or too busy to vote on election day.

Remember:

• If you don't show up at the voting station, you're counted as too lazy to vote.
  
• If you spoil your ballot, you're counted as too stupid to know how to vote.
  
• If you decline your ballot (yes, it's legal in Ontario), you're counted as choosing "none of the above".
  

[hazard]

I always find it strange that there might be such a thing as 'too lazy to vote.' I mean, not everyone Dutchman or woman votes, vote turnout tends to be between 70 and 80 percent, but practically every elementary school has a couple of ballot boxes and is open from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening at minimum. And elementary schools in the Netherlands are everywhere there's people living, the nearest ballot is pointed out to you on the voting card that's mailed to you a month ahead of time that you need to show to be allowed to cast your vote there and it's legal to authorize someone else to vote on your behalf, there's a short form to fill out on the voting card just in case.

Just to highlight how many elementary schools there are; where I'm living now there's 3 of them within 500 meters of my home. The residential zone I was raised? There's [b]at least[b] 5 of them within 1.5 kilometers from my parents' home. On a cursory search.