Maude Tells Canadians To Eat Cake And Like It!

Extreme Lefty Maude Barlow weighs in on our health care system under the guise of the "Council for Canadians", a lefty think tank...as if they ever think!

Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians says the federal government should commit to a 10-year health transfer plan with the provinces that would see a six per cent increase in funding annually.
"At the moment, the Harper government is only committed to 2016, so we are very concerned that they have no intention of carrying it beyond that," Barlow told a news conference Thursday.
Barlow added that the Canada Health Act must be better enforced so that it's used to stop private health care services from eroding the system.
Barlow also wants to see health care coverage include dental care, pharmacare and continuing care.

Hello Maude, 2016!!! This is 2011, and the lefties are already worried about 2016? Oh my God, can they get anymore irrelevant? Stop private health care services, right Maude? Didn't Saint Jack use private health care services? Answer that one honestly if you can. 

Maude has spoken. All hail socialists and their lack of concern for the actual people who use our health care system. Maude tells Canadians to eat cake and like it!

Instead of demanding more money for our failing health system, why not spend that money to support our doctors and nurses by allowing them the freedom to provide both public and private services? 

Let's take hip replacements as an example. My doctor gets the operating room in the hospital one morning a month, so he can only book a few hip replacements. The rest of the time, he is evaluating patients in his office and putting them on a wait list. His skills are being seriously underused and his nurses could be given more responsibilities in the evaluation process. 

Now, allow private health care. My doctor can set up an operating room in his office and offer hip replacements for a fee. He will still be required to do hip replacements at the hospital once a month as usual. His skills can be used everyday, and his nurses will be more involved in the whole process. Those who can not pay extra are still added to his wait list for the hospital once a month, but the list will be way shorter because those who choose to pay will not be on the list anymore.

Is that to hard for lefties to understand? Dentists perform surgeries in their offices everyday. Why can they do that and not other doctors? Lefties freak out when they think someone else is getting better care than they might, unless they are Saint Jack and then it's okay for him to use private health care because he was so precious to their cause. Maude should run for the NDP, she is their next Saint....oh I forgot the NDP are mainly a godless lot.  

A mix of public and private health care is the only solution, but the lefties will have to be dragged crying and screaming into the brave new world of efficient health care, not the Tommy Douglas, sterilize handicapped people type of health care. And they accuse Conservatives of not being open to change? HA!

"If being a grumpy old man makes you an expert"

Didn't Jack Layton promise after the election to bring a new level of decorum to the House of Commons? Didn't Jack Layton proclaim that Canadians don't like insults? Weren't NDP MPs wearing "civility" buttons at the beginning of the first session in June?  Perhaps Megan Leslie did not get the civility memo, after today she started a question with "if being a grumpy old man makes you an expert" before being cut off. That's pretty classy coming from a party that has accused the Conservatives of "ageism" for criticizing the youth and inexperience of the new Dippers in caucus. By NDP standards discriminatory "ageism" only applies to comments against young people, not older people. It is okay if the target is a "grumpy old man", but try to say that a University student lacks the experience for elected office and suddenly you've committed a despicable act of age based discrimination.

It certainly seems of late that Megan Leslie is getting more face time than NDP leader Nycole Turmel.

NDP MPs Require Help With Oh Canada Lyrics

Tonight CTV's Lisa LaFlamme Tweeted @LisaLaFlammeCTV "Just watched HoC vid of NDP MP's using cheatsheets to sing the National Anthem. Wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it. We'll air at 11." Isn't that sweet, members of our official opposition require assistance to sing Oh Canada. I'm not quite as shocked as Lisa LaFlamme. Can anyone really be surprised? Patriotism has never struck me as a strong suit of the Dippers. Maybe it isn't fair to poke fun at them at them for needing cheat sheets; it isn't like their caucus is fully bilingual and knows how to sing the English version. Their leader can barely speak English and often has to read from a script to ask questions in the House.

Today's poll question: do you know the lyrics to our national anthem? What percentage of Canadians can actually get the words right? There has been polling on this. 62% of French Canadians report that they can sing the french version without effort, so the percentage of francophones who can sing the English version is probably below 50%. The older you are, the more likely you are to know the lyrics. 77% of Canadian born respondents said they knew the words. 64% of foreign born Canadians knew the words. Immigrants report to have better anthem knowledge than francophone Canadians.

When I'm at events and our anthem comes on, I just shut up and listen instead of singing, but I do hold the song in reverence.

Ontario ranks 49th of 60 North American jurisdictions in economic freedom

So many of us have bought into the myth that governments create jobs in the private sector, even governments themselves have come to believe it. In the United States, President Barack Obama claims to have added back 2.6 million private sector jobs as of September 2011; in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty boasts of his government’s job creation record, claiming nearly 300,000 jobs since the last recession.

If one means only public sector jobs, one can credit governments with job creation or job losses, otherwise our political masters should not take or be given either the credit or the blame.

Governments, however, can, and too often do, take actions that cost private sector jobs. Unfortunately for the poor souls residing in the province of Ontario, Premier McGuinty and Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan are past masters at poking their political noses into the province’s economic affairs. Under their leadership, the province has lost its way.

Ontario, once the economic engine of the land, now finds itself on the receiving end of hand-outs from the federal government in the form of equalization payments. Ontario, that is to say, has become a “have-not” province under the Liberal watch. And is it any wonder we have fallen from “have” to “have not” status within the federation?

Ontario ranked fifth among Canadian provinces—and a disappointing 49th when U.S. states are included—in economic freedom, according to a new report released today by the Fraser Institute. The report, Economic Freedom of North America, rates economic freedom on Size of Government, Taxation and Labour Market Freedom. On a ten-point scale, Ontario scored a measly 5.8.

The report shows an interesting contrast between Ontario and British Columbia:

Between 1993 and 2000, economic freedom in British Columbia was growing at a slower pace than that in Ontario at both the all-government and subnational levels. During this period, British Columbia’s economic growth was just 11%, compared to Ontario’s 23%. British Columbia suffered from relatively weak economic freedom growth while Ontario benefited from relatively strong growth. In the most recent ten-year period, 2000 to 2009, economic freedom in British Columbia has increased while Ontario, which had escaped from the bottom 10, has now slipped
back. As economic freedom grew in British Columbia, so did its economy, by 26%; in Ontario, economic freedom declined during this period and the economy grew at just 11%, the lowest rate of growth of all Canadian provinces. [Emphasis mine.]

In further contrast to Ontario’s weak showing, Alberta ranked highest among the 60 North American jurisdictions with a score of 7.9. The three other provinces that outscored Ontario are: Saskatchewan (32nd – 6.5), Newfoundland & Labrador (37th– 6.4) and British Columbia (43rd– 6.1).

Ontario’s mediocre record is significant because there is a direct correlation between economic freedom and prosperity of citizens. According to the report, the North American jurisdictions having the highest levels of economic freedom had an average per capita GDP of $54,435, which compares vary favourably to the average per capita GDP of $40,229 in the lowest-ranked jurisdictions.

Ontario is failing because of its government policies. Among provinces with high levels of economic freedom there is a commitment to low taxes, small government and flexible labour markets. These are the conditions that foster job creation and greater opportunities for economic growth. Ontario leads in none of these critical areas.

Moreover, Ontario is one of five provinces that have shown declines in economic freedom between 2000 and 2009. And more’s the pity for with the premier depending on Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats to keep his job over the next couple of years, economic freedom in Ontario is not likely to increase any time soon.

Staying the current course and maintaining low levels of economic freedom will see Ontario residents experience lower standards of living and reduced opportunities.

The really sad part is that the Grits probably do get it and understand only too well the mess they’ve made. But they lack the wits to make the necessary changes without losing their precious jobs and perks and those of their cronies.

 

 

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or posi­tions of political parties, institutions or organi­zations with which I am associated.

Hudak ready to pull plug on McGuinty’s government?

Ontario’s Liberal minority Parliament is hardly settled in and already Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak is threatening to pull the plug on them. Apparently, Dalton McGuinty “shot down” Mr. Hudak’s ideas for a public-sector wage freeze and a reformed apprenticeship system, and this triggered the threat and a fundraising letter to PC supporters calling for support.

From where I sit, this looks too much like an empty threat intended only to fire up the PC base and, perhaps, collect a few bucks for the party coffers. Unfortunately, it will take more than good ideas and brave words to defeat the Grits. On what topic and on what timing would there be a meeting of minds between the PCs and Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats?

If there is such an issue, it’ll have to be a bigger one than the charging of HST on home heating bills. Any such vote is not likely to be one of confidence in the government, so win or lose the Grits will remain in power.

And, frankly, I don’t see the Grits putting anything in their next couple of annual budgets that will give the opposition something to rally round and vote the Liberals down.

Furthermore, can any of the three parties really afford another election in the next 24 months or so? Surely they need at least that much time to build up their war chests. Though the thought of listening to these guys huffing and puffing at one another for the next two years is a dismal one.

My advice would be to sheathe sabres and dispense with the empty threats. Take the fight to the committee rooms at Queen’s Park, there to influence Liberal legislation as best as can be done.

Liberals will be in a bind:

On one hand they have to rein in spending or see the budget deficit grow out of control. That’ll be hard to sell in the next election. On the other hand, spending restraint will be tough for public sector unions to swallow and that might dampen their support for the Grits in a future return to the polls.

The Queen’s Park Liberals are a spent force; in 18 months, they’ll be wanting to do almost anything to stay in office. At that point, they’ll likely turn first to the Dippers for help, and the resulting compromise legislation will sink them in the next election—probably Oct. 2015.

 

 

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or posi­tions of political parties, institutions or organi­zations with which I am associated.

Ibbitson: Blame Tories For Martin's F-Bomb Tirade

According to the Globe's John Ibbitson, NDP MP Pat Martin's F-Bomb tirade was justifiable considering the Tories management of the Parliamentary agenda. As the headline goes, "NDP profanity marks Parliament’s hastened decline under Tories". As Ibby puts it, the tweets were "in poor taste. But he makes an important point." The theory goes that given how the Tories have handled debate in Parliament, we should expect opposition MPs to express frustration. If you have to drop a few F-Bombs to get people's attention, then you gotta do what you gotta do. Maybe it is in poor taste, but you have to make an important point, right? Can you really blame Pat Martin for being frustrated with the Conservatives, who have been limiting (though not eliminating) debate in order to speed up their parliamentary agenda to fulfill election promises?

How much more debate exactly are we supposed to have regarding the gun registry? Parliament and the media have already dedicated thousands of hours of televised debate on this subject. The Tories campaigned on scrapping it, and they were elected to a majority. Should we shut down the rest of the Parliamentary agenda to rehash a debate that we've already had nationally? It is called fulfilling election promises, not justification for temper tantrums.

That's just my opinion. Today's poll question; are the Tories responsible for Pat Martin's F-Bomb tirade?

NDP Pat Martin tells Twitter users “F--- you” and to “Eat my shorts.”

There’s a lot being written about Winnipeg MP Pat Martin’s use of foul language in a Twitter outburst over several Tweets (details here, here and here, if you missed the story). Wouldn’t you think a New Democrat front-bencher would understand that at least 25-30% of his Twitter followers would be offended by the use of such language.

It saddens me to see that normal discourse has deteriorated to the point that gratuitous use in a public forum of synonyms for fornication and human excrement is now acceptable, especially when used by a member of parliament.

I suppose we should pity the dolts among us who apparently lack the wits to express themselves without resorting to four-letter-words referring to sex or excrement.

Or perhaps the feelings of 25-30% of Canadians who find profanity distasteful is of little importance to Mr. Martin. But, wait: Isn’t that about the same level of support the NDP gets in a national election and boasts how popular they are?

 

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or posi­tions of political parties, institutions or organi­zations with which I am associated.

Megan Leslie Goes To Washington

The NDP has sent their environment critic to Washington with the purpose of lobbying to kill the Keystone pipeline. Normally I'd be a little miffed to have a far leftist down in the USA claiming to speak on behalf of Canada, but I did get a good laugh from her interview on Power Play Wednesday. She hasn't actually been able to change any minds, and her most profound "observation" is how many people she's met who are shocked that there are any Canadians who care about the environment. While I can't produce an itinerary of the people she's meeting with and talking to, the majority of those people seem to think our entire country is hell bent on destroying the planet. She did meet with Nancy Pelosi's office. That much she confirmed today.

To any Americans out there reading this, Megan Leslie speaks for a far left party in Canada, not the majority. The majority of us do indeed yearn to destroy planet Earth...

(ps: that's sarcasm by the way)

Megan Leslie could become Prime Minister of Canada, if only she spoke French. That's so sad that she doesn't...

Tories don’t quite beat the in-and-out rap

The Conservative Party’s dispute with Elections Canada over what has been dubbed the “In and out scandal” has been settled with the Conservatives paying a $50,000 fine and admitting to technical breaches of election spending rules. And charges against Conservative Senators Irving Gerstein and Doug Finley, and party officers Mike Donison and Susan Kehoe of wilfully violating party spending limits have been dropped.

So much for, a “scandal” that at least one Liberal blogger promised would be:

…a story of massive proportion. If it should turn out that they did break the Canada Elections Act, it would be, by far, the largest political scandal in Canadian history. … if the allegations are proven, it could result in the deregistration of the Conservative Party of Canada and the liquidation of its assets.

Once again, we see Liberal hyperbole for what it is: partisan hokum with more fizzle than sizzle.

The Tory election spending scheme was discussed by a panel on Sunday’s Question Period on the CTV network. Neither of the co-hosts, Craig Oliver nor Kevin Newman had the good graces or journalistic objectivity to remind viewers that the issue was a technical breach of election law rather than a “scandal.” After all, the Conservative Party’s position was upheld in an earlier court decision suggesting that Elections Canada had overstepped its mandate, a ruling that was later overturned on appeal. So the issue was never as clear cut as many in the media or the opposition would have us believe.

In fact, it is quite well known that opposition parties have in the past successfully used similar interpretations of election law. And it’s disingenuous of their spokespersons to pretend otherwise, to say nothing of what is says about Question Period’s co-hosts, Craig Oliver and Kevin Newman. Near the end of their discussion of the “scandal”—after spending several minutes trashing the Conservative Party—Kevin Newman did mention that Robin Sears, senior partner with the PR, lobbying and public opinion research firm Navigator Ltd. and former NDP national campaign director, had said on CTV’s Power Play (link here to see Sears at about the 3:30 mark) that other parties had been doing this sort of thing all along.

In a March 2008 report, The Hill Times quoted Mr. Sears as follows:

I piss off all my Liberal and NDP friends when I say this but you know, I’m sorry guys this is a little bit like a piano player in a brothel saying, ‘I had no idea what was going on upstairs.’ As early as the late 1970s, early 1980s when I was involved, we would regularly move money from ridings that were close to their limit and had more money that [sic] they needed and were willing to be helpful in return for whatever kind of political kudos, to ridings where we thought we had prospects in and had less money, or money from the centre to poorer ridings, or money from richer ridings to the centre. All the parties have done that since the Elections Expenses Act was created and probably going back to Sir John A. Macdonald.

I do not think that Elections Canada has been even-handed in its handling of this case. Consider the media frenzy when they had the RCMP assist them in a raid of Tory party offices in April 2008, with TV cameras, reporters and opposition party members looking on. Apparently, Elections Canada decided to make an example and they have succeeded.

This stands in sharp contrast to the leeway Elections Canada has allowed to the 2006 Liberal leadership candidates (from the convention that elected Stéphane Dion) who had outstanding campaign loans for years after they received them. Their deadline was extended last year to the end of 2011, some five years and three new Liberal Party leaders since they incurred the loans for their campaigns.

The really bad news here is at the expense of the hapless Liberal Party whose spokespersons tried valiantly to make a big deal of this issue. Its Interim Leader Bob Rae finds himself in charge of what is still the reigning champion of Canadian political party corruption: remember the Sponsorship Scandal?

The in-and-out practice falls in a grey zone of elections law and can be confusing—obviously, it “confused” the court that originally found in favour of the Tories. I’m glad to see it resolved and the loophole closed.

 

 

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or posi­tions of political parties, institutions or organi­zations with which I am associated.

NDP "Whisper Campaign" Against Tom Mulcair?

Thomas Mulcair loves a good conspiracy theory. Now he believes that he's the victim of a "whisper campaign" among his NDP colleagues speculating that he has a bad temper. There is allegedly a "movement" against his leadership bid coming from within, and he's not happy about it! Is the source of this smear campaign "the front runner" Brian Topp? As Mulcair puts it, that's for the membership to decide. Considering he's being accused of having a bad temper, he certainly comes off as aggravated in the interview with left wing journalist Barbara Yaffe. (an aside: you might remember Barbara Yaffe from her op-ed in Nov 2009 fawning over the hiring of Donolo to run Ignatieff's campaign. As she put it, "he will almost certainly make a huge difference to Ignatieff's fortunes as leader." How did that work out Barb?)

Anyway, back to Mulcair. My advice to him is to relax. The NDP is a party currently built on the inherent likability of their leader. Coming off as "angry man" isn't going to deter the "whispers" coming from within his own party. That being said, as a Tory I will take pleasure in watching the NDP infighting over the drive to replace Layton.

Stay calm Tommy boy...

Corporation, Unions, And Political Contributions

Today's poll question; should corporations and unions be allowed to make political donations and run advertising during election campaigns? You may have noticed in recent years that many major unions in Canada have been spending a lot of money on advertisements espousing NDP and other left wing positions. This allows the Dippers to flood the airwaves with friendly words promoting their policies and attacking the government without counting towards legal spending limits. In Ontario the "working families coalition" (aka CUPE) put more money and effort into re-electing Dalton McGuinty than Dalton did! They wanted to keep the gravy train rolling, and it was worth their while to spend  millions of dollars making it happen.

Unions are becoming very politically active, or perhaps they've always been and I'm just noticing it more as I grow older. Peggy Nash is the biggest union cheerleader in the NDP leadership race, and she was on TV yesterday saying that if you are not in a union, you're probably struggling to get by financially. I'm not sure that we need more electoral law when we already have several laws that are outdated and should be scrapped. They were discussing this "political contribution" issue on the radio yesterday as I was driving to work, so I figured it was at least worth a poll question. Corporations were included in the poll question because reasonably, you can't deny one and permit the other. It is all or none.

NDP Leadership Race Getting Crowded

The number of people who have joined the NDP leadership race is now up to 8 with the addition of labour activist Peggy Nash. There are many heavy hitters within the party that are now vying for the top job, which also means that they are giving up their critics portfolios. That means no questions in Question Period, not joining panels on political shows while they campaign to replace Jack. Now that the A team is invested in a leadership race, the B and C team is being elevated to the top speaking positions. Having Nycole Turmel struggle to speak English is already a negative, throwing the rookies into the fire is not going to work out well for the NDP.

I will be VERY interested to watch the NDP leadership debates. I really really really want to listen to this cast of characters debate among themselves what should be the priorities of the party. Mulcair wants to move the party farther away from unions, and I can only imagine that Peggy Nash will have something to say about that. Those are the moments you want to record and save for future playback...

NDP Using Occupy Protests To Justify Higher Taxes

It is becoming clear why the leading NDP leadership hopeful came out so quickly to support the Occupy protests, because it is going to become his corner stone to justify increased taxation. It is the same reason that CUPE is paying to bus its membership to the protests, to keep taxes high so there's plenty of money to go around when it comes time to extort a better deal. If Brian Topp wants to run for office promising to raise taxes, have fun with that. In Canada the top 1% cutoff is around $180K per year. If his policy is to raise income taxes on the top 10%, you'll have many unionized workers taking a hit. He's going to find this tough sledding.

The problem for Topp is that the income gap is substantially smaller in Canada than the United States, despite what Topp said Friday on CTV news. He just kept blaming Conservatives, never mentioning the Obama administration, and then made the ridiculous claim that we have a larger income disparity. That's just not true. There's no reason for Occupy protesters to gather in downtown Vancouver banks because there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Canadian banks. Ours received no bailouts because they didn't need them. There were no CEOs getting fat bonus checks financed by tax payers. The Occupy Canada protests are coming from the same clowns who rioted at the G20 Summit and orchestrated those silly anti-prorogation protests.

NDP Leadership Candidate Proposing Joint Nominations

At least one NDP leadership hopeful is proposing that the Liberals and NDP join forces in the next election to nominate a single opposition candidate in Conservative ridings. The goal is to maximize the probability of defeating Stephen Harper without actually officially merging the two parties. The downside being that it would decrease the probability of either the Liberals or the NDP winning a majority government, likely resulting in the need for a power sharing agreement in a minority government situation. If the Liberals run 220 candidates instead of 308, it will be more difficult to win 155 seats (70% of Liberals would have to win their seats to win a majority).

So are the Liberals going to diminish their probability of winning a majority just to remove Stephen Harper from power? It's plausible, and will be debated when the Liberals finally get around to beginning their own leadership race. Will it happen? I'm not convinced, but a limited non compete would be the first stop on the road to a merger.

Harper fulfills election pledge to end federal per-vote subsidy

On iPOLITICS insight this morning, I saw an opinion piece by professor of Law at the University of Ottawa, Errol Mendes, Harper aims to financially suffocate opposition parties. I would have thought a university professor would have had a more balanced view of the change in how federal parties receive public funding.

The professor uses supercharged terms and phrases like “stealth democracy” and “one of the most damaging attacks on Canadian democracy” to describe our Prime Minister’s follow-through on his election promise to phase out the federal per-vote subsidy over about three years. Or, as Prof. Mendes puts it, “… he [PM Harper] has used his majority muscle to initiate the slow elimination of the public subsidy of political parties”

In a display of twisted logic, we’re told:

“It must not be forgotten that the merged Reform and Conservative Parties built up their huge election war chest through high numbers of individual contributions over a much longer period than just two years.”

So what? Were the other parties asleep during that time? How has the Conservative party gained an unfair advantage over its opposition because it had members who believed enough in its message to contribute to it financially?

Here are some salient points not made by the professor.

To start with, the Conservatives made it very clear in the last election campaign that they would end the per-vote subsidy by phasing it out. So how could any reasonable person see this as “stealth democracy.” Far from being done with “stealth,” it is being done with a clear mandate for the people of Canada who endorsed the proposed initiative and the Tories last May.

From late 2008 all opposition parties have know—or should have known—the Tories would end the per-vote subsidy. They said they would do it in a fiscal update tabled in the Commons in November 2008. So, by the time the phasing out ends in 2014, all federal parties will have had between five and six years to get their financial houses in order.

Parties have had equal opportunity to obtain members and to solicit funds from them. The New Democrats, for example, have the entire Canadian trade union movement supporting them. Unionized public sector and auto-industry workers, for example, have significant levels of disposable income and can easily afford to make additional tax-deductible donations to that party—only pennies a day from each one would more than cover the NDP’s shortfall caused by the loss of the per-vote subsidy.

As to the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, their massive loss of voters in the last election had by far the most damaging effect on their future finances. Even had the vote-subsidy remained in place, the Bloc Québécois would have seen their funding take an enormous hit, what with the loss of number of votes used in the calculation of the subsidy and the loss of official party status in the House of Commons, significantly reducing their money for research and staff.

Moreover, the Liberals have been the governing party for more years than any of the others and had as much opportunity as the Tories—some will claim they, as the government in power, had far more—to build up their war chest through individual contributions. That they chose not to do so is no one’s fault but their own. And their supporters should not be whining about that failure now, and pretending they have somehow been victims of unfair Tory practices.

The Green Party ran a full set of candidates in several recent elections, and in the last election it managed to garner less than four per cent of the national vote and elect only a single member. Since their founding in the early 1980s, they have set Canadian records for futility at the polls. And during the Green Party’s almost 30 years of existence, the Reform Party was founded from scratch; gained status as the official opposition; out-grew the entrenched Progressive Conservatives before later absorbing them; and formed the government of Canada after each of the last three general elections.

Given their show of ineptness, how does it help Canadian democracy to have a Green Party? Why should its repeated failure be rewarded by taxpayers? If Greens want to indulge themselves in such futility, let their own members pay their way. One might conclude it is access to the public subsidy that has made the Greens so fat and complacent that they have become the party that can’t.

Finally, federal parties have only to collect $2.00 a year from each of their voters—about $0.55 a day—to make up the loss of the subsidy. Should political parties that cannot attract a critical mass of paying members and supporters be kept on financial life-support by the general public? I say, no, they should be allowed to wither on the political vine.

 

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© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

McKenna wins her spurs

The following is a re-print of my weekly column at Our Burlington online newspaper.

The philosopher-lawyer Joseph de Maistres famously said, “Every country has the government it deserves.” And so, I might add, does every Canadian province. Maistre’s words were on my mind when I went to bed early this [Friday] morning while contemplating Jane McKenna’s and Ted Chudleigh’s victories for the Progressive Conservatives here in Burlington, which helped the opposition parties keep the Liberals from a three-peat majority.

I’m in Jane McKenna’s Burlington riding and that was the race I keyed on throughout the weeks leading up to Oct.6. McKenna won handily taking the riding with about 40% of the ballots cast. Liberal candidate Karmel Sakran got a respectable 36% and NDP Peggy Russell received almost 19% of the votes.

Given Burlington’s voting history over the past several decades, the election was McKenna’s to lose, and the Liberals certainly seemed to believe they had a candidate with the stuff to spoil the Tory record. Unfortunately for the Grits, their candidate ran a lackluster campaign. I still shudder as I recall the image of Karmel Sakran slavishly reading verbatim—head-down and droning on in a monotone—from his briefing notes as he answered questions at the recent Chambers of Commerce all-candidate session. If Sakran expressed an original thought the entire morning, I missed it. Peggy Russell, though, ran an excellent campaign, keying in on local issues and emphasizing her political experience. But Burling is not a riding to give an NDP candidate much of a look.

From where I stood, Jane McKenna spent a good deal of her time knocking on doors trying to meet as many voters as she could, even at the expense of attending group meetings where the media would see more of her. Her strategy worked: she didn’t play to the media, she played to the voters—and she won.

Progressives have asked this question in various forms: How has voting Tory helped Burlington? PCs like me respond with: How has a Liberal government at Queen’s Park helped Burlington—before the recent election goodies were tossed our way?

Progressives may also want to ask the residents of nearby Caledonia just how much Burlingtonians should depend on Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal party. And how about this quote from the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2008:

“At too many hospitals, infection control is given about as much attention as ‘a lump of sod on the front lawn,’ complains a frustrated infection control specialist.

“Dr. Michael Gardam has investigated Clostridium difficile outbreaks that led to deaths at 4 Ontario hospitals, including the recent highly publicized case of 62 patient deaths at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington, Ontario.”

That was on the Liberals’ watch, and during the term their candidate served on the hospital’s board.

If the current seat-count holds and the Liberals are denied a majority, they’ll have to put a bit of water in their wine and that will have to do for now. Burlington won last night, for the election campaign forced the Liberals to finally give our hospital much needed funding for its expansion—something no other Liberal government has ever done, and they’ve been in power for about 13 of the past 26 years and all of the last eight. It also forced the Liberals to abandon their plan to pave over a significant portion of our escarpment.

And I am pleased that, in Jane McKenna, we will have an energetic, quick-learner representing us at Queen’s Park—someone who has shrugged off a past failure at the polls and shown she can win when it really counts. She’ll be there to hold Grit toes to the fire.

I offer my thanks to all candidates for running, and wish Jane all the best as she embarks on her term in the legislature.

 

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© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

McGuinty gets the hat-trick

 

Dalton McGuinty, Andrea Horwath and Tim Hudak at their Sep. 27, 2011 televised debate.

| Peter J. Thompson/National Post

 

The fat lady sang loud and clear, but she wasn’t singing a tune to which the Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak would care to tap his toe. Current and future Liberal premier, Dalton McGuinty, won a strong minority, missing the big prize by a single seat—doesn’t get closer than that. Here’s the preliminary results compared to my predictions:

	LIB	PC	NDP	GREEN
Vote	37.6%	35.4%	22.7%	2.9%
My prediction	39%	34%	21%	3%

Looks like I got lucky with my guesses and came within a reasonable margin of error. As I wrote when I made them, I had felt the Liberals were surging above 41% in support—strong majority territory—and the NDP were moving into the mid-twenties. This would have left Tim Hudak’s PCs about where they finished under John Tory’s leadership, 31%.

By election day, however, I was sensing some pull-back from the brink on the part of some right-leaning Liberals (yes such a species does exist), denying Dalton McGuinty his three-peat majority.

Only a little over 2 points separate the Grits from the Tories in percentage of votes cast—enough to make me wonder how the Progressive Conservative campaign might have turned out had we not been weighed down by Hudak’s reference to immigrants as “foreigners”, and had more of a what-I’ll-do-for-you emphasis and less don’t-vote-for-the-taxman negativism.

Back in July-August, polls were suggesting Tim Hudak held an 11-point lead and could win a majority. McGuinty and his experienced team, though, showed the rookie PC leader a trick or too about running an effective political campaign. The PCs’ backroom guys and gals took one on the chin. Let’s hope they’ll lose some of their centric I-know-best arrogance in time for the next campaign. We have 107 local ridings, and we need to harness more of their knowledge of local issues, their energy and resourcefulness—and, yes, their election expertise.

Both Hudak and Horwath won their home ridings handily and improved their parties’ seat-counts enough to earn those leaders another shot in four years or so. I predict that whichever of the pair build the strongest grassroots organization from the riding level on up, will win when next we go to the polls. McGuinty was mauled (lost 17 seats) yesterday, next time he’ll be ripe for the knock-out punch.

Too early for a final tally, of course, but early statistics suggest this election had one of lowest turnouts—perhaps the lowest ever. Ontario has roughly 8.5-million eligible voters, of whom only about 4.1-million (48%) seemed to have cast a ballot. This is especially disappointing considering the increased advanced polling and the fine weather we enjoyed on voting day. Ontario citizens seem far more concerned with rights and than with obligations. But I digress.

A big shout-out to all the candidates across the province who put their lives and families on hold so they could help lead us in this precious opportunity to engage in democracy. Thank you all.

 

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© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Ontario election: my guess on how they’ll finish tonight

 

My general sense of the just-concluded Ontario election campaign is that the race got tighter at the end and that Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals will barely eke out a majority or finish with a big minority, easily kept in power by Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats—at the urging of the powerful public service unions, her real masters—for, at least, 30 months and maybe for the full four-year term.

Recently, I felt the Liberals were surging above 41% in support—strong majority territory—and the NDP were moving into the mid-twenties. This would have left Tim Hudak’s PCs about where they finished under John Tory’s leadership, 31%. But today I’m more optimistic about the PCs’ chances and less bullish about both the Grits and the Dippers.

A lot depends on the vote-split between the right of the NDP (is there such a thing?) and the left of the Liberals, of course, and whether these splits come in ridings in which the PCs have a chance of benefitting from a strong NDP showing. My guess is the Tories will benefit somewhat, but not enough to upset the Grits—just enough to put a bit of a spoiler on their victory celebration.

So, with crystal ball firmly clutched in both hands, I offer this prediction for tonight:

Liberals at around 39%, Progressive Conservative around 34%, NDP at about 21% (maybe a tad higher) and the Greens at around 3% of the vote. I also predict a fairly low voter-turnout, somewhat less that 55% of eligible voters.

I’m terrible at seat projections—too many variables—but, just for fun, I’ll put some numbers up so you can tell me how wrong I was: Liberals: 53–56, PCs: 30–35 NDP: 18–22 seats.

There’s room for a long-shot minority victory by Hudak, but even so, since I can’t see either the NDP or the Liberals allowing him to form a government, it really will be McGuinty’s night one way or another.

 

 

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Will vote-splitting and getting out the Tory vote be enough to save Hudak?

The Dalton McGuinty Liberals seem poised to “three-peat” in tomorrow’s election. Some polls show them in majority territory and none have the Progressive Conservatives in the lead. PC leader Tim Hudak needs something akin to a miracle to put him in office.

Some PC supporters take solace from the fact Tories have an excellent record of delivering their votes on election day. And, of course, the strong New Democrat showing is likely to split-off some Liberal voters. But will those factors be enough to give the PCs a last-minute reprieve? I fear they will be too little too late.

The shame of it is the PCs once held a comfortable 11-point lead on Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, but a new Ipsos poll reported in the National Post today suggests McGuinty—with 41% support from voters—will win his third majority in a row. Not only is McGuinty’s party leading, but it is pulling away and now finds itself in majority territory.

Mr. Hudak’s PCs trail by 10 points at 31% and Andrea Horwath’s New Democratic Party is in third place with 25% support.

Should the trend suggested by this poll hold through the next 36 hours, the collapse of the Hudak campaign will virtually duplicate the sorry effort of John Tory’s 2007 team, when that brain-trust managed only 31.6% of the popular vote—about where the Tories are one day before this election.

For those interested in the technicalities of the survey: the poll of 1,020 adults for The Ottawa Citizen was conducted Sept. 30–Oct. 3 and has a margin of error of 3.1%.

 

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© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

In Burlington the PCs offer the best choice on Oct. 6

Those of us living in Ontario get a chance to exercise our franchise in the provincial general election on Thursday, Oct. 6. By all accounts, the race is between Dalton McGuinty’s ruling Liberals and Progressive Conservatives led by Tim Hudak, assuming no late “orange crush” from the rejuvenated New Democrats and their popular leader, Andrea Horwath.

My local riding, Burlington, has an interesting race underway. After the retirement of incumbent PC Joyce Savoline, the seat has opened up and could be lost to the PCs for the first time since 1943. The race here is mainly between local businesswoman Jane McKenna running as the PC candidate and Liberal candidate Karmel Sakran a lawyer, though, with vote-splitting, the New Democrat Peggy Russell could be a dark horse set for a run up the middle.

One local pundit asks, “Will you vote for the party or the person?” And suggests, “If you decide at this point that you will vote for the party no matter what—well then you’re some kind of an idiot or at best an irresponsible citizen.”

I agree with him, but only to a point. For my money, when there is no clear-cut “best person” running in a riding, and the other party has made a cock up of the economy over its eight-year term, wouldn’t one have to be our pundit’s “idiot or at best an irresponsible citizen” if one voted for a particular candidate just because she/he was not running for the Progressive Conservative Party? Well, perhaps not an idiot, but I think you get my point.

For many in Ontario, this election is an anybody-but-the-PCs campaign. This is clearly the case with the teachers’ unions and with the various powerful, rich public sector unions and other diehard leftists. And, with due respect, I believe it’s the point of view of the pundit I quoted above.

So I ask myself, why not vote PC in Burlington?

The PC party’s candidates have held the Burlington riding in its various configurations since the 1943, and during that time the town, later the city, has grown and prospered. Since the mid-eighties (a 26-year span), the PCs have only been in government for about eight years, so local candidates were handicapped in obtaining funding and other benefits for the city.

There are two main election issues in Burlington: a new highway the Liberal government was considering that would have cut across the city’s section of the Niagara Escarpment; and provincial funding for the expansion of Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital (JBMH).

As to the highway: all parties agree it will not be built across Burlington’s escarpment. The anybody-but-the-PCs crowd would have us believe otherwise, but both the local PC candidate and PC leader Tim Hudak have made their position clear on this file.

So we can safely vote PC on this one.

As to funding for the hospital. The hospital desperately needs to expand, but lacks the funds. Apparently, one floor is closed because it also lacks funds to keep it open. So who do we blame?

Do we blame the incumbent MPP who is in opposition? Or is the fault with the Liberal government that has been in office for about half of the last 26 years, and all of the past eight years? It is the Grit politicians who hold the purse strings, not the bureaucrats. No number of telephone calls and badgering of bureaucrats by an opposition MPP will get you anything unless their Liberal political masters give their OK. And apparently Burlington and our hospital wasn’t one of their priorities.

By the way, JBMH opened in 1961 (under a PC government) and doubled in size in 1971 (under a PC government). It made internal renovations in 1993 (under an NDP government) and a minor expansion occurred and 2001 (under a PC government). Where were the Liberals? For Burlington’s hospital, they’ve always been missing in action.

And, by the way, where were the Liberals when a 20-month-long outbreak of C. difficile led to 62 deaths at JBMH in 2006–07. Our pundit says, “The hospital got so run down and so difficult to keep clean that it had a serious C.difficile outbreak that resulted in the loss of more than 90 lives. That kind of funding failure in any community is criminal.”

Let’s be absolutely clear: cleaning standards, or lack thereof, led to the C.difficile crisis at JBMH. A responsible CEO and board would have closed the facility if the governing Liberals were not giving them enough funds to keep the place clean. What sort of people would have risked our lives like that? People died under a Liberal government watch, and, with respect, trying to blame an opposition party MPP for not “deliver[ing] for the community” just doesn’t cut it on this file.

But I do agree, “That kind of funding failure in any community is criminal.” So why hasn’t someone from the Liberal government gone to jail?

So on this file too, I’ll vote PC and not the do-nothing-for-our-hospital Liberals.

In summary, PC candidate, Jane McKenna has given clear, unambiguous support for Burlington’s two major issues in this election, convincing me that (a) while the mid-peninsula highway is important to Ontario’s future economy, it will not be crossing Burlington’s section of the fragile Niagara Escarpment; and (b) Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital will receive provincial funding for its expansion project, should the PCs gain power.

By the way, for the Liberal candidate to keep insisting the PCs may not carry through with funding is morally reprehensible—after all, it’s a bit rich coming from the Liberals whose record for breaking election promises is second to none.

So I voted PC and hope you readers who live in the Burlington riding will do the same.

 

 

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.
 
The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.