A Brief Comment by Doug Draper
Well, hallelujah. The sun rose over an Ontario this September 7 that is continuing to keep Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in a minority government vice grip.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty fails to win back a majority to push his cost-cutting agenda forward.
Thanks to an NDP win in one of two September 6 by-elections in the ridings of Kitchener-Waterloo and Vaughan, McGuinty has been deprived of a majority government he claims he needs to push forward a cost-cutting agenda that is already putting the boots to funding for the homeless and is threatening to hurt more services for people on low and fixed incomes.
McGuinty needed to win both ridings to get back the majority he lost in last year’s general election and he has only managed to hold on to the seat in Vaughan. The blow to his majority ambitions came this September 6 in Kitchener-Waterloo with an NDP win that may be just as much of a blow to the Conservative Party leadership of Tim Hudak.
The Kitchener-Waterloo riding was held for more than two decades by Conservative MPP Elizabeth Witmer, a former Mike Harris cabinet minister who quit elected politics earlier this year to accept a McGuinty invitation to serve as chairwoman of the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. The failure of the Conservatives to hold the riding reportedly already has some inside the party questioning Hudak’s leadership which was already coming under scrutiny when the Conservatives saw their early lead in last year’s general election completely evaporate by voting day.
There is also some speculation coming out of NDP win in the Kitchener-Waterloo riding that the public is siding with public school teachers unions in a bid by the McGuinty Liberals to freeze teachers’ wages for two years and cut some of their benefits. Yet the NDP win here might have just as much to do with what polls for more than a year have been showing as a growing attractiveness of the party’s policies and its leader Andrea Horwath for voters.
It could be that many Ontario residents do not like the way McGuinty is now going about trying to control the salaries and benefits of teachers (after eight years of giving teachers virtually everything they wanted), but it doesn’t necessarily follow that a majority of Ontario taxpayers support continued generous pay hikes for teachers and other public sector employees during tough economic times in a province that is many billions of dollars in debt.
Certainly in the days and weeks ahead, the parties and pundits will continue putting their own spin on the results of these two by-elections. However, the results are interpreted, the good news is that a McGuinty government that paid little regard to the concerns of citizens when it has come to health care, environmental protection, hydro rates and a host of other issues when it had a majority, has been deprived of winning a majority again.
For that reason alone, the real winner of these by-elections is the people of Ontario.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post, remembering that NAL only posts comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
The right to collective bargaining is guaranteed and protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The cons, with their back to work legislation for Air Canada, Canada Post, and CNR, and now the libs with their legislation to freeze teacher wages, and ban lockouts and strikes, are infringing on those rights. Fortunately, there is still a political price for these egregious assaults on unions. Canada is supposed to be a democracy … but that’s another story. Kudos to the NDP!!
LikeLike
The highly educated folks of Kitchener/Waterloo are not buying what Premier Dalton McGuinty is trying to sell. And Tim Hudak ‘s making war on school teachers was a none starter. Dalton’s contrived crisis, about a situation that did not yet exist blew up in his face and he met his Waterloo. The voters are wary of both senior parties at this point of time. Tim Hudak needs to find out what the voters want to buy because they don’t like what he is selling. We are Ontario not Alberta, and he should try to emulate Bill Davis and not the Mike Harris approach to good government. Hudak needs an advisor that can save Tim from himself.
LikeLike
Many citizens took part in the K-W by-election campaign to prevent a liberal or conservative being elected in this staged coup attempt and it is nice to see that the mobilization was successful.
LikeLike
The way I see it, both Tim McGuinty and Dalton Hudak need to show they really are leaders by falling on their swords, taking the full blame for their losses and going off quietly into the good night!
Oh … did I get the names wrong? Does it matter? McGuinty is trying to out-Hudak Hudak by scapegoating teachers. He actually grabbed a full page out of the Harris playbook (which was written by Hudak’s wife) and tried to create a crisis in education where none existed!
The real crisis in Ontario today is the fiscal and social mess the Liberals, under McGuinty have created!
And choosing the NDP isn’t much of an option. They are no different now than they were when Bob Rae was the leader that led them to victory. More than half of the caucus brainpower is in one head – Andrea Horwath’s. I don’t think the rest of the caucus together can come up with a complete brain!
Ontario is screwed!
LikeLike
I must respond to Mr.Taliano and his claims that civil service negotiating rights are being violated. Ontario taxpayers are fed up with the steady stream of wage and benefit increases that have occurred since the Liberals took office way back in 2001. In these days of “union power” there are no negotiations, there are only ultimatums and strike votes and ultimately work stoppages that greatly affect those who are paying their salaries. McGuinty’s inability to manage the vast financial resources of this province are evident but he made it crystal clear to all public service unions months ago that money is not available for increases until he gets his fiscal house in order. Therefore he must circumvent the right to negotiation until the unions realize the money pot is empty and the status quo cannot continue.
I might add that if this were private sector negotiations they should be allowed full rights to price themselves out of a job like thousands have done before them but public service unions do not have the right to shut down the province in order to get their way.
LikeLike
Will
I guess we “all” have our own ideals concern\ing what is right and wrong in this so called DEMOCRACTIC, CANADA and I myself have basically been black balled for articles I have written that supposedly infringed on the rights of a “Conservative” writer (to the Media) an individual who basically infringes on “our” rights by insinuating that “ALL” NDP elected people with the exception of Andrea are totally brain dead or unable to govern anything greater than a “ONE” car FUneral??????? What this infers is that “ALL” Ontarians who voted for the NDP are, as youi stated, “BRAINLESS nincopoops.
I have always been wary of the leadership of the Ontario PCs as well as the Liberal and the people who support their corporate agenda and Yes I even think of these people as Rommey minded where each Man/Woman think only of themselves, not the collective rights and welfare of all Ontarians, and all Canadians in a social framework.
NOW WE WILL SEE IF THIS GETS PRINTED?????
A Note from Niagara At Large – NAL is a non-partisan news and commentary site that welcomes a diversity of views from partisans and non-partisans alike. Any suggestion that this site censors comments from NDP supporters or individuals with left-leaning views ignores the record of news and commentary posted here.
LikeLike
Joseph, I would never say brainless. There definitely is a tendency of not being able to “see the forest for the trees” on a lot of issues. I also think the NDP party takes advantage of their supporters by advocating for them on many issues, but never having to ever implement any of their ideas.
Can you honestly say that the economy would be more sound in Ontario if the NDP were running he province for the last 10 years?
LikeLike
The Conservative/liberal status quo of using taxpayer money to bail our corporations can not be sustained. The money must go the people, not to tax havens, or P3 arrangements or other inefficient corporate schemes. Health care funding is being reduced while war plane funding is being increased. Taxpayers DID NOT vote for that. Nor do they approve of electoral fraud, repressive Charter violations and on and on.
LikeLike
The money is there, but the priorities are wrong:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/governments-forgone-income
LikeLike
Mr. Shannon, unions are the current government scapegoats. Eventually, governments will run out of scapegoats. Unions, and the 99%, did not create our financial mess. Government economic mismanagement did. Since the cons came to power, the trade balance has gone from a $26 billion surplus to a $50 billion deficit. Another record for the con regime.
LikeLike