A Commentary by Doug Draper
It could very well be the most important election in Ontario in decades.
That election is expected to be called as early as this coming spring when Tim Hudak’s Conservatives and Andrea Horwath’s NDP finally pull the plug on a floundering minority Liberal government, at which point the stakes could not be higher for young people struggling to get through school and find a job, aging people in need of health care and other social services, and everyone in between.
Tim Hudak, left, and Andrea Horwath – the only two clear choices in an upcoming Ontario election where the stakes will be high for all who live in the province.
So here is a New Year’s resolution I urge everyone of voting age in Ontario to embrace – get engaged, if you are not already, in what is going on in politics in this province, and get engaged now! There is, I will stress again nothing less than our future as individuals, families and communities in this province at stake.
To paraphrase one of my favourite bumper sticker lines; ‘If you are not outraged (at what has been going on in this province for the past 16 years or so of Mike Harris/Dalton McGuinty government), you are not paying attention’. So start paying attention, goddammit. If for no other reason, do it for yourself.
Start paying attention, even if that means going out of your way to get on email lists for policy announcements, etc. from the three parties because we can’t count on the mainstream media to give us all of the we need to make an informed decision come election time.
Start paying attention and you may come to the same conclusion this commentator has already come to, that the choice this time out could not be clearer. The choice includes a Conservative government led by Tim Hudak that is calling for more Mitt Romney-like tax cuts for corporations (which they cast as “job creators”) and for more of a grip on what they call “union bosses” and just about anyone else who impedes unbridled development and profit-making for the upper one per cent. Then there is the NDP led by Andrea Horwath, which has become the voice of moderation and the broader public good that the Liberals once strove to be before outgoing Premier Dalton McGuinty shifted them so far to the right that the former Conservative government of Bill Davis, from the 1970s and early 1080s, looks almost socialist by comparison.
The Liberals, save for a few exceptions like maverick Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor, have turned out to be as right wing as the former Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris and as morally bankrupt as their former federal Liberal Jean Chretien/Paul Martin counterparts in the way they have abused our tax dollars for health care, energy and other matters. One of my New Year’s predictions is that the Ontario Liberals, no matter who they elect as a new leader in the two or three months to come, will suffer a defeat in the next election almost as humiliating as the one the federal Conservatives after Brian Mulroney quit as Canada’s prime minister and leader of his in 1993. I say almost because the once towering Conservative Party was then reduced to two or three seats. I predict that if the Ontario Conservatives and NDP run strong enough candidates in ridings across the province, the Liberals will be reduced from 53 seats out of a total of 107 in the current legislature to somewhere between 10 and 20, and I could be too generous here.
That leaves the Conservatives and NDP and their success will depend, in part, on how many strong candidates they are recruiting to run in Liberal-held ridings across the province – something both parties have been weak at doing over the past two or three elections.
The rest is mostly up to us.
If you are a young person seeking a post-secondary education and a decent-paying job at the end of it, you ought to be looking to these two parties now and finding out from their representatives what they are going to do to lessen the cost burdens of a university or college education, and improve the possibility of a good job at the end of it.
If you are someone with escalating health-care needs or with loved ones in that position, what would these parties do to improve access to quality, affordable health care? In Niagara, what would they do to ensure that people in the middle and south ends of the region have access to quality hospital care given the fact that the Liberals chose to approve the construction of a new hospital in Niagara’s north end and the downsizing of acute care, hospital services in the south?
What would these two parties do to protect decent wages for what is left of the province’s middle class and to protect the quality of our environment for present and future generations? What about steps they would take to protect what are left of our heritage areas – both man-made and natural – and to curtail urban sprawl, regenerate our urban centres and make our communities friendlier for pedestrians and public transit? What about pursuing plans for renewable energy and energy conservation that more people in the province can buy into?
The list of questions could go on and on. Get engaged. Find out who the representatives of the parties are and how to contact them. Start pinning them down on the questions that need to be asked but may not be asked as pointedly as they should be by the lame, mainstream media, and start pinning them down now. The stakes for a healthy, more prosperous future for the communities we live in across this province could not be higher.
(Niagara At Large invites all of you who care and dare to share your first and last name with a comment to submit them for posting below.)
Niagara At Large 
I am afraid the people swallow every piece of lying bait that is thrown in their direction,We have become accustomed to our Premiers telling us whoppers and screwing us, and then we re-elect these scoundrels back into power, The credit rating of our Province is in the dumpster,Dalton hired a hack from the banking sector, to tell him how to run the Province, by adopting this swill we are now in a worse condition than before, This bunch would screw up a one horse funeral.. Tim Hudak really has no answers ,but selling the family silver and give everything to the private sector,,he would kill and roast the goose that lays the golden eggs, which is typical of Conservatives, the Feds are now selling off vast swaths of Canada to the communist Chinese , the hypocrisy here is the Brian Mulroney regime dogma ,was government should not own oil companies so they sold off Petro -Can which no longer puts billions into government coffers, but it OK to let a Communist Government own our oil companies, thus becoming de-facto Chinese Territory within Canada. with their own rules, lack of oversight by our laws and mandates.w
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I am surprised that Tim Hudak has not come out with a demand that all teachers in Ontario be required to have guns in the classroom. That is the sort of ultra-right, redneck southern right-wing Christian thing he usually goes for.
As for the rest of the commentary above, I tend to agree with the assessment that at the moment, only the NDP has any sort of moral ground to stand on.
Doug’s comments about the possible results of the next provincial election are somewhat mild, at least in my estimation.
I think the Liberals will (they certainly should!) have the same sort of drubbing that happened to the provincial Conservatives in New Brunswick back in 1987. The Liberals under Frank McKenna, took all 58 seats in the legislature. I had spent the previous two years working as a reporter at the NB legislature and had recently taken a position with one of the provincial ministries. No one, in the media or in the public service, was surprised by the results.
The same sort of scandals and lack of respect for voters that was displayed by the Conservative government of Richard Hatfield is what I see today with the government of lame-duck McGuinty.
The sooner this province sees the back of that SOB, the better off we will all be.
And, to return to my opening remarks, Tim Hudak and the Conservatives are NOT a viable alternative!
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I recently read of a poll in the Toronto Star that said 42 % of Canadians have limited skills with the English language and barely read or write, That is downright awful proves the dumbing down of our education system, is turning our society into imbeciles and sheep,.great objects for mind control ,by the political parties, this persuades them that they should be comfortable with the status quo.
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Is it too much to ask you to do, if not a daily, then perhaps a weekly commentary to keep the necessity of intense involvement by everyone of voting age at the top of their “must do” lists. I am a firm believer in learning my lines by repetition when I perform. Anyone not wanting to be a participating cast member in this election production needs “extra rehearsing” to grasp the importance of the plot and a reminder that it’s outcome will be something ongoing long enough to actually determine success or failure as well as life or death depending on the age of the voter. Perhaps we should begin an “encourage all to vote chain” much like “prayer chains”? It may seem a bit intense but aren’t we truly in need of getting the attention of so many who just do not come out to vote in order to get them to pay attention to what is at stake. The standard excuse for not voting like “my one vote doesn’t make a difference” is only used by the lazy or uninformed. Let’s make a point of helping those using that excuse understand that there is no excuse for not voting. Other countries like Australia give big fines if you don’t vote. The fine is levied against your property tax, or your library card or any avenue that is needed to make the citizen realize that not participating in elections is not an option. I must mention that I do think Kim did try harder to help than people realize. Also, I am not a fan of Hudak but nor are quite a few of the die-hard conservatives I know either!!! I hear some have been trying to figure out how to get another tory to replace him before the election…and I hear quite well! Therefore, no matter where my allegiance may rest, I think the NDP party will rise higher than we’ve seen before. Whoever gets wherever, it will always be our own fault or our own win depending on our own involvement. Win or lose, at least we can be proud because we paid attention and we participated. If we don’t: shame on us!
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Wow, great article. If I get this right, the election comes down to either the NDP or Conservatives winning, the NDP is good and pure and the Conservative party is evil and corrupt.
Funny, I remember voting for Bob Rae a long time ago, before Harris and McGuinty. Looking back I’m not sure why. I didn’t like the direction the province took and I think the four years was a dismal failure..
I used to think unions had their place in society too, but when I see organizations like the Niagara Regional Police demanding raises every year, I don’t think this is a social justice issue anymore.
In my mind the NDP party has as much “Blood” on it’s hands as any of the political parties. Their message of the oppressed masses needing to rise up against the rich oppressors isn’t going to build up a country or a province for that matter. It’s just a way to rationalize taking from others..It just ends up being a twisted and hypocritical message.
Sorry, the NDP lost this voter a long time ago and I’m certainly not coming back.
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Here we go again! Once again, placing our trust in one political party, as if one is any better than the other.
The reason we can’t find a better political party is because they are not held to a higher standard. They are not accountable! Once elected, they revert to the low standards of Ontario’s lack of accountability tenets. Once elected, they govern according to their political party’s proclivities, theories and wants.
If your choice is to blindly support any particular political party, without demanding answers as to how they intend to solve our problems, then you are definitely part of our problem.
The only time we have a chance to hold these slippery politicians, party leaders and political parties accountable, is before they get elected.
The reason that we have to hold these characters accountable before they land in office is because Ontario has NO recall mechanism, which, by the way, helped slightly to clean up the politics in B.C.
We have virtually no meaningful accountability or oversight over most of our institutions. The Ontario Ombudsman’s oversight is barred from every Ontario Institution we have with the exception of partial oversight of municipal conduct and then only as their conduct relates to the municipality’s own rules.
The lack of an oversight authority, a sad situation supported by all three of the main political parties, is the reason that we have little or no protection from political indolence, liars, cheats, prevaricators, obfuscators, fraud and con artists, and even outright thieves.
It has been said that repeating the same thing and expecting different result is lunacy and yet we are doing exactly that by continually voting the same way without demanding accountability.
Mr. Draper is right to call us to get involved now! Get involved now to demand informative answers toward accountability.
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The “NEW” Bradley Hospital in St Catharines was built at the expense of the Hospitals in Port Colborne, Fort Erie, Welland and Niagara Falls.
Questions
Was it the law firm of the previous Regional Chair Mr. Parkington that handled the purchase of the land the Bradley Hospital sits on and did Regional Councilor Rigby while mayor of St Catharines sell an adjoining piece of land to the NHS for the hospital????Just questions for as RIgby states repeatingly it is a St Catharines Hospital certainly noi a Regional one???? I have to agree with his statement but I also note that the southern tier citizens were screwed royally by two Queens Park political parties First the Conservatives and the recent fiasco by the seemingly corrupt McGuinty Liberals.
That the Federal Conservatives and NOW the Provincial Liberals with LEADERS NOT ELECTED AS such by the Electorate can closed done Parliament and still enact legislation without opposition is NOT DEMOCRATIC in fact it is by all definitions a DICTATORSHIP……And God Help us if this is allowed to continue in the future.
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