Ontario Election 2011 - Tight Races, Bedtime for Me

As I head to bed at 11 PM, the Liberals are one seat shy of a majority government in Ontario, with a handful of seats still teetering in the balance. I'm extremely pleased that the Conservatives failed to capture the government. As I see it, one way or the other the McGuinty Liberals will need to come to terms with Horvath's NDP (or at least a handful of Conservatives). Even if they take that cherished 54th seat tonight, there will doubtless be recounts, and then the Speaker's election could well pull things back to an even split. And in the long-term, you know that at least one or two or more MPPs will leave politics, and the ensuing by-elections will throw the whole situation into flux again. So better to govern as if it is actually a minority and come to workable arrangements with the opposition parties, so as to provide this province with some stability. I'm content with this election result - it is far better than what I had been fearing over the past year, and as recently as the summer.

It's a bittersweet night for me though. This is the first election where I haven't been able to share thoughts and opinions with my Dad, which we had done for every provincial and federal election either in person or over the phone since I was a kid. I'm sure he would have been satisfied though, both that the Conservatives lost, and that my riding (Guelph) and his (Oakville) stayed Liberal red.

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Ontario Election: Guelph Update

I unfortunately missed the all-candidates debate on social policy last week in Guelph, as a nasty cold took hold of me. I had been looking forward to checking out the candidates in person. From what a good friend and colleague told me though, the NDP candidate, James Gordon, acquitted himself very well and was solid on the issues. I'll admit that my initial impression of him was not a great one (receiving emails about summers of listening and sending messages through song irritated my pragmatic and sober self). She wasn't terribly impressed by any of the other candidates, including Liberal incumbent Liz Sandals, who struck her as bored. I can't say that I was terribly surprised by this, as Sandals spent most of the 2007 debate that I attended seemingly working on other paperwork. She has always struck me as somewhat bureaucratic in nature - competent, but not all that inspiring in person.

In any case, with the election a mere week away, I have no real idea how the riding is likely to go. Last time out, it was mainly a Liberal-Conservative fight, with the Green candidate sneaking into third place above the NDP. I get the sense that the NDP are fighting harder this time, at least in my left-of-centre downtown neighbourhood. Indeed, to look at signs on lawns near my home, you'd be hard-pressed to consider the Conservative candidate a threat. This is reflected in the literature as well - so far we've had 2 NDP drops and 5 Liberal ones, with nothing in print from the other two major parties (although Green signs abound, since we live so close to their campaign office). I rather suspect that there is some rather specific neighbourhood targetting going on, with the Conservatives focussing their energies on suburban Guelph, especially the south end, with the Greens and NDP hitting hard downtown, and the Liberals spread more widely across the city. I suspect that this will once again be a close race, and I'm not feeling all that confident, a week out, to predict the outcome, especially with things seeming so fluid overall in the province.

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Camera-test your ties - Ontario Leader's Debate Edition

So, despite a deep-seated desire not to inflict pain on myself, I tuned in this evening to the Ontario election leader's debate. To make this a productive hour and a half, I also set up the ironing board and a stack of 12 shirts. If you don't feel like reading the rest of this post, feel happy for me that I at least got my ironing done.

Alas, that's really the only great thing that I can say about how I spent my early evening. The debate was formulaic, with no surprises, endlessly-repeated talking points, and folksy populism. And I'm sick of it.

Could we please end the new tradition of having the questions be asked by videotaped, carefully-selected "average voters" whose questions are picked because they aim right at one candidate or the other's talking points? And if not, could the leaders at least give up the oh-so-fake approach of pretending to be talking to these people directly and endlessly repeating their name in the ensuing 12 minutes? I get it, you wrote down that her name was Catherine!

And while we're on the name game issue, would it be too much to ask for an end to the folksy anecdotes about the hard-working family folks whom the leaders have met on the campaign trail, be it Julie from just outside of Wawa, or Kevin the electrician from Tilbury, or Sammi the nine-year old lemonade stand operator from Moosonee who is concerned about the HST on the paint she uses for her sign?

I don't feel that I got a great sense of any of these leaders' platforms beyond their endlessly-repeated talking points. Hudak claims to have a "5-point plan" (as if the number of points matters) with health and education as his priorities and cuts that will miraculously appear. McGuinty is all about clean energy, university tuition cuts, a $355 tax cut last year and home care for seniors. And Horvath (insofar as I got to see her tonight) will end the HST on hydro to help out seniors, and defend public health care. And all of them are parents, and have parents, and have kids that have had to use the health care system recently. And they all care about families and seniors. (And if you're single or in a couple but without kids, and in your 30s or 40s, none of the leaders could care less about how you vote!)

I would love to see the debate format turned into a rigorous on-camera grilling by journalists, or perhaps experts. To balance things off, perhaps each party could nominate their choice of a journalist or an academic with policy expertise. And then we might see an actual debate where there is interactivity, and a chance to get beyond talking points and have the assertions of the leaders challenged by those posing the questions. But that's probably a pipe dream, and we're doomed to several more debates that are a race-to-the-most-folksy-and-down-to-earth competition.

For what it's worth, I didn't think there was a clear winner or that any of the candidates really distinguished themselves. I think that hurts Horvath the most, as she seemed to be marginalized a lot of the time, and unable to get a word in over the other two, which is a problem when she is the least well-known of the three. I saw a lot of Twitter commentary about McGuinty waving his hands around, and his terrible hypnotic tie, but he stayed on point (perhaps too tightly and scriptedly so) and didn't seem to get too flustered - I still take issue with a number of his policies, especially on post-secondary education, but I don't think he hurt himself. I don't know whether voters waffling between a Liberal and Conservative vote would find that Hudak came across as a premier-in-waiting. I'm quite firmly opposed to even the notion of this, but I still don't think he was all that impressive (and who picked that purple-and-green monstrosity of a tie!) So in a debate without a winner, might we be headed for minority territory?

Steve Paikin, incidentally, was a good moderator, in terms of trying to pull the leaders back to the questions and allow for fair amounts of time. But the format really didn't allow him to press the leaders directly, as we sometimes see in the American Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates, or Canadian leaders' debates of the past.

As I said at the beginning - at least I got my ironing done!

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Ontario Election: NDP gives up on Guelph, saves me a decision

I try so darned hard to support the NDP. I am sympathetic to their message of social justice, of social welfare programs, of equitable treatment for Canadians. I have had great respect for many of the party's leaders past and present. If only I could ignore their local candidates, literature and e-mails.

The following quote is from a message that arrived in my inbox today from the local candidate's - James Gordon - campaign, announcing the opening of the campaign office, which will feature an appearance by MP Charlie Angus:

"Guitars in hand, James and Charlie are going to send a message through song: we can win this riding, and work together to build an even better Guelph and Ontario.

Sending a message through song?!? Seriously?! In an election where the Mike Harris acolyte Mike Hudak (be prepared for multiple references to "the evil forces of Hudak" for the remainder of the campaign, kids) is poised to potentially topple the McGuinty government, the local NDP is going with a message of song? What sort of hippie bull is this? And this follows on the "summer of listening" email from July. I thought it was bad in 2007 when the NDP candidate ran on the message of "vote for me because I am an immigrant woman of colour" platform, but apparently the depths of the no-hoper barrel had yet to be plumbed.

In one sense, this makes my decision easier, narrowing my potential vote candidates to two. But I'm really disappointed that in a riding with a sizable left-wing population, the NDP continues to put up candidates that could not possibly appeal beyond the hardest of the hardcore 60s radicals.

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