Queen's Park Politics

[1overcosc]

Here's something interesting: all of a sudden Wynne's facebook posts are attracting almost all positive comments. Is her staff actually manipulating them now?

[Docere]

One "advantage" the Liberals have is that with Christine Elliott their activists may have been de-mobilized and resigned to the prospect that their time was up and a Tory government was more or less inevitable., but having Ford there motivates them to give it their all.

[ainvan]

MOGA!

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Docere

One "advantage" the Liberals have is that with Christine Elliott their activists may have been de-mobilized and resigned to the prospect that their time was up and a Tory government was more or less inevitable., but having Ford there motivates them to give it their all.

I've seen this anecdotally among people I know that are hardcore Liberals.

[Docere]

Harris promised to Make Ontario Great Again in 1995!

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

God no.

Their polices would shut down all industry. Our electricity rates would skyrocket.

Oh yea weren’t you the one that once considered running as an independent? This might be your chance.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Hate the 3 main provincial parties like me? Go green yo!

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

God no.

Their polices would shut down all industry. Our electricity rates would skyrocket.

lol

You don't vote for them expecting a government, you vote for them out of spite. It's a big screw you to the 3 main turd parties.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by haljackey

lol

You don't vote for them expecting a government, you vote for them out of spite. It's a big screw you to the 3 main turd parties.

If the system is proportional representation, sure.
Otherwise, I’m not sure if that works...

[sonysnob]

^ Yeah, to me voting for the green party is really just throwing your vote away.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by haljackey

lol

You don't vote for them expecting a government, you vote for them out of spite. It's a big screw you to the 3 main turd parties.

.... and then something a la BC happens.

[vid]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

^ Yeah, to me voting for the green party is really just throwing your vote away.

But if you hate Wynne, Ford and Horwath, voting for either of them is also throwing your vote away. Why not throw it away into a trashcan that represents ideas you agree with?

Speaking of ideas I agree with: Ford announced today that he wants to increase the basic personal amount to $30,000 (which means provincial income tax won't apply to the first $30,000 in income). Currently the Basic Personal Amount is about $10,000 or so. The Green Party has long proposed increasing that to $20,000, so this represents a far more generous proposal than even they've proposed, and will put an extra $1,000 or so in everyone's pocket, evenly. No idea how he will pay for this (it will cost around $8 billion dollars) but if he can make it work, it will help low income workers and the consumer economy. The other benefit to this is that it doesn't cost businesses anything; if the payroll tax goes down an equal rate (which I assume it would?) they will save money too. This is a green party policy I've supported for many years.

The other thing he proposed is free market control of cannabis, which I support to a degree. Knowing a couple people who work in the cannabis industry in the US states where it's legal, I think it's fairly obvious that their free-market based system is much more effective and responsive to consumer demand than the disaster the Liberals have proposed. I can't recall the Green party's policy on this off the top of my head but again, I think it was similar to this, as the Ontario Greens are a fairly pro-business/pro-corporate party. (The Green Party movement in Canada was the first to approach environmentalism from a right wing, pro-business perspective, which was part of their success a decade ago.)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...view-1.4573465

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa...ning-1.4573790


This isn't making me migrate to the Ford camp (repulsive!) but it slightly reduces my fear of a potential Ford government. If he follows through on his promise to be "socially progressive and fiscally conservative" then maybe this won't be the end of the world after all.

One can hope.

[SteelTown]

I agree with the free market control of cannabis as well. Never liked the idea of Wynne's cannabis store, to me it's just her pandering to the union voters.

I would do it the same way Wynne did to selling beer at grocery stores, set up contracts for areas and have the highest bidder win. Use the extra money for transit or infrastructure upgrade.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by vid

But if you hate Wynne, Ford and Horwath, voting for either of them is also throwing your vote away. Why not throw it away into a trashcan that represents ideas you agree with?

I guess I wouldn't want to throw my vote away at all?

As imperfect as our voting system is, the truth is, often (always?) a person's vote really is the choice between the lesser of two evils.

[vid]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

I guess I wouldn't want to throw my vote away at all?

As imperfect as our voting system is, the truth is, often (always?) a person's vote really is the choice between the lesser of two evils.

In a FPTP system, honestly, 99% of the votes don't actually result in anything. I'm in a safe Liberal riding, no matter who I vote for, it's generally pointless because it will change nothing.

But hopefully some day we'll have a better system.

[1overcosc]

^ In 2014 I moved back to my parents house for 4 months... This was during the 2014 election. They live in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, which in that election was one of the key battleground ridings. It was amazing.. For once my vote actually mattered a lot!

[1overcosc]

As for increasing the basic personal amount to $30k, its an amazing idea but extremely expensive. Though it would be highly stimulatory as it would put about $900 a year into the pockets of every middle class Ontarian in addition to completely removing the provincial income tax burden from the poor. Most people would spend that extra money cycling it back into the economy.

Brown's income tax cuts would have cost $5B. Hiking the BPA would cost $8B. So if he raised the BPA instead of Brown's middle class tax cut proposal, it would have a net cost of $3B more.

The highly stimulatory effect of this cut would totally justify going $3B in the red for, IMO.

[1overcosc]

A way to make that cheaper as well could be instead of having the BPA raised to $30k, keep it at $10k, and exempt those making less than $30k from paying tax. As income rises from $30k to $40k, have the tax on that $20k come back on so to speak, so those making over $40k get nothing. This wouldn't be too punitive (it would be phasing in about $900 worth of additional tax over $10,000 worth of income) and would cost way less.

[vid]

I was going to suggest simply increase the angle of the progressive tax rates a bit more, but Ontario spreads from 6% to 70% when the other provinces are 12% to 30% spreads, so we're already about as extreme as it gets...

Punch in 25,000 (minimum wage) and 200,000 (top 1% of earners) and see the difference. Although it takes a while to get there, even at 55,000 Ontario remains the lowest income tax rate.

https://www.drtax.ca/en/DTMax/support/calculator.aspx

[Docere]

I wonder what the NDP strategy is? It seems like they want to sound a little more "leftish" than last time but at the same time they seem to want to recycle the strategy from 2014.

My feeling is that Christine Elliott was better from an NDP point of view and Doug Ford from a Liberal point of view.

[Blitz]

Looking at the 2014 election map how many seats actually have a realistic chance of flipping to Conservative? We can assume all of the rural ridings that voted Tory will stay that way and we can also assume that Windsor/London/Hamilton seats will stay NDP. Yes, Etobicoke is a lost cause but where else could he pick up seats? I can't see the North flipping so does it ultimately come down to the Toronto suburbs and Ottawa? Surely there are enough reasonable educated folk in those two areas to keep him out.