I'm not sure what the level of interest will be, but I thought I would do a diary in possibly boring detail about the province of Ontario's upcoming election on June 12. I figured some Americans might find it interesting to read a bit about the mirror image of state elections - since Canada is one of the very few countries with subnational units that have roughly the same level of power as American states. Not only that, we've got some of the same actors: our Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario is currently run by a Tea Party style crackpot that hired a Reagan economic advisor with the American Enterprise Institute who bashes Michelle Obama as a product of affirmative action, doesn't think bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, has a fanatical hatred of the "environmental left," and is trying his best to bring "right to work" laws to Canada. Now that I've got the interesting stuff out of the way, I will bore you with the details our candidates, platforms, parties, polls, etc. WARNING: if the minutia of other countries' elections is not your cup of tea, I don't recommend continuing. You have been warned. :)
The map above is the results from our last election in 2011: Red is Liberal, blue is Progressive Conservative, and orange is the New Democratic Party (NDP). In that race the governing Liberals, who have been in power since 2003, lost their majority in parliament. For two years there was cooperation between the Liberals and the NDP to pass budgets and keep the government afloat. This year however, both the Progressive Conservatives and the NDP refused to support the most recent Liberal budget, which triggered the election.
For those who are new to Canadian politics, Ontario has a more or less three party system (as does most of the country). Unsurprisingly, the Liberals are more or less like the Democrats, oscillating back and forth from centre-right (neoliberal) politics to centre-left politics when convenient or in response to pressure. The current premier, Kathleen Wynne, the first openly gay premier in Canada, has moved the Ontario Liberals to the left after years of centre-right government from her predecessor. The Liberals have been embroiled in scandals involving billion dollar fees for power plant cancellations, deleting secret emails, violating public sector workers' right to collective bargaining, and more. However, they do have some decent accomplishments to boast about.
They have completely abolished the use of coal power in Ontario, created a German style feed-in tariff for wind and solar energy, created a "green belt" around Toronto to limit urban sprawl, raised the minimum wage from $6.85 in 2003 to $11 starting June 1 this year, made full day kindergarten universal, initiated several light rail projects, and introduced refundable tax credits and child benefits to reduce poverty.
Liberal platform highlights:
- create an Ontario Retirement Pension Plan which could be integrated into a Canada Pension Plan expansion in the future.
- increase taxes for individuals earning more than $150,000.
- increase the minimum wage to $11 on June 1, 2014 and index it to inflation after that.
- create a 10-year $2.5 billion Jobs and Prosperity Fund to partner with industries poised for growth. Measures include $10 million for a nine-month paid community work and service program to help graduating high school students, and $5 million in grants for the next two years for new small-scale manufacturers.
- invest $15 billion in transit projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, including the electrification of GO Transit commuter trains and a downtown Toronto subway relief line. [As a transit nerd this excites me because it basically means making Toronto's subway system around six times bigger than it is now]
- invest $14 billion in roads, bridges, highways and other transit projects outside the GTHA.
- continue the 30 per cent off tuition grant for post secondary education.
- promise to build new campuses and create spaces for 15,000 more post secondary students in Ontario.
The Progressive Conservatives (the word progressive is a holdover from an earlier time with no real meaning for the party anymore) are, in their current form, radical right wingers who admire Republican-run states. This was not always the case - from the post war era until the 1980's, Ontario had pragmatic and even progressive Conservative leadership. But the 1990's saw the introduction of the "Common Sense Revolution" which saw the gutting of labour laws, the firing of half the nurses, closing literally all mental health facilities, endless wars with public sector unions, massive corporate tax cuts, etc. And the party has been on that course ever since. Apparently not satisfied with their work, their current leader Tim Hudak hired Ben Zycher (the American "economist" mentioned in the intro). Zycher crafted Hudak's plan:
Progressive Conservative platform highlights:
-introduce right to work laws (Hudak eventually had to backtrack after being pounded mercilessly by the media for this, but I suspect if elected he will bring this back)
-fire 100,000 public sector workers
-cut corporate taxes by 30%
-promise an unspecified 10% income tax cut that will likely be mostly for the rich
-completely freeze or cut pay for all public sector workers that remain
-cancel all plans to build light rail lines across the province
-cancel all future wind and solar projects
-cut program spending by six per cent over the next four years
-further restrict collective bargaining rights in the public sector and begin attacking them in the private sector
Of course all of this is Orwellianly called the "Million Jobs Plan."
Now the NDP... this is the party that is most painful for me to write about because they have traditionally been the best of the three - but not this time. The NDP has its philosophical roots in a hybrid of democratic socialism and social democracy. The first leader of the NDP is the father of universal health care in Canada. The NDP has been at the forefront of progressive politics in Canada and has been the party of labour. However, since the start of the Rob Ford era, NDP leader Andrea Horwath seems to have made the calculation that cheap conservativish populism is the key to making electoral gains. I have no issue with populism itself, but there is not much progressive in the current form it has taken in the NDP. Some of the stuff in the platform is decent, but it is pretty unambitious and not really worth bringing the current government down to implement.
NDP platform highlights:
-Increase minimum wage to $12 by 2016 and then index it to inflation
-Balance the budget by 2017-18
-Appoint of a Minister of Savings and Accountability (The NDP say this will save the province $600 million a year)
-Increase to Ontario's corporate tax rate to 12.5 per cent. (It's currently at 11.5 per cent)
-Reward businesses that create jobs with a Job Creation Tax Credit
-Cap public sector CEOs' salaries
-Reduce auto insurance rates by 15 per cent in the first year
-Freeze post-secondary tuition and make student loans interest-free
-Eliminate wait lists for long-term care beds
-Support families caring for the ill or elderly with a Caregiver Tax Credit
-Cut ER wait-times in half
-Open new 24-hour health clinics
-Remove the HST [the sales tax] off home hydro bills
-Cut small business tax rate to 3%
Our version of 538/Nate Silver is called ThreeHundredEight (I believe named after how many seats there are in the federal Parliament) and they have given the following forecast for the election:
So it looks the result might end up being almost identical to what it was before the election. Which is at least a positive sign that Ontarians are not biting the right-wing bait. If you are still reading by this point, thanks for stopping by, and I am happy to answer any questions!