Today is the day the voters of this fine province vote for a new government. For those not from Ontario, here’s the Player Program so you can follow along. There will be American translations as needed. (The first translation: Province = State)
Previous Government. Liberal under Dalton McGuinty. (Liberal = Democrats, or close enough to make no never mind)
Running this time: Liberals under Dalton McGuinty, Conservatives, under John Tory (Conservatives = Republicans, more or less) and the New Democratic Party under Howard Hampton (Not Quite Socialists, more like Germany’s Social Democrat Party. More left than Liberals) Plus the usual smattering of Green, Marijuana Reform, Loon, and Highly Medicated parties. Earnest, but without a hope in hell of being elected.
Issues: Funding for Religious Schools, Jobs, Energy Policy, Health Care Reform, Fiscal Reform, Electoral Reform.
New and innovative ideas promulgated: None, except one from the New Democratic Party: Conservation of Electrical Energy is less expensive and pays back faster than trying to build new nuclear reactors or keeping coal-fired generation plants going around the clock. Too easy to understand and too easy to implement, which is why it has never been talked about in the mainstream media.
Usual Bovine Manure Promises: Liberals and Conservatives, with a fine mist of New Democrat populist working-class sentiment. The press releases and talking points from the provincial election in 2003 could have been used again without change.
Divisive Chatter designed to distract voters: Dalton McGuinty’s Broken Promises. John Tory running away from the full funding for religious school issue. Howard Hampton actually telling the truth and scaring the crap out of voters.
Worst Photo Op: Leader’s Debate on TV a few weeks ago. All three looked barely lifelike.
Best Photo Op: Leader’s Debate on TV a few weeks ago. All three at least looked barely lifelike.
Most Quoted Quote: None. The speechwriters have been drinking NyQuil for 54 days straight. The leaders are not allowed off the bus, without first being struck in the head with a mallet.
One party leader actually has wires and an armature up his back. Dalton’s handlers have cans of 3-In-1 oil and WD-40 at the ready in case the mechanism starts to squeak: Buying a knockoff from Jim Henson’s Muppet Shop will do that. Howard Hampton embodies all the cosmopolitan excitement of Lincoln Nebraska with all the verve and flair of viewing an extensive collection of masking tape; in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Likely winner: Liberal minority, with NDP holding balance of power. (Joys of Parliamentary Democracy, you get Coalition politics. Necessity may be the Mother of Invention, but Politics is the Mother of Strange Bedfellows)
The Conservatives are doomed because their leader looks like he sold his soul to Big Business years ago. The Conservatives would do, or say, anything to get elected again. That includes being in favour of sending all the visibly ethnic back to where they came from and mandatory shotgunning of anyone ‘different’. As long as the polls say it would be popular enough to get them elected, the Conservatives would be for it. John Tory is an empty suit. A nice, well-groomed, expensively tailored suit, but still an empty suit.
The other two choices are a known incompetent, mostly empty suit and a well-meaning but misguided half-full suit who could bore a wharf bollard to death.
We’re having one of those hold-your-nose-and-vote elections. Vote anyway. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. The next four years promise many things to complain about.
RoadDave 