Howard Hampton

Ontario Election Throw-Back: Monday September 10, 2007

Monday September 10, 2007By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday September 10, 2007

Ontario’s election campaign now underway

They’ve been running all summer. Now comes the 30-day sprint to the finish.

The campaign for the Oct. 10 Ontario election gets underway Monday when Premier Dalton McGuinty visits the lieutenant-governor to formally drop the writ and dissolve the Ontario legislature.

The vote is expected to be a referendum of sorts on McGuinty and the Liberals, with their healthy majority – won in 2003 atop cresting public dissatisfaction with Conservative spending cuts – hanging in the balance.

Chipping away at an apparent Liberal lead are the reborn Progressive Conservatives, who are embracing the “progressive” part of their moniker in an effort to distance themselves from the slash-and-burn days of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.

The issues and tone expected to shape the campaign were in full evidence Sunday, as Conservative Leader John Tory trashed what he called McGuinty’s record of broken promises and the Liberal leader took aim at a Tory proposal to fund faith-based schools.

The Conservative and Liberal platforms are similar in many ways, with both promising more money for health care and education.

The New Democrats have yet to unveil their platform, but Leader Howard Hampton has made several campaign pledges of his own in recent weeks.

More: Two decades of Ontario Elections

Election Throw-Back: September 3, 2003

Wednesday September 3, 2003By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 3, 2003

Eves Calls the Election

Premier Ernie Eves is hoping that Ontarians will give him an election mandate on Oct. 2 but is facing an uphill battle against the Liberal Party after two controversial terms of Progressive Conservative government.

Mr. Eves, who served six years as deputy premier and finance minister under former Tory leader Mike Harris, was selected by the party in the early spring of 2002 but held off on calling an election until Tuesday.

The most recent poll for The Globe and Mail by Ipsos-Reid showed it will be an uphill struggle for Mr. Eves against the Liberals and their leader, Dalton McGuinty. Sixty per cent of those polled last month said they thought it was time for a change.

In a speech launching his campaign, Mr. McGuinty acknowledged that he has “been waiting for this for a long time,” adding: “I have never felt more confident, more experienced, more determined, more ready to get on with this.”

Mr. Eves alluded to his electoral difficulties by spicing his campaign announcement with a host of attacks on Mr. McGuinty.

More: Two decades of Ontario Elections

Election throw-back – May 1999

The Ontario Leaders 1999Illustration by Graeme MacKay, published in the Hamilton Spectator in May, 1999

Leading up to the 1999 provincial election, Premier Mike Harris was defending a Conservative majority government which had ushered in a series of reforms known as the Common Sense Revolution. Battling him were two new and untested opposition leaders, Dalton McGuinty and Howard Hampton. The results gave the Tories a reduced seat majority.

More: Two decades of Ontario Elections

 

October 11, 2007 – Ontario Election Wrap up

And now a little cartoon round-up of the 2007 Provincial election. My apologies if you can’t stand reading around hypertext.

I think McGuinty had this election in bag even before the campaign started. In my books the Green Party dropped several notches back into wingnut territory when their own holiday pledge… but anyway…

The people of Ontario have decided (by hypnosis?), or at least half of the province’s eligible voters did, and it’ll be 4 more years of Liberal government, with Dalton McGuinty at the helm.

Voters also decided to nix the electoral reform referendum question Mixed Member Proportional either out of ignorance, or confusion, or just because it plain wasn’t palatable.

I can’t say that I’m happy or sad over the reality… perhaps blase is the best word to describe how I feel over the election results. In terms of cartooning, the next four years of Dalton McGuinty should be as bountiful as the last four. In my mind the vote was not an endorsement of the McGuinty Liberals but a rejection of John Tory’s lame brain idea to introduce public funding for religious schools when there was no popular demand for such a thing in the first place. It only hijacked the campaign and overshadowed many more issues that deserved better discussion. Much damage could have been inflicted on the McGuinty Liberals by the PC’s by reminding voters of all the broken promises and dubious issuing of government grants from a secret slush fund. Hardly anything was brought up during the campaign regarding the ongoing mess between the Province and natives over the standoff at Caledonia. Even Howie Hampton’s attempt to remind voters of the $22,000 payraise didn’t stick to the Liberals.

Despite trying to appeal to voters as a renewed moderate party faith based funding of schools did the PC’s in. John Tory’s back tracking on the issue a week ago only made a mockery of the PC’s official election slogan for the campaign, “Leadership Matters“. By this past Thankgiving weekend, it was pretty clear that John Tory had become the turkey about to be carved. I think John Tory is a very smart man. He is a man of a lot of political backroom experience having served as a mandarin for Bill Davis and Brian Mulroney. He’s got great crudentials in law, business, and charitable organizations. On one hand he has what it takes to be a great premier, on the other he has a disasterous track record of defeat, such as losing this election, losing the Toronto Mayoral election against David Miller, and heading the horrible campaign of the federal PC’s in 1993 which resulted in a near wipe out of seats in the House of Commons. You’d think he’d learn by now but even in defeat the guy just doesn’t know when to quit:

Thursday December 21, 2006

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 21, 2006

McGuinty accuses NDP of theatrics over pay hike

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty accused the NDP on Tuesday of using unprecedented stalling tactics and theatrics to delay a 25-per-cent salary hike for provincial legislators.

New Democrats have been colourful in expressing their anger over the pay boost for members of the provincial parliament, announced in a surprise move by McGuinty’s government last week. The NDP has been trying to force the related bill to a committee for public hearings.

The provincial legislature had been scheduled to rise on Dec. 14, but the government announced it would sit another week in an effort to pass the pay hike.

Before a Liberal caucus meeting Tuesday, McGuinty invited Ontarians to “grab some popcorn” to watch the NDP’s performance.

“…It is really without precedent in the annals of parliamentary traditions,” he said of the New Democrats tactics.

The legislation would see the MPPs earning 75 per cent of what their federal counterparts make and would increase a member’s base salary to $110,775 from $88,771. (CBC)