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populism

Thursday May 31, 2018

May 30, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 31, 2018

All three parties spending like drunks

During the last televised leaders’ debate, 19-year-old Martin Badger, a first-time voter from Burlington, posed an audience question to the three party leaders that’s probably troubling other Ontario voters.

May 16, 2018

How do you plan to pay for the additional services that you’re promising? Badger asked.

Unless you’re dipped, dyed and butt-branded in party colours, the answers weren’t exactly comforting. The reality is they’re all spending like old-time drunken sailors, tossing free programs and tax cuts around as if the election is an extended shore leave binge.

NDP leader Andrea Horwath kicked off by acknowledging that people across the province, including herself, are concerned about the accumulated debt, now pegged at about $325 billion and rising.

May 15, 2018

To help pay for her promises, which include drug coverage for everyone, lower electricity rates, hiring 4,500 new nurses and getting rid of “hallway medicine,” Horwath said she’s “going to ask” the richest people and corporations to pay a “little more” in taxes.

What Horwath didn’t specifically mention is she also plans to borrow $25 billion to pay for these and other elections promises. Oh, yes, and then she’ll balance the books and stop deficit spending. Once that’s done, Horwath previously told The Spectator, the New Democrats “will take any surpluses … and apply them to the debt.”

For his part, Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford basically repeated what he’s been saying before the campaign began. He intends to pay for his promises by finding four cents of savings on every dollar spent by the province and by bringing in outside auditors to find more “efficiencies.”

That’s a tall order, particularly since the platform-free Ford is promising to cut hydro rates, lower gas prices and taxes, create 15,000 new long-term care beds and invest almost $2 billion in various health and housing services, which, of course, means less revenue and more expenses. He also intends to run a deficit for at least the first year.

Liberal promises include more money for hospitals, more free tuition for post-secondary students, free preschool child care, and free prescription drugs for children, young adults and seniors. In total, it amounts to more than $20 billion of new deficit spending. Still, in a woebegone gesture to fiscal responsibility, Wynne also promises to introduce legislation directing budget surpluses be used to pay down the $325 billion debt. (Continued: Andrew Dreschel, Hamilton Spectator) 

 

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Posted in: Ontario Tagged: Andrea Horwath, cheese, Doug Ford, election, Kathleen Wynne, moon, Ontario, populism, promises, Space, spending

Wednesday May 9, 2018

May 8, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 9, 2018

Wynne, Horwath take aim at Ford in first debate ahead of Ontario election

Doug Ford was the main target in the first debate ahead of Ontario’s provincial election, with his rivals suggesting Monday that the Progressive Conservative leader, who is leading in the polls, would slash jobs and shrink services if elected premier.

Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath spent much of their time warning about what a Tory government would bring, while Ford hammered home his key messages of finding “efficiencies” and “respecting the taxpayers.”

The race officially begins Wednesday, but the debate set the stage for the campaign and provided the leaders of the three major parties an opportunity to test drive their slogans.

January 15, 2014

When both Horwath and Wynne used their questions during a leader-to-leader portion to ask Ford exactly what he would cut, the Tory leader repeated his key phrases.

“The other Conservative leaders, Mr. (Tim) Hudak, Mr. (Mike) Harris — they were very upfront about what their cuts are going to look like,” Horwath told Ford.

“Why don’t you have the guts to tell people what your cuts are going to look like? What is in store for the people of Ontario?”

Ford didn’t provide specifics, though he has promised to cut four per cent from the budget.

“I’m going to make sure we run a government that respects the taxpayers,” Ford said during his closing remarks. “You know me. I’m for the little guy.”

Horwath repeated that voters “don’t have to choose between bad and worse,” several times stepping back when Wynne and Ford began to spar, attempting to set herself apart from them.

Wynne said the election features “some pretty stark choices,” between what she calls her plan for care and Ford’s plan for cuts.(Source: CP24) 

 

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Posted in: Ontario Tagged: Andrea Horwath, debate, Doug Ford, election, Kathleen Wynne, Ontario, PC Party, populism, pull cord, slogan, toy

Thursday May 3, 2018

May 2, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 3, 2018

Ford reverses course on Greenbelt development, says he’ll maintain protected area

Public backlash prompted Doug Ford to backtrack Tuesday on an election promise to allow housing development in a protected green space around the Toronto region, with the Progressive Conservative leader saying he’s going to listen to those who want the area preserved.

A Tory government would maintain the Greenbelt in its entirety and enshrine that pledge in the party’s soon-to-be-released platform, Ford announced in a statement issued a day after saying he’d open the region to some construction to ease the housing crisis in the Greater Toronto Area.

“I looked at it as making sure we have more affordable housing,” Ford said of his initial position. “The people have spoken. I’m going to listen to them, they don’t want me to touch the Greenbelt, we won’t touch the Greenbelt.”

The Greenbelt — the world’s largest permanently protected green space –is a 7,200-square-kilometre area that borders the Greater Golden Horseshoe region around Lake Ontario. It was protected from urban development by legislation in 2005.

Ford’s flip-flop came less than a week before the official start of the provincial election campaign and hours after Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne called his Greenbelt-development pledge “wrongheaded”.

“If you open up the Greenbelt and make it into a Swiss cheese map you never get that back,” Wynne said earlier on Tuesday. “You never get that water protection back. You never get that agricultural land protection back.”

Wynne had acknowledged that some areas around the border of the Greenbelt have changed since it was established over a decade ago, but that was part of the original plan for the region, she said. (Source: CTV) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: campaign, development, Doug Ford, flip flop, greenbelt, Ontario, PC Party, populism

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