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2014 Ontario Provincial Election

Just when you thought they might close this thread, comes this little bit of news, from this link:

Some Tories pushing to dump Tim Hudak immediately

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s political future hangs in the balance as angry Tory MPPs and defeated candidates huddle for a post-mortem bloodletting.


Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak’s political future hangs in the balance as angry Tory MPPs and defeated candidates huddle for a post-mortem bloodletting.

In his first public appearance since leading the Tories to a humiliating defeat to Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals last Thursday, Hudak did not take questions on the way into a 1 p.m. caucus meeting at Queen’s Park.

But other Conservative MPPs were talking on Monday.

“There’s going to be a lot of frank and honest comments over the next couple of hours,” fumed Todd Smith (Prince Edward-Hastings)

“We need renewal in our party and it has to start today,” said Smith, blaming the leader and the central campaign team for a controversial pledge to eliminate 100,000 public sector jobs over four years.\

“This was an anti-Tim Hudak election,” he said, adding Hudak cannot remain at the helm as interim leader as he vowed to do in his concession speech last Thursday night.

Smith said Hudak’s 100,000-job figure was “brutal, it was devastating — that was the moment.”

MPP Toby Barrett (Haldimand-Norfolk) said he gives “credit to the organizational skills of the public sector unions.”

“We have a government for the government unions run by the government unions,” said Barrett, noting the Tories gave public sector workers something to rally against by threatening massive cuts.\

“We didn’t explain that in as fulsome a way as we should have,” he said.

MPP Randy Hillier (Larnark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington) said “the 100,000 jobs absolutely” hurt PC candidates.\

Hillier said he heard about Hudak’s promise on many doorsteps while canvassing.

Conservative MPPs were especially furious with the central campaign — namely Hudak and advisers Tom Long and Ian Robertson — blaming them for the rout.\

“We handed them a distraction from their own record,” said one incredulous defeated Tory, speaking of the Liberals, who were plagued with scandals and controversies after more than a decade in office.\

Hudak made the promise to slash 100,000 positions in Barrie alongside local MPP Rod Jackson, who went down to defeat.

To a person, Tory MPPs said they were “blindsided” by the controversial promise announced with no previous notice or consultation with candidates, and quickly became an albatross as they went door-to-door in their ridings.

“It was our policy we couldn’t explain as well as we should have,” said defeated Etobicoke-Lakeshore incumbent Doug Holyday.

“They were able to misconstrue it and convince a majority of voters what we were doing was horrible,” said Holyday, who had been the lone Toronto PC MPP.

Defeated Cambridge incumbent Rob Leone said “the unions definitely did their job and got their vote out.

“We heard it at the doors. It was a tough message to sell,” said Leone of the austerity measures.

Conservatives who were re-elected said they had to refocus more on their own efforts and records of achievement in the legislature, such as issues championed and private members’ bills put forward.

“Sometimes you have to give the finger to the central campaign and go local,” one survivor told the Star.

A political staffer compared the 100,000 job cut threat to former PC Leader John Tory’s pledge to extend funding to religious schools that led to the party’s last major thumping.

“There were people in there (central campaign) who didn't look in the mirror and realize we were doing the same thing as in 2007,” the aide said, shaking his head.

Tories also said the job cut promise gave extra incentive for public sector unions to redouble their efforts to defeat Conservatives at a time when labour had already been suspicious of Conservatives intentions despite Hudak's decision to drop plans to make Ontario a right-to-work province.

Last Thursday, Wynne led the Liberals to a stunning majority election victory, winning 58 seats in the 107-member legislature to 28 for the Tories, who lost nine seats, including six incumbents. Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats were held to 21 seats.

Aside from Jackson and Leone, Ted Chudleigh (Halton), Doug Holyday (Etobicoke-Lakeshore), Rob Milligan (Northumberland-Quinte West), Jane McKenna (Burlington), and Jerry Ouellette (Oshawa),

With Hudak’s future uncertain, there is already interest in who could get the party back on track.

MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa), a frontrunner to be the next leader, said “it’s too early to say” whether she will run.

Elliott said right now the Tories need to assess the damage.

“We had certainly hoped for a different result, but that wasn’t to be. It was a whole combination of things. It just wasn’t meant to be,” she said.
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Hudak was clearly trying to play off the anger at perceived union greed and entitlement, greatly overestimating that anger in the process. Had he kept his mouth shut about it he likely would have won and been able to enact the job cuts anyway. It was such a stupid mistake that I have to wonder if his campaign strategists were that clueless, or doing it on purpose.
 
ttk:

I don't think it is a love for the unions per se - but the understanding by the average person that cutting these jobs does translate into service cuts that affects them.

AoD
 
Adjei said:
If you can't win in the GTA, you can't form government. Winning the GTA is key, even Harper understands this:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...-win-in-greater-toronto-they-cant-win-period/
Click to expand...

A big advantage Harper has is the 3rd party election laws that exist federally. In the provincial election, anything goes and the Unions spend 3 or 4 times more than the PC's are allowed to spend.

The result - provincially, the PC's win 30% of the seats in Ontario and federally, the Conservatives win 65% of the seats.
 
BurlOak said:
A big advantage Harper has is the 3rd party election laws that exist federally. In the provincial election, anything goes and the Unions spend 3 or 4 times more than the PC's are allowed to spend.

The result - provincially, the PC's win 30% of the seats in Ontario and federally, the Conservatives win 65% of the seats.
Click to expand...

That's revisionist - I am fairly certain there are union ads in previous elections and they didn't necessarily result in union friendly governments getting elected. Let's not blame the unions ads when a significant portion of Ontarians are not friendly to the union cause, and when there are far better explanations for how the election transpired instead of feeding us the PC sour grapes line. It's about as tasteful as the PQ blaming their loss on the allophones.

AoD
 
BurlOak said:
A big advantage Harper has is the 3rd party election laws that exist federally. In the provincial election, anything goes and the Unions spend 3 or 4 times more than the PC's are allowed to spend.

The result - provincially, the PC's win 30% of the seats in Ontario and federally, the Conservatives win 65% of the seats.
Click to expand...
Well when you attack the unions, what do you expect them to do? Say thank you?
 
Hudak is stepping down on July 2nd:

Mr. Hudak said in his letter that MPPs are split over whether to continue on his right-wing path or move the party closer to the political centre.
“Some held the view that the urgent need to address Ontario’s fiscal situation should be moderated while others remain firmly committed in the belief that the course we laid out in the campaign will ultimately be proven right,” he wrote.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...e-conservative-leader-july-2/article19231032/

Sounds like a potentially messy fight.

EDIT: Well - turns out it is, per the Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/06/19/tim_hudak_to_quit_july_2_amid_tory_revolt.html

I think Hillier et al. need to look at themselves and the policies they espouse before laying it on Hudak for not leading them to Shangri La.

AoD
 
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Totally agree with you Alvin, I am following a lot of conservative commentators who are throwing Hudak under the bus, and yeah he messed up some. But he did NOTHING different than the same Right-wing commentators were preaching and writing every day of the week. It's not like he went off script like John Tory faith-based school thing. He stayed on message that they were pushing through out.

They wanted him to not work with Wynne and vote no at everything (he did that) Wynne was able to grab soft NDP voters as it shows she willing to work with others. Hudak and conservatism isolated themselves.
They talk and write about gas plants constantly. Hudak beat that dead horse constantly
They demonized unions calling them selfish, greedy, not deserving, the cause of everybody problem. Hudak went with a strong anti-union stand.
They want to cut public workers down and call government employees growth in the last decade a giant problem (of course ignoring that population grew as well, but whatever) Hudak said he will cut 100,000 jobs

But it somehow only Hudak fault, it's not the news paper columnists who wrote everything Hudak stood for before Hudak even said it. It's not the talk radio host who beat the anti-union drum way before the 100,000 job cut number. The funniest and most ironic thing is hearing right-wing talk radio hosts who preach anti-union three hours a day in the harshes way possible but than claiming that the Union commercials exaggerated the anti-Union opinion of Hudak. I listen and think "Dudes your show confirms what those union commercials claim" Heck the right-wing establishment can't even stand up to a total albatross that is Rob Ford. Conservatives problem is that they are in their angry isolated bubble and are clueless of general feelings of the population.

At least the NDP seems to be at least having some legit self reflection on the whole thing and said they were not ready for the election and probably went too far to the right.
 
StatGeek said:
Conservatives problem is that they are in their angry isolated bubble and are clueless of general feelings of the population.

At least the NDP seems to be at least having some legit self reflection on the whole thing and said they were not ready for the election and probably went too far to the right.
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Exactly - and most importantly, they are the same ones who chose Hudak after finding Tory too soft and wonky for their tastes - and now they are blaming him for saying what they believed it? I think NDP is in a different set of problem of their own - they have basically jettisoned their ideological anchor (and along with it, their urban intelligentsia) and went straight for the rust belt, populist vote. Unfortunately for them, I wouldn't be surprised if that particular base is more PC territory than one that is for them to claim, especially when said group get eroded some more in their economic standing and become the angry rural vote.

AoD
 
So yesterday we heard that the promise of all 7 GO lines with 15 minute service within 10 years is not doable and all that Metrolinx will commit to is:

BruceMcCuaig said:
But, hey, we’re looking forward to the opportunity to see how much we can actually deliver,”
Click to expand...

And today we here that the promise to re-introduce the "exact" same budget ( http://t.co/3yHCoeCvPZ ) is also being changed.

twitter said:
Ashley Csanady ‏@AshleyCsanady 15m

Wynne confirmed today the same budget will be introduced, but said an "addendum" may be attached containing technical tweaks #onpoli
Click to expand...
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
Why is the cabinet so large?
Click to expand...

A cynic might suggest that Ms Wynne is repaying people with our money.

58 Liberal MPPs....one will be speaker...1 is premier...so of the remaining 56, 27 of them are cabinet ministers?

Is this part of the fiscal prudence that will get the budget balanced...to increase the cost of government by increasing the size of cabinet?

Tough choices? When you decide on your cabinet and one guy from the old cabinet is left out and rather than cut his wages to a backbencher you decide to keep him in cabinet to "dispense advice and wisdom in cabinet" that really shows what direction we are headed in! Are we to believe that Jim Bradley is such a dedicated member of the OLP/Ontario team that if he was not receiving a cabinet member's salary he would have withheld his wisdom and advice?

This sort of "discipline" is a very poor indicator of how this government will approach the labour negotiations ahead.....got a problem, write a cheque!
 
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