2018 Ontario Provincial Election Discussion

[Hopkins123]

That sounds more like fan fiction than reality. Got anything to back that up or just spitballing?

This! Even the Toronto Star today is conceding that Doug Ford's PCs are in 'supermajority' territory with as many as 94 seats in their grasp. Outside of the cities of Toronto and Ottawa, the Liberals aren't looking very good at all

'Common Sense Revolution' 2.0 is upon us folks. MOGA!

 

[steveintoronto]

That sounds more like fan fiction than reality. Got anything to back that up or just spitballing?

That was prefaced with this:

I'd agree, with one huge caveat.

to:

Two wrongs don’t make a right but at least if Ford changes directions we can get two years of tacking back to centre in Ontario until things get stupid the other way again.

ca·ve·at
ˈkavēˌat,ˈkävēˌät/
noun

1. a warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations.
   synonyms: warning, caution, admonition; More

To simplify that for those who miss the conditionality of the term: My agreeing with Tricky is contingent on what I stated.

 

[John_Dee]

Steve, if you're basing that little theory around anything other than wish fulfillment, then share it with the rest of us, will you? It's a narrative I could buy, certainly - hell, I'd pay money to see the look on Thug's face when the dagger's inevitably stuck in his back if events unfold the way you're speculating. Talk about hilarious!

But equally, I can see the following, too: The troglodytes who schemed to oust Brown and install a strategically shaved gorilla like Dofo in his place are likely as crude and simple-minded as Ford is, which means they share his, er, 'values' (for lack of a better word), and would have no problem with him being the face of the party, or with his managerial style. Alternatively, they want him because they're at least marginally more intelligent then he is (some of them probably a lot more so), they know he's a moron and think he can be easily controlled. If that latter point has any truth to it at all, I strongly suspect these chappies are in for a very rude awakening. And serve them bloody well right.

 

[steveintoronto]

Steve, if you're basing that little theory around anything other than wish fulfillment, then share it with the rest of us, will you?

It was a "caveat" explained above, as to my agreeing with what Tricky Ricky had written. Without it, there's no way to agree with Tricky's point. I couldn't agree more with the rest of what you write.

Let me present this a different way, without a "caveat" or 'proviso': There's one hell of a story not being told (just yet) as to how DoFo was 'installed'. Is that any different than any other political anointment? Only by degree. But that line crossed "by degree" is outside of acceptable practice, even for dirty politics. And to keep that in context, I think Elliot especially had the leadership stolen from her. Her being so vociferous initially, for someone who knew the ropes of how twisted it could be, meant she had 'good cause' to be outraged. There's something massive missing from the story, and some know exactly what that is, because as you agree, it was probably set-up by them. They can use the same device to hang DoFo with. The cover story was 'a debate over memberships being valid or not'. That's very odd, as if anyone produced questionable memberships, it was DoFo. (Edit: And remember, Fedeli had claimed to have "cleaned out the rot" on this point, and yet ostensibly used it to deny the validity of some of Elliot's memberships in ridings with razor thin representation)

Very real echoes of this: (the book in which he claims this now not to be published)
MP Maxime Bernier says Scheer won Tory leadership thanks to ‘fake Conservatives’
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/pol...ys-scheer-won-tory-leadership-thanks-to-fake/

Do I think Bernier was right? Absolutely. But he felt that now is not the time to stand behind the accusation. Scheer actually played up to the accusation at times, as if he felt he had nothing to hide. He knows, as does everyone else, that Marketing Board farmers installed him.

 

[animatronic]

It was a "caveat" explained above, as to my agreeing with what Tricky Ricky had written. Without it, there's no way to agree with Tricky's point. I couldn't agree more with the rest of what you write.

Let me present this a different way, without a "caveat" or 'proviso': There's one hell of a story not being told (just yet) as to how DoFo was 'installed'. Is that any different than any other political anointment? Only by degree. But that line crossed "by degree" is outside of acceptable practice, even for dirty politics. And to keep that in context, I think Elliot especially had the leadership stolen from her. Her being so vociferous initially, for someone who knew the ropes of how twisted it could be, meant she had 'good cause' to be outraged. There's something massive missing from the story, and some know exactly what that is, because as you agree, it was probably set-up by them. They can use the same device to hang DoFo with. The cover story was 'a debate over memberships being valid or not'. That's very odd, as if anyone produced questionable memberships, it was DoFo. (Edit: And remember, Fedeli had claimed to have "cleaned out the rot" on this point, and yet ostensibly used it to deny the validity of some of Elliot's memberships in ridings with razor thin representation)

Very real echoes of this: (the book in which he claims this now not to be published)
MP Maxime Bernier says Scheer won Tory leadership thanks to ‘fake Conservatives’
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/pol...ys-scheer-won-tory-leadership-thanks-to-fake/

Do I think Bernier was right? Absolutely. But he felt that now is not the time to stand behind the accusation. Scheer actually played up to the accusation at times, as if he felt he had nothing to hide. He knows, as does everyone else, that Marketing Board farmers installed him.

Look, you’ve advanced this theory many times. It’s highly plausible but that’s not the same thing as knowing something concrete. It’s obvious some shady shit went down. We can even make educated guesses. Hell, my PCPO sources said that the coup was launched by Mulroney’s team and then a different set of insiders recruited Doug as a useful idiot.

Building a plausible narrative is not the same as knowing who pulled the trigger.

FFS we went through a year of Rob’s “imminent” arrest promised by people who only pretended to have insider info (not a knock on those who did come with real stuff).

So it would be helpful if you clarified that you have suspicions vs. you have personal knowledge of something that’s going to drop.

 

[animatronic]

This! Even the Toronto Star today is conceding that Doug Ford's PCs are in 'supermajority' territory with as many as 94 seats in their grasp. Outside of the cities of Toronto and Ottawa, the Liberals aren't looking very good at all

'Common Sense Revolution' 2.0 is upon us folks. MOGA!

Yeah, that’s got nothing to do what I was posting about.

 

[steveintoronto]

So it would be helpful if you clarified that you have suspicions vs. you have personal knowledge of something that’s going to drop.

You can think whatever you like, and be free to express it, but polls, for instance, are no more or less availing of fact than any other conjecture.

"The only poll that really counts is the one on voting day".

Almost every opinion expressed in this and related strings is a form of conjecture. They are observations based on trend.

I like sharing opinions as do others. If they disappoint you, then the shortcoming is yours. I'm far from being alone in expounding the point on Bernier and Scheer:

[...]
As I say, I don’t think anyone in the party seriously disputes any of this. Scheer even joked about it at the annual press gallery dinner shortly after his leadership win, pointedly drinking from a carton of milk after protesting he “made deals with nobody” and didn’t owe his victory “to anybody in the Conservative (Party).” Ha ha. Yet for the crime of speaking the truth it is Bernier, not Scheer, who is on trial.

A fellow MP sternly admonished him that this sort of “freelancing” — taking a public position on a matter of public policy — is “an unacceptable challenge to the caucus, to the leader.” Another decried the “timing” as “unfortunate.” Conservative pundits were especially savage. Bernier was accused, variously, of naivete, hypocrisy, vanity, divisiveness and sour grapes. He knew the rules going in. He signed up his share of new members. This is the way it’s always been. Etc.

All of which may be true, but none of which makes anything Bernier said untrue. Rather than shooting the messenger, I’d have thought people who truly had the party’s interests in mind would be taking his criticisms to heart.

Spare me the worldly sighs that all parties choose their leaders in this way: should they? Never mind the knowing smirks about how candidates have always prostituted themselves to special interests: are you comfortable with that?

And as for the policy itself: unless you are prepared to make the case for supply management on its merits — to defend forcing consumers to pay two and three times the market price for basic food items as a good and just use of state power — then it is you who should explain why that should continue to be party policy, not Bernier who should be charged with threatening party “unity.”

If the policy is wrong, it should be changed. If the process that produced the policy was wrong, it, too, should be changed. And if the leader sold both party and principle to win his position, well, that’s at least worth pointing out.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/and...r-spills-the-beans-er-milk-on-leadership-race

So it would be helpful if you clarified that you have suspicions vs. you have personal knowledge of something that’s going to drop.

How about if I preface it with "Opinion"?

 

[animatronic]

How about if I preface it with "Opinion"?

Yes. That’s exactly what we’re asking.

 

[steveintoronto]

Yes. That’s exactly what we’re asking.

Yeah, that’s got nothing to do what I was posting about.

Are you singular or plural?

Look, you’ve advanced this theory many times. It’s highly plausible but that’s not the same thing as knowing something concrete. It’s obvious some shady shit went down. We can even make educated guesses. Hell, my PCPO sources said that the coup was launched by Mulroney’s team and then a different set of insiders recruited Doug as a useful idiot.

Building a plausible narrative is not the same as knowing who pulled the trigger.

That's your opinion, by your own demanded 'terms of reference'. You've offered no concrete evidence, other than hearsay, and yet you state:
"It’s obvious some shady shit went down." And then you take me to issue for projecting other possible scenarios.

Speaking of plurality...

 

[animatronic]

Are you singular or plural?
That's your opinion, by your own demanded 'terms of reference'. You've offered no concrete evidence, other than hearsay, and yet you state:
"It’s obvious some shady shit went down." And then you take me to issue for projecting other possible scenarios.

Speaking of plurality...

Because your writing style makes it look like your theories are based on more than conjecture. And this board went through all that four years ago.

 

[steveintoronto]

Because your writing style makes it look like your theories are based on more than conjecture. And this board went through all that four years ago.

I was starting to wonder if you were associated with Hurley, thus the "we"...but it is my opinion now that you aren't. He makes sense...most of the time, when he isn't in a snit.

Hell, my PCPO sources said that the coup was launched by Mulroney’s team and then a different set of insiders recruited Doug as a useful idiot.

Plausible, and interesting, as it would raise questions as to whether it was actually "Mulroney's team" per-se (who certainly have a lot of weight with established columns in the PCPO) or the Fedeli crowd. You state "coup" as a given. And if your claim is correct on 'Mulroney's team', then they'd have the power to repeat their actions. Which was one of my points.

"And this board went through all that four years ago." Went through *what*? The last election? I wasn't a member of this "board" then. Over to you.

 

[Videodrome]

David Reevely
@davidreevely
Also Mike Harris Jr., son of the ex-premier Mike Harris, has been appointed in Kitchener-Conestoga, replacing … Michael Harris, who left politics because of his eyes and/or sexting. Mike Harris Jr. recently lost the nom in Waterloo.

Wonderful...

 

[adma]

This! Even the Toronto Star today is conceding that Doug Ford's PCs are in 'supermajority' territory with as many as 94 seats in their grasp. Outside of the cities of Toronto and Ottawa, the Liberals aren't looking very good at all

'Common Sense Revolution' 2.0 is upon us folks. MOGA!

You know, when a party seeks to distance itself from an "Ontario's Trump" leadership stigma, phraseology like "MOGA!" is counterproductive...something to consider...

 

[jje1000]

Some Enron-esque stuff here- again, the Liberals are throwing everything they can into staying in power- even though the long-term effects can be negative in the future.

Bad books: How Ontario’s new hydro accounting could cost taxpayers billions

As Ontarians head to the polls in June, voters have to make sense of two competing versions of their province’s bottom line: The Auditor-General’s and the Kathleen Wynne government’s. Matthew McClearn investigates how creative accounting in hydro revenue made their math so different

Earlier that month, the government had announced significant reductions in electricity rates, what it dubbed the Fair Hydro Plan. A decade of investing in greener power sources, such as wind and solar, and the shuttering of cheaper but dirtier coal-fired power plants had resulted in soaring hydro bills – a serious political liability for Ms. Wynne, who had accepted personal responsibility for fixing the problem.

But charging Ontarians less for electricity than it cost to produce meant the province would have to borrow billions of dollars to cover the shortfall.

“In order for that to not show up on the bottom line, they created creative accounting to take it off the government’s statements,” Ms. Lysyk said.

Using that new accounting, the government declared it had balanced the province’s books for the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2018, just months before a general election. But Ms. Lysyk said that was not true. And the Financial Accountability Office, the body responsible for providing the legislative assembly with independent analysis and advice on Ontario’s finances, agreed: In December, it forecast that the province would actually rack up a deficit of $4-billion – a discrepancy that will grow markedly as the government’s off-balance-sheet borrowing continues.

Even before Ms. Wynne became Premier in 2013, Ontario’s Liberals promised a return to balanced budgets. In his April, 2017, budget speech, Finance Minister Charles Sousa boasted that her government had finally done it. “And next year and the year after we’re projecting it to be balanced, too,” he declared. “And the people of Ontario can count on it.”

It was made possible by a team led by the Ministry of Energy that also included senior officials from the Ministry of Finance, Treasury Board Secretariat, the Provincial Controller, Ontario Power Generation and the IESO. Between December, 2016, and May, 2017, they devised a novel approach that would allow the government to have its cake and eat it, too.

As with most businesses, utilities record consumers’ outstanding balances as assets, typically as “accounts receivable.” The IESO’s new practice, rate-regulated accounting, is akin to accounts receivable on steroids. The underlying idea is that heavily regulated industries, such as power generation, which are unable to set their own prices, should have a means of deferring costs, such as building a new power plant. Rate-regulated accounting allows utilities to place such costs in special accounts to carry them forward into future years, provided their regulator gives them the right to recover those costs through future bills. Such rights can be recorded as assets – even though no electricity has been generated, used or billed for.

The main criticism of the practice is that it can produce books bearing little resemblance to reality. When BC Hydro adopted it, that province’s auditor-general objected strongly, warning in a special report that “if overused, rate-regulated deferrals can mask the true costs of doing business, distort the financial condition of an enterprise and place undue burdens on future taxpayers.”

And what happens if the utility can’t collect? “On a number of occasions,” explained Michael Ferguson, the Auditor-General of Canada, “there has [later] come a realization that, in fact, the organization will not be able to charge those rates. And, therefore, there have been fairly large amounts of some regulatory assets that have been written off.”

Recording expenses as assets is perfectly legal in certain contexts, but the practice has been controversial in the private sector. In their book Easy Prey Investors, forensic accountants Al Rosen and Mark Rosen write that recording “fake assets” on corporate balance sheets is one of the “most common financial scams of the past 50 years.”

If the accounting concept is elusive, the IESO’s motives for adopting it are even murkier.

She said the e-mails reviewed by her office confirm that the architects of the Fair Hydro Plan expected her office to object to the IESO’s proposed accounting changes – and that their silence had been deliberate. “All the stuff said, ‘Don’t tell the Auditor-General what we’re doing.’ ”

The Fair Hydro Plan triggered a breakdown of trust. Previously, the Auditor-General relied on KPMG to audit the IESO’s books. Not any more: This year, she conducted her own special audit. “We couldn’t risk that something else is going to pop up on this,” Ms. Lysyk said.

It did not go well. Ms. Lysyk said she was “professionally unable” to provide an audit opinion because management refused to sign certain documents.

One year after the unveiling of the Fair Hydro Plan, the irony is that the alleged raison d’être for the accounting practice that made it possible has suddenly vanished: Mr. Sousa, the finance minister, has revealed that Ontarians can no longer count on balanced budgets; he has forecast deficits of more than $6-billion for each of the following three years as the government ramps up spending on health care, child care, social assistance and postsecondary education.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/can...os-new-hydro-accounting-could-cost-taxpayers/

 

[Videodrome]

Steve Paikin @spaikin
20s


Lots of @OntarioPCParty candidates being appointed today without nomination meetings. Broadcaster Andrew Lawton is now the candidate in London West. #Onpoli

A former Rebel Media guy.

David Hains
@DavidHains

Tanya Granic Allen has won the Mississauga Centre nomination for the PC party. Big cheers and chants of "Tanya" here.

The sex-ed lady won....