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Politics: Tim Hudak's Plan for Ontario if he becomes Premier

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innsertnamehere said:
Well to be honest Harris days were pretty bad.. I remember being out of school all the time at that point. its one thing to have something like we had last year every 3 or 4 years, another thing to have full on strikes every spring.
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I was in high school through the Harris years.

I saw a strike for 3 out of 5 years. Didn't care one bit. It just made for some longer vacation and harder studying on return.

I'd say a bigger issue with teachers is all the oldies that decide to stay on at high pay rates. We are well past corporate retention now. There are so many young people in this province just dying for teaching jobs. My ex-gf was a teacher in Ottawa. Supply teaching. Her T4 for 2011 was about 9k. She had to take up a part-time government job to get a proper steady income. My fiancee decided to leave teaching altogether. Went back to school for an HR diploma. The teaching market is horrendous. And instead of forcing out the over the hill the crowd, the government is insisting on making it harder for newer teachers to move up the professional ladder.

It's nonsense.

I absolutely hate to say this. But harsh fiscal conservatives like Mike Harris, sometimes serve a function. They slash, cut and burn and piss off everyone. But, in the process, they create fiscal room for future governments to execute on priorities. Unfortunately, the McGuinty Liberals chose gas plants, Presto (instead of the myriad of existing solutions), all-day kindergarten, E-Health, ORNGE, etc. If I do vote for this Liberal government again, it's going to take a ton of nose pinching for me.
 
kEiThZ said:
This. Honestly, if today's conservatives were anything like the Bill Davis PC or European/UK conservatives, they'd have my vote locked.

Instead, Tim is more focused on tax cuts than transport (not just transit, there's issues like the Gardiner as well).
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This bears repeating. Too bad the Red Tories are being marginalized by their shrill breathens.

re: Teachers

Let's not forget the end of mandatory retirement either.

AoD
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
There's no "right #" of how big a government (or deficit) should be. I believe in the general rule that people are willing to pay more when they see results but that's really been put to the test with the transit issue the last few years, even as those same people complain about how bad traffic is getting.
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I agree with this. But to be fair. For all the billions announced in transit projects over the last few years, how much has actually resulted in improvements on the ground?

No wonder the public is cynical. In my opinion, if anybody really wanted to swing public opinion, ramping up GO into a proper suburban service would have really made a massive difference on that front. More than any LRT in Toronto....where transit isn't an optional thing the way it is in the 905.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
There's no "right #" of how big a government (or deficit) should be. I believe in the general rule that people are willing to pay more when they see results but that's really been put to the test with the transit issue the last few years, even as those same people complain about how bad traffic is getting.
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Firstly, while it is clear you and I are likely from different political persuasions...this has been one of my most enjoyable back and forths on UT in a long while.....people can disagree in a civil and thought provoking manner.

I won't respond to most of your post above because there comes a time when people obviously do just disagree and it takes on the air of trying to convince/switch the other guy over to the other side....probably not worth the effort on either of our parts.

That said, I do agree with you that it is impossible to find a universal "right #" for the size of deficits....I think that is largely because the answer is so contextual. Depends on the economic climate of the day...depends on the plan and depends on the existing finances.

I actually hate it when I hear right wingers/tories complain about the McGuinty government running deficits.....just as the tories in Ottawa did/have......short term deficits in times like the world wide recession are useful tools to support the economy. The fact that we were able to have them without crippling the credit ratings, provincially and federally, was in no small part thanks to the work of previous governments (in Ontario the hated Harris tories and in Ottawa the Chreitien/Martin administration) in coralling our previous structural deficit situation and in some small way actually paying down debt. They had created the fiscal wiggle room that the new regimes of McGuinty and Harper would need to stimulate and support our economy through the tougher times.

The worst deficit period in my memory is actually David Peterson....during a time of unprecedented growth in fiscal revenues he still managed to pile debt on debt on debt...and that is very different than what, either, McGuinty's provincial or Harper's federal regimes have done since 2007.

The problem that I have with the current Liberal government is that they just don't seem to understand that the time for those short term measures are over and in 2014 we should not be introducing budgets that actually increase the deficit....we are in a moderate growth period now....and this is a period where the government should be balanced (as they are essentially in Ottawa) or moving towards balance. I think they know this.....the hint is in the fact that even though budget is a spend document and and increasing debt document they magically pull the balanced rabbit out of the hat a the end (without any real hint how we get there...just that we do).....they know it is important they just don't know how to get there and, worse, for the purpose of this election are willing to ignore that it is important and just increase the deficit.
 
kEiThZ said:
I agree with this. But to be fair. For all the billions announced in transit projects over the last few years, how much has actually resulted in improvements on the ground?

No wonder the public is cynical. In my opinion, if anybody really wanted to swing public opinion, ramping up GO into a proper suburban service would have really made a massive difference on that front. More than any LRT in Toronto....where transit isn't an optional thing the way it is in the 905.
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Yeah, it's a problem. Obviously the THEORY was that Metrolinx would get that first round of projects out the door and so people would see the difference on the ground before the revenue tools discussion got going. Obviously Toronto really blew it in this regard. York Region has rapidways open and people can see the ol' bus speeding by them in rush hour, but that's one small example in a huge region. I guess hindsight is 20/20 and they could have been more pro-active with GO....Move2020 seemed pretty amazing at the time and a heck of a start. Now it's looking more like a one-off (some of which was earmarked for projects that STILL haven't broken ground!), which paints everything else in a different light.


TOareaFan said:
Firstly, while it is clear you and I are likely from different political persuasions...this has been one of my most enjoyable back and forths on UT in a long while.....people can disagree in a civil and thought provoking manner.

I won't respond to most of your post above because there comes a time when people obviously do just disagree and it takes on the air of trying to convince/switch the other guy over to the other side....probably not worth the effort on either of our parts.
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I hear ya :) I have such discussions with a good friend of mine on a regular basis; we see how many rounds we go before we get to "agree-to-disagree" time.

The current budget was clearly aimed at forcing Horwath to go to the election with a dream budget. I don't know what to make of the rest of the big spending dreams. OTOH, I thought aggressive revenue tools were needed and that would be the centre of the next (now on) election. Instead they got pushed further and further back and ORNGE and the gas plants etc. have made a mature discussion of transit impossible, yet again. If Hudak thinks he can build a decent transit system by cancelling all-day KG (for example), well, that's bold but it's an IDEA. Just saying you're going to ditch The Big Move and build subways everywhere with "Efficiencies" is rather less so. I've also found it's emblematic of his whole approach: Identify Liberal waste (Metrolinx, LHINS, TTC - whatever); promise to ditch it and spend savings in ill-defined priority areas. His white papers spelled out a lot of things but the campaign is his chance to provide some more detail. I can't imagine he could do much to get my vote at this point but, hey, Timmy can certainly try. (Whatever my politics may appear to be, I'm not a fan of any single party. I resign myself to a certain degree of strategic voting and, to my own disappointment, usually find myself voting for whoever seems the least-worst....)
 
MrsNesbitt said:
Still over a month until Election Day. Hudak hasn't really opened his mouth too much yet. Let's hope for a left rebound.
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Sometimes silence is the best strategy.....Global ha a page showing current leanings of all the ridings.....aparantly my riding is leaning Liberal....and they have not even nominated a candidate yet!
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Just saying you're going to ditch The Big Move and build subways everywhere with "Efficiencies" is rather less so. I've also found it's emblematic of his whole approach: Identify Liberal waste (Metrolinx, LHINS, TTC - whatever); promise to ditch it and spend savings in ill-defined priority areas. His white papers spelled out a lot of things but the campaign is his chance to provide some more detail. I can't imagine he could do much to get my vote at this point but, hey, Timmy can certainly try.
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Mike Hudak is going to eliminate 100,000 civil servants, there's your subways everywhere! Now he'll have to create 1.1 million jobs. Good luck with that.

http://www.thestar.com/news/queensp...s_he_would_lay_off_100000_civil_servants.html
 
Adjei said:
Mike Hudak, suits him well, lol.
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*Timmike Harrisdak

And all this while pledging, when asked what specific taxes he would raise if premier (incidentally at a press conference at the site of some new sprawling subdivision in Vaughan), that the answer was none.

It's ridiculous.
 
TOareaFan said:
latest polling brings potentially new relevance to this thread

http://globalnews.ca/news/1319194/j...terToronto&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2014
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IIRC, a poll released the same day also gave the Liberals a six point lead. You can't look at one poll and assume that it an accurate representation. Wide spreads in pollinh numbers haven't been unusual in Ontario.

Anyways threehundedeight have the Liberals and PCs tied in popular support, with the Liberals winning 6 more seats than the PC.
http://www.threehundredeight.com/?m=1
 
AlbertHWagstaff said:
Mike Hudak is going to eliminate 100,000 civil servants, there's your subways everywhere! Now he'll have to create 1.1 million jobs. Good luck with that.
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Without touching healthcare.

A stunning number, when you consider there are only about 93,000 civil servants in government, and another 42,000 in government agencies (like Metrolinx). http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/govt62d-eng.htm

Presumably you have to completely eliminate operations with a lot of employees, like GO Transit from the provincial books.
 
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