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

[gweed123]

And we're supposed to think that this guy won't give us another gas plant? Har har har!

AoD

I wonder if the people who are managing the 407 East project are getting nervous, hahaha.

I can just see it now: "By selling the 407 East, we are not only helping balance the budget, but we're improving the driving experience for GTA residents by having the entire highway until a single ownership."

Never minding the fact that a) selling the couch to help pay the rent only really helps for 1 month's rent, and b) tolls will be seamless between the two sections anyway. Sends a shiver down my spine just thinking about it, because that's exactly the type of thing that Hudak would do to "balance the budget by 2016".

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

gweed:

Let's not forget, this whole no transit until balanced budget, anti-LRT isn't some one-off issue for one riding that no one else is supposed to care- it's supposed to be a central plank of his platform. The speed to which he ejected it suggest he spoke a bit too early when he suggested other parties "lack discipline".

AoD

 

[gweed123]

gweed:

Let's not forget, this whole no transit until balanced budget, anti-LRT isn't some one-off issue for one riding - it's supposed to be a central plank of his platform. The speed to which he ejected it suggest he spoke a bit too early when he suggested other parties "lack discipline".

AoD

This is the problem with having the bulk of your backing coming from rural ridings. You end up with policies that are completely out of whack with what the urban population is looking for. I spoke with a few people in Ottawa after the "No" on the LRT issue, and their responses were almost universally along the lines of "Seriously? WTF?". By bending over backwards to the Ontario Landowners Association, he's alienating a lot of swing voters (urban and suburban voters) with policies that only really play well with rural voters, who were going to vote for him anyway.

 

[ShonTron]

Ottawa's LRT is vastly superior to what Toronto calls LRT, Eglinton included. Given that Ottawa's LRT will be largely grade separated and won't run in the centre of a road anywhere, doesn't have the problem of reducing road capacity, it will basically be similar to a subway with level crossings in some outer sections (like the Chicago subway). I believe that Ottawa's LRT has a much higher capacity in the central sections than Eglinton, which really ought to have been a regular subway with the portion east of Don Mills cancelled. Hudak really ought to understand the difference.

A better example would be the Edmonton LRT.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Ottawa will have the same capacity as central Eglinton from my understanding. It's a grade seperated LRT, just like central Eglinton. I'm unsure of platform length, but that is what would effect capacity.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

innsertnamehere:

Though I think the platform length for the Confed line is 150m underground, vs. 90m for ECLRT (which is approx 2/3rd of subways). That said, the whole capacity debate is kind of moot - Canada Line is only 40/50m and it has 15K pphpd as well, which is the same as ECLRT and Confed. Fuzzing over the ultimate capacity of Eglinton when it isn't likely to get to capacity anytime soon (and taking into account all the potential tech that could squeeze more capacity out) while YUS is bursting at its' seams is pure quibble.

AoD

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Yup, the debate was over the downtown tunnel in Phase 1. That's pretty much settled, and was buried as being an issue when Watson won in a landslide in 2010. Aside from a few local residents in Westboro playing NIMBY and a few people at the NCC who don't want it along the Parkway, the vast majority of the City wants LRT, and will want it even more in 2017 when it opens (official opening date is still Spring 2018, but they're ahead of schedule now and I think it'll be open by late 2017).

The Phase II LRT in Ottawa is probably the least controversial transit plan in the Province. LRT doesn't have the same type of "second class transit" connotation as it does in the GTA, and there isn't a significant faction against the LRT here, and Council's approval of the LRT was unanimous, very unlike Hamilton and K-W.

By coming out against this project, and even with the half-hearted backtrack, he pretty much just punched every Ottawa area PC candidate right in the gut.

Agreed. The idea that this will hurt the budget is ridiculous. Toronto I can understand, but this is a gimme. Why is Hudak doing this?

 

[andrewpmk]

innsertnamehere:

Though I think the platform length for the Confed line is 150m underground, vs. 90m for ECLRT (which is approx 2/3rd of subways). That said, the whole capacity debate is kind of moot - Canada Line is only 40/50m and it has 15K pphpd as well, which is the same as ECLRT and Confed. Fuzzing over the ultimate capacity of Eglinton when it isn't likely to get to capacity anytime soon (and taking into account all the potential tech that could squeeze more capacity out) while YUS is bursting at its' seams is pure quibble.

AoD

Without the possibility of short turns at Don Mills then Eglinton is much lower capacity than Ottawa. I generally find the ridership fiction very hard to believe.

The whole reason Hudak and Ford hate LRT is because of removing car lanes, with Ottawa this is not an issue so Hudak ought to support Ottawa if he has any sense.

 

[BurlOak]

innsertnamehere:

Though I think the platform length for the Confed line is 150m underground, vs. 90m for ECLRT (which is approx 2/3rd of subways). That said, the whole capacity debate is kind of moot - Canada Line is only 40/50m and it has 15K pphpd as well, which is the same as ECLRT and Confed. Fuzzing over the ultimate capacity of Eglinton when it isn't likely to get to capacity anytime soon (and taking into account all the potential tech that could squeeze more capacity out) while YUS is bursting at its' seams is pure quibble.

AoD

If capacity is not an issue, cost should be. Eglinton cost 2.5 times as much as Canada Line for the same capacity.

 

[JKDM]

There are several factors in the Hudak fear-fest:

- Hudak's policies are reminiscent of Harris' policies in that they target workers as the primary source of the waste
- Hudak was involved directly in the Harris government as a cabinet member
- Hudak has proposed far more conservative proposals in the past (Right-to-Work), and people fear that they may still be part of the Hudak government's underlying goals
- Hudak isn't exactly clear on his math, but insists he's correct- Does that mean that the Million Jobs slogan is simply a slogan?
- Hudak has proposed cancelling transit improvements across the province
- Hudak and the Harper government are fairly similar in that they've shared many Harris-era links throughout the years. John Baird has reportedly helped Hudak on the campaign. People are understandibly upset about the Harper government and its transgressions in these last few years, and don't want the same tactics applied here
- Hudak has links down to the American Conservative movement- people also don't want more of that coming up here
- Hudak presents a poor public image when he isn't coached- he also looks conniving with them evil eyebrows!

Not all of these are well-founded, and some people would actually argue against some of these points.

*** Hudak is targeting waste (which is grossly apparent in Ontario's severely bloated public sector) through attrition, contracting out, etc. He's targeting expensive, mid-level bureaucrats.

*** So? Harris led Ontario out of a recession while Paul Martin was making draconian cuts on the federal level. Transfer payments to Ontario were drastically cut. This is often completely forgotten. Ontario was an economic basket-case in the early 1990's. I think history has been rather kind to Harris, and how he put Ontario back on track after 5 years of ONDP mismanagement.

*** Right-to-work is no longer on the table, as far I can see (unless Hudak wins an unexpected majority), so I don't think you have much to worry about there.

*** I distaste sloganeering, too, but all politicians do it. Especially during elections. Personally, I think sticking to a script average folks can understand ("Stop the gravy train!", etc.) is a good thing. Plus, no one can possibly predict how many jobs will be gained (or lost) if Tim Hudak becomes Premier of Ontario.

*** I hope he re-considers his positions on most of these projects. Except The Finch West and Sheppard East LRT's. Both should be scrapped.

*** Harper doesn't have much to do with this election. If he was, Wynne would still be talking about how awful he is.

*** Fear-mongering. I think this campaign has been pretty clean. I don't think Hudak is trying to oppress people's right to vote ... he WANTS people to vote. Frankly, he needs the votes.

*** Bah ... I think Wynne, Horvath, and Hudak all suffer from being platitudinous. (Though, as someone who can, at times, be rather shallow ... it ain't his eyebrows that bothers me, it's that thing on his cheek. Gross. I just wanna pop it or cut it off.)

 

[innsertnamehere]

Much like Ford, Hudak will enter office to "cut the waste" and realize no such thing exists. The liberals would have cut it long ago if they could have, the Drummund report would have recommended any staffing cuts possible without effecting services. There simply is no such thing as 100,000 surplus workers who are not needed, you are deluded if you think otherwise.

Harris rode the 1990's dot com bubble, and exited right as it was ending. How convenient. Harris had plenty of fun downloading even more onto the municipalities as well.

Just as cancelling gas plants is no longer on the table, I guess.

When you focus your entire campaign (I mean "MILLION JOBS PLAN" is splattered over EVERYTHING PC related) on a plan that has a fundamental error, and then refuse to acknowledge that error, something is up.

scraped? like scrape the paint off of the trains? have the budget scraped so its built for bare minimum costs? I'm not sure I understand... On a more serious note, please explain why. There is a small sense of reasoning for Finch West to be BRT, but the Sheppard LRT has a very strong case behind it.

I actually agree with you on that one. The fact that Federal conservatives have been assisting with the campaign means nothing, every other party has had the same thing. Trudeau has been out a few times with Wynne, and I think Muclair even made a bit of an effort.


how did you get him trying to oppress peoples right to vote out of Tea Party connections? A ton of his policies reflect very, very closely to tea party policies. His general allusion statements with no details are similar to tea party politics for dummies as well. (Million jobs, cut 30% of red tape with no specification on what red tape that is and what regulatory powers that will be lost, etc.)

Horwath and Wynne come across much better. Doesn't effect the policy behind the leaders which is what I tend to focus on, but he doesn't seem nearly as welcoming as the other party leaders.

 

[MisterF]

*** Hudak is targeting waste (which is grossly apparent in Ontario's severely bloated public sector) through attrition, contracting out, etc. He's targeting expensive, mid-level bureaucrats.

How can you say that the public service is bloated when Ontario is the lowest spending province in the country per capita? Those mythical "middle managers" Hudak loves to demonize are no more or less wasteful than anyone else. To suggest that there are 100,000 jobs worth of waste when we're already the lowest spenders in Canada is ridiculous.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Much like Ford, Hudak will enter office to "cut the waste" and realize no such thing exists. The liberals would have cut it long ago if they could have, the Drummund report would have recommended any staffing cuts possible without effecting services. There simply is no such thing as 100,000 surplus workers who are not needed, you are deluded if you think otherwise.

No system is 100% efficient, so of course there is waste somewhere in our provincial government. But it's never near as much as people expect it will be. Believe it or not, governments don't like shovelling money into pits of fire. I said this so many times in the beginning of mayor RoFoDoFo's 3/4 term in office and it didn't take long for the KPMG report to prove me right. RoFoDoFo quickly had to resort to petty things like cutting the number of pens councillor's can buy, to save inconsequential amounts of money.

The sad thing is that so many of his supporters will vote for him again on this "cut the waste" bs.

Anyways to Hudak's benefit, at least he isn't foolish enough to suggest he'll cut huge amounts of waste without cutting services.

 

[diminutive]

Much like Ford, Hudak will enter office to "cut the waste" and realize no such thing exists. The liberals would have cut it long ago if they could have, the Drummund report would have recommended any staffing cuts possible without effecting services. There simply is no such thing as 100,000 surplus workers who are not needed, you are deluded if you think otherwise.

Depends on how you think of "waste." If you mean process-waste, as in institutions which see spending diverted from their intended target (e.g. corruption or diversion or incompetence), then there's probably not a whole lot of it. Any politician would have a reasonably strong incentive to reduce this kind of waste in favour of more popular programs.

But there's still likely considerable outcome-waste, as in institutions which are themselves not particularly wasteful but nonetheless don't produce intended social welfare outcomes. The inherent waste in having two public school systems in Ontario, for instance. Not that either system is itself intentionally wasteful, but the implicit cost of having two separate systems that doesn't yield any benefit to public education is, in some sense at least, wasteful.

Likewise, policies like reduced class sizes or all-day kindergarten aren't wasteful in the first sense (teachers are being hired and doing their jobs properly), but likely are wasteful in the second sense (in so far as increased spending isn't producing intended social welfare benefits)

Another example could be a stereotypical bridge or subway to nowhere; it wouldn't be wasteful in the first sense (goods and services are being provided), but would be in the second sense (those goods and services are being misallocated).

Trouble with the second type of waste is it tends to be electorally popular, and its recipients are typically politically mobilized. Unlike the first type of waste, the public is in fact buying a service, so it doesn't seem like anything bad is happening. It's also more ambiguous to judge the outcome of a program than the presence of diversion.

 

[Palma]

She refused to recognize him only after Council took action. But more egregious, she chose not to remove him at any time, even though it was within her power. Does she have no basic decency, morals, or ethics allowing a sexist, homophobic bigot to remain in office? What more would Ford have to have done for Wynne to act responsibly?

And the corruption that Wynne is a part of is ok? What does the Ford situation have anything to do with this post and what Hudak will do and why are people still going on about Ford for goodness sake