For those of you who reside outside of Ontario, you may not know this but we here in Ontario get to exercise our democratic right one more time.  Then again some of you who live in Ontario may have forgotten that we have a provincial election coming up this October.  Who could blame you for wanting to suppress the idea of yet another election.  In the last 12 months, the good residents of Toronto endured a municipal election, and the voters in Ontario cast their ballots for a needless federal election. Could voter fatigue be setting in? I suspect the incumbents, the provincial liberals, hope so.

During our municipal election, candidate Rob Ford ran on a very simple campaign. The message was clear and to the point, “the gravy train stops here”. I’m not kidding, that was his campaign slogan.  His message was that days of wasteful spending was over.  It was time to be fiscally responsible, and do what was right for the citizens of Toronto.  I know what you’re thinking, sheer lunacy.  Being fiscally responsible was the complete opposite of what everyone in Toronto had became accustomed to under the previous regime. The spend first and think later cabal that used to run city hall were flabbergasted that Rob Ford’s message resonated with the electorate. So much so that the incumbent mayor, David Miller,decided he wouldn’t run for re-election because he wanted to spend more time with his family.  When a politician says he’s not running because he wants to spend more time with his family, it really means that we just did a poll and the results say if I run again I’m going to get my ass kicked. I digress.  Rob Ford won overwhelming majority, and the citizens of Toronto have spoken.

The federal election is still fresh in everyone’s mind.  The conservative party finally got their majority.  Why? Ontario put them over the top. The only way the torries could gain a majority was to do well in the 416 and 905 are code, and that’s exactly what happened. What was the message that resonated with the voters in Ontario? Fiscal responsibility, cutting wasteful spending and lowering the deficit. I’m not a Rhodes Scholar by any stretch of the imagination but I think I see a pattern here.

This brings me to the upcoming provincial election. I’m going to let you take a wild guess what Tim Hudak, leader of the Ontario PC Party, platform is for the upcoming election. You’re so smart, you’re not just another pretty face.  Tim, you had me at lowering taxes.

The fact that you want to bring back chain gangs makes me school girl giddy. That’s not a joke. The issue has been getting a lot of air time in Ontario, and it appears the idea is gaining a lot of support. As a voter I’m a buyer of a politicians vision. Every four years I buy what a politician is selling by casting my vote. Political parties share similarities with private enterprise. If you don’t give consumers/voters what they want, if you think you’re smarter than the consumer/voter, if you suffer from hubris, you do so at your own peril.  But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask David Miller and Michael Ignatieff

Until next time.

Cheers,

Image Source: McLeans Magazine, July 27, 2001