Ontario Election officially underway
Today, the Ontario election for October 10th, 2007 has officially began. As a relatively new resident to Ontario, this will be my first election in this province although my third provincial election I've voted,as I've voted twice in British Columbia before (2001 and 2005). In terms of making predictions, I will wait until later as we've seen cases such as 1990 and 1995 where parties in third place at the beginning go on to win the election. While I doubt something that dramatic will happen this time around, we could see a different result than expected. Also on October 10th, Ontarioans will vote as to whether they want to keep the first past the post system or switch to MMP (Mixed-Member proportional representation)
No to MMP
I will be voting No to MMP and encouraging all others I know to do so as well. I oppose it for a few reasons.
1. Our ridings are already large enough as they are, especially in rural areas. Making the ridings larger means even less effective local representation
2. An MP's job is to represent his/her constituents, not the party. By choosing someone from a list, we will likely get party hacks whose main loyalty is to the leader rather than their constituents. More importantly those elected from the list will be difficult to hold accountable for bad decisions, especially if placed near the top of the list since almost every party that wins seats or gets above 5% will get at least the top few slots chosen as MPs so those MPs are essentially safe.
3. It will lead to less stable governments. Some people say minority governments are a good thing, but I disagree. Governments sometimes have to make tough decisions that are right (such as free trade, GST, cuts made to balance the budget in the 90s, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Bilingualism etc.) but not necessarily popular at the time. By having a stable majority government, this will allow them to pass those policies and then voters can judge based on their results. In addition fringe parties on the far left or far right could hold the balance of power, whereas with the current system, parties that are too far to either the left or right are unlikely to win any seats.
4. It will lead to more not less party discipline. As it is now, leader's already hold a lot of power, but since MPs are still accountable to their constituents they will break ranks with the party if something that is unpopular in their constituency is adopted, as Bill Casey did with the budget vote federally. Those appointed by the party are accountable to no one but the party leader and will never likely challenge him or her no matter how bad their decision is.
Now some say that it is unfair to have the majority of seats without winning the majority of votes. And I agree, but there is a better solution, which is an instant run off vote whereby to be elected an MP must get 50% or more and if they don't, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and their second choices re-allocated and this is continuously done until someone has more than 50% of the vote.
Opinion of Leaders
Although I was initially quite enthusiastic about supporting John Tory, as I am a former Progressive Conservative myself, since his views are very similiar to mine, my enthusiasm has waned incredibly since the whole religious schools issue broke out. In fact if he makes one more gaffe, I may consider not voting PC altogether.
I think Dalton McGuinty has done an average job as he has not done anything spectacular, but nothing really bad either. He doesn't deserve to be re-elected on his record alone, but neither does he deserve to be defeated. Instead one should look at the alternatives and decide accordingly.
I consider myself to be very similiar to John Tory philosophically. Unlike Stephen Harper, John Tory was a Progressive Conservative right up until the merger and never supported the Reform/Alliance parties. Unlike Stephen Harper, John Tory is not a social conservative. He is unequovically pro-choice and supported gay marriage from the beginning. He is a fiscal conservative who believes in smaller government, but not a slash and burn one like Mike Harris. While I agree with what Mike Harris did in his first term, since Ontario needed radical surgery then, such policies would not be appropriate today as we are in far better shape than in 1995. I also think John Tory falls more in the Bill Davis mold than Mike Harris one.
On the issue of funding religious schools, I understand why Catholic schools were initially created. At the time they were created, we still said the Lord's Prayer every morning and we were a more religious society. Back then almost all Ontarioans were either from the Protestant majority or Catholic minority and since the other schools were de facto Protestant ones, it made sense to have a separate Catholic system. Today, we are far more secular, have many faiths in addition to Protestantism and Catholicism and many who are not religious at all. Therefore, I believe the time has come to end public funding to all religious schools including Catholic ones. I have no problem with private religious schools existing though. While I agree John Tory's plan to fund all religious schools is better than the status quo, it is not the right direction to go.
On the issue of teaching creationism, I have no problem with it being taught in Social Studies or comparative religion classes, but I am dead set against it being taught in science classes. For something to be a science it must be tested, be testable again and have had several repeated tests coming to a similiar or the same conclusion. Creationism does not meet this as it cannot be tested and there is no evidence that can be verified to prove or disprove it (although it has been disproven that the earth is only 6,000 years old). However, social studies only talks about what some believe, it does not try to present those beliefs as facts. In my social studies classes in High School, we studied almost every religion and even some ancient ones such as Greek mythology. In fact, in many history classes, you cannot study a society without studying the religion as religion often played a very central role in the country's history and still does for some cultures today. However, the point is this is about teaching what people believe, not how things actually are.
I will have more as the campaign continues.
No to MMP
I will be voting No to MMP and encouraging all others I know to do so as well. I oppose it for a few reasons.
1. Our ridings are already large enough as they are, especially in rural areas. Making the ridings larger means even less effective local representation
2. An MP's job is to represent his/her constituents, not the party. By choosing someone from a list, we will likely get party hacks whose main loyalty is to the leader rather than their constituents. More importantly those elected from the list will be difficult to hold accountable for bad decisions, especially if placed near the top of the list since almost every party that wins seats or gets above 5% will get at least the top few slots chosen as MPs so those MPs are essentially safe.
3. It will lead to less stable governments. Some people say minority governments are a good thing, but I disagree. Governments sometimes have to make tough decisions that are right (such as free trade, GST, cuts made to balance the budget in the 90s, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Bilingualism etc.) but not necessarily popular at the time. By having a stable majority government, this will allow them to pass those policies and then voters can judge based on their results. In addition fringe parties on the far left or far right could hold the balance of power, whereas with the current system, parties that are too far to either the left or right are unlikely to win any seats.
4. It will lead to more not less party discipline. As it is now, leader's already hold a lot of power, but since MPs are still accountable to their constituents they will break ranks with the party if something that is unpopular in their constituency is adopted, as Bill Casey did with the budget vote federally. Those appointed by the party are accountable to no one but the party leader and will never likely challenge him or her no matter how bad their decision is.
Now some say that it is unfair to have the majority of seats without winning the majority of votes. And I agree, but there is a better solution, which is an instant run off vote whereby to be elected an MP must get 50% or more and if they don't, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and their second choices re-allocated and this is continuously done until someone has more than 50% of the vote.
Opinion of Leaders
Although I was initially quite enthusiastic about supporting John Tory, as I am a former Progressive Conservative myself, since his views are very similiar to mine, my enthusiasm has waned incredibly since the whole religious schools issue broke out. In fact if he makes one more gaffe, I may consider not voting PC altogether.
I think Dalton McGuinty has done an average job as he has not done anything spectacular, but nothing really bad either. He doesn't deserve to be re-elected on his record alone, but neither does he deserve to be defeated. Instead one should look at the alternatives and decide accordingly.
I consider myself to be very similiar to John Tory philosophically. Unlike Stephen Harper, John Tory was a Progressive Conservative right up until the merger and never supported the Reform/Alliance parties. Unlike Stephen Harper, John Tory is not a social conservative. He is unequovically pro-choice and supported gay marriage from the beginning. He is a fiscal conservative who believes in smaller government, but not a slash and burn one like Mike Harris. While I agree with what Mike Harris did in his first term, since Ontario needed radical surgery then, such policies would not be appropriate today as we are in far better shape than in 1995. I also think John Tory falls more in the Bill Davis mold than Mike Harris one.
On the issue of funding religious schools, I understand why Catholic schools were initially created. At the time they were created, we still said the Lord's Prayer every morning and we were a more religious society. Back then almost all Ontarioans were either from the Protestant majority or Catholic minority and since the other schools were de facto Protestant ones, it made sense to have a separate Catholic system. Today, we are far more secular, have many faiths in addition to Protestantism and Catholicism and many who are not religious at all. Therefore, I believe the time has come to end public funding to all religious schools including Catholic ones. I have no problem with private religious schools existing though. While I agree John Tory's plan to fund all religious schools is better than the status quo, it is not the right direction to go.
On the issue of teaching creationism, I have no problem with it being taught in Social Studies or comparative religion classes, but I am dead set against it being taught in science classes. For something to be a science it must be tested, be testable again and have had several repeated tests coming to a similiar or the same conclusion. Creationism does not meet this as it cannot be tested and there is no evidence that can be verified to prove or disprove it (although it has been disproven that the earth is only 6,000 years old). However, social studies only talks about what some believe, it does not try to present those beliefs as facts. In my social studies classes in High School, we studied almost every religion and even some ancient ones such as Greek mythology. In fact, in many history classes, you cannot study a society without studying the religion as religion often played a very central role in the country's history and still does for some cultures today. However, the point is this is about teaching what people believe, not how things actually are.
I will have more as the campaign continues.
posted by Monkey Loves to Fight at 6:16 PM
4 Comments:
The double-flip-flop and correction by the Tory campaign on the creationism in science (first saying ok, then saying no in a later statement) could really decimate the campaign I believe.
That makes it easy for them to lose votes both left and right, as the mere discussion makes strong social liberals cringe and could turn leaning-PC voters to the Liberals. On the other hand, the social conservatives (already not happy with him being very liberal on social issues) could easily stay home in larger numbers or (less likely) vote for fringe parties. One of those parties is trying to run a full slate of candidates...
Certainly a dumb move and if the issue dogs him for the campaign, it could hurt him, however it still remains rather early to see how this will effect him so far.
"Now some say that it is unfair to have the majority of seats without winning the majority of votes. "
I disagree with this sentiment. The only time this gets us into trouble is with budget and money votes. All other votes should be free (non-whipped) votes. Get the MPPs and MPs to act like statesmen so they represent their constituents instead of their party, and their party affiliation will mean little. It would not matter how many votes a certain party got when it comes to legislation.
I remember checking the howdtheyvote.ca site and seeing how many voted in line with their party line and how many did not. Most seemed to toe the line. My MP, Diane Marleau, voted against the party line a couple of times. I remember one was about the jewellery excise tax. Unfortunately, the site no longer has that data, so I have no more examples and cannot say for certain how many voted for vs against the party line.
Your idea of an instant run off vote seems expensive. It cannot be too instant. The votes must be tallied first, then there is the period for recounts and challenges. Then another vote would have to take place with those who voted for the candidate that was eliminated would then have to pick between those that are left. The only other way is to use STV with priority ballots.
About the policies, I don't see how you can say that John Tory is fiscally conservative when he is set to increase spending while counting on some savings and efficiencies and a constant economic growth rate. He is planning on getting rid of the health premium while increasing health the amount that is spent on health care by 8.5 billion. Overall, he is promising 14 per cent planned spending growth. He expects education to cost another 1.7 billion. He is even planning for the interest on the debt to increase. Other areas that they plan on increasing funding are Postsecondary education and training, Social services spending, Justice, transportation, environment, farmer support, 905 pooling, fish and wildlife programs, tourism, citizenship and immigration, and culture.
There are no tax cuts other than the health tax premium, and the economy will have to continue to grow at 6% to pay for this 14% extra spending. That is not fiscally conservative. It seems his big selling point is that the PC plan will increase spending by 10% less than the Liberals did. What happens when the economy slows down? Will he run deficits or will he actually make some spending cuts? Since his whole plan is based on increasing spending, while finding some unknown efficiencies, what would lead me to believe that he would not run a deficit budget?
I am getting this information from the http://www.ontariopc.com/documents/Fiscal_Plan_For_A_Better_Ontario.pdf link.
Since you seemed to identify yourself as a social progressive, I would like to know your opinion as to why the government should be involved in tourism, culture, and fish and wildlife programs.
As well, since "revenues were in fact $4.7 billion higher than estimated in the 2006
budget," what would you like to see be done with the 4.7 billion?
John M. Reynolds - I am all for free votes on issues that are not matters of confidence, but as a general rule even if free votes the majority of MPs will usually vote with the party and if some vote differently on average this should balance out as some government MPs may vote against the government, but some opposition will vote for them.
As for John Tory - being a fiscal conservative, I am talking more relatively speaking. With the economy really strong and the fact we aren't facing large deficits, there isn't the public appetite for downsizing government like there was in the 90s.
As for the areas, he wants to increase spending, I would have to see the details and see how well the programs work and whether there can be done by the private sector or not as an alternative.
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