Provincial Election Results
Looks like Ontario voters did not agree that breaking promises was something that was unacceptable. Maybe they think all politicians break promises! And John Tory’s mistake of trying to be fair to minorities did not in the end do more than distract from the rest of his message. But the Conservative’s mistake seems to have been to focus on why the Liberals were bad and not why the Conservatives were better. So we are stuck with the “same old” for another 4 years - anyone who voted Liberal should not complain in that time - they lost their chance. One other notable change is the increase in Green party support - I would suspect they will gradually grow over the next period - mostly at the expense of the NDP.
And the other major thing to note is that the MMP system did not win support so we’ll continue with “First Past the Post” . As Paul Macklin was recently quoted as saying “it needs more study” and “there are other alternatives”. The consensus seems to be that MMP is too complicated, too likely to lead to minority Governments and too likely to elect unwanted party nominated candidates. If you want to avoid wasting a vote - then the single transferrable vote works. But it too has problems - notably an increase in spoiled ballots.
John Draper
October 11th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I suppose this increased majority for McGuinty gives him a mandate to continue lying. Too bad.
The referendum might have passed had it not been for the party lists and the perception that this would lead to more patronage plums and unaccountable, unelected politicans.
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October 12th, 2007 at 6:40 am
John, one comment the greens did not grow at the expense of the ndp. Preliminary examination of the entrails reveals that the greens vote came out of the tories, they slipped from 39.7% to 31.2% and the ndp went from 11.5% to 13.2% - so much for losing votes!!
October 12th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
But the NDP would have been even higher except for the Green Party. My comment is based on the fact that Greens and NDP supporters tend to be kindred spirits. It’s certainly significant that the Green Party and the NDP combined had 23.4%. It’s either a protest vote, an environmental vote or a shift to the left. I suspect a bit of each.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Most who have looked at the Greens find their economic and social policies to be somewhere to the right of Maggie Thatcher, and no thinking NDipper would ever put their vote there!
October 15th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Ben what I find fascinating is, this was your very own prediction, it with barely a week to go before the election was over and this is how you read the riding with a Cathy Galt win??? It would seem that your prediction could not have been further from accurate and yet no mention from you about how truly far off you were. Cathy Galt of course was decimated by one of the largest vote pluralities in the history of Northumberland or Quinte West or its combined incarnation. You are criticizing Lou for a 96 vote drop and yet praising your NDP perennial 3 rd party win for their 1.6% vote increase from which got them to where… oh yes 3rd place as always and forevermore here seat less.
Let’s talk about the facts Lou Rinaldi beat for the first time in our Province’s history a back to back husband and wife team. Doug Galt he beat by 2500 votes in 2003 but he beat Cathy Galt by 40 votes short of 7000 in 2007. I agree Cathy Galt was a terrible choice in a candidate and she shot herself in the head not once but twice before the writ was even dropped about false wait times at NHH forcing John Tory to have to publicly apologize by press release on one of his first visits with candidate Galt. Then Cathy sent around a well metering petition with quotes from the Durham Medical Officer of Health which he threatened to legal action over as they were false.
Again what matters at the end of election night is how many seats your party has. The Liberals gained 4 to sweep to an undeniable massive majority in this Province, the PC’s gained exactly one seat more to go to a whopping 26 and the mighty NDP gained exactly the same 10 seats not even party status me thinks thought it was 12, and the glorious Green party who you yourself describe as having a fantasy for a financial plan gained shock of all shocks zero seats.
But then begins the song of the losers not enough people voted so the thousands that did well that doesn’t matter, or the voting system is unfair though with Lou having over 45% of the total vote himself in back to back elections I think neither the NDP candidate who I personally thought was one of the weakest they have ever put up locally, rampant pessimism and angry negativity is not flattering on any candidate of any stripe, wait I know she had a 1.6% vote gain landslide. And the Greens did improve - I mean in 2003 three they were in 4th place and in 2007 they were also in 4th place. I know next time they will gain a further 4.6x’s the votes they got this time.
Now the Liberals went down in popular vote or whatever vote count but strange how they will be governing this Province with over 70 of the 107 seats in the Legislature. Now I realize that if the PC’s vote with the NDP for a combined 36 votes they only need to double that seat count to 72 and they can out vote the Liberals by a massive one vote, literally one vote. That is how small both parties’ seats counts are.
My prediction that NDP will continue to come in 3rd if not 4th in NQW for at least the next 50 years and the Greens will come very close to overtaking them as they did in this election. Look how close the Green’s came within 3rd place.
Now we can blame faith based funding but I go with your statements your making now that the results are in Cathy Galt ran a campaign as you aptly describe as weak and with her as the candidate she could never beat Lou Rinaldi.
Again all a moot point Lou did receive a huge vote share here and the Liberals have a massive majority so for at least 4 years extremisms has been kept at bay. Oh and most of the municipal problems you mention are just that municipal problems that no Government can change around here with the 7 County leaders.
In fact heaven forbid the Campbellford rump you mentioned is interesting given Hector MacMillan is telling anyone who listens that he wants to run in 2011 he just has not decided for which party he will deign to be the candidate.
Again you are for the NDP and I’m for the Liberals so trying not to gloat … but common you predicted Cathy Galt to win…
October 15th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
With hindsight Ryan you can predict anything, but let’s look at the magnificent win by the fiberals. Looo lost 96 votes when the riding expanded by 12,000. Where do you get the four seat gain when the fiberals have one seat less than before (72 now 71).
Municipal problems may appear to be that but when you get your MPAc assessment this year just remember that it is the municipality that you pay the exorbitant taxes to. Any provincial government that fails to reform the property tax system is doomed next time around. And don’t talk about 5% caps you have to pay the piper at sometime in your life! Change can be affected in this area all Loo has to do is to persuade McGuinty that it has to be done, despite the municipal dwarfs, all seven of them.
October 15th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Yes, Ben - in hindsight Lou won by nearly 7000 votes to his closest rival. I don’t know what else you would call a magnificent win. Would the Liberals have to win every seat in the province before you would admit how entirely wrong you were in your prediction? (for your sake, its a good thing we wern’t in New Brunswick a few years ago)
As you clearly do not like to admit when you are wrong (only when others are), I will have to continue to post on other blogs as you do not post my responses to you’re writings.
This is what I said several days ago when you tried to peg me on the issue that the Liberals went back with a smaller amount of seats this election:
_____________________
Ben - not so much, on all accounts. The Tory vote shifted to the Green’s (mostly) and NDP, while the Liberal’s maintained their support. In our riding, for instance, we have a 0.2% change in the popular vote for the Liberals.
Loooooo who? 2nd term, larger party majority is who.
Note: Ben Burd had replied to this comment saying I can’t count, noting that last election the Liberals won 72 seats. What Ben did not factor in is that there were byelections, bringing the Liberals down to 67 seats…which means that they received an additional 4 seats this election. Mr. Burd failed to post my rebuttal.
Ryan.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
A magnificent and notable win would be one where he exceeded the votes of the last election thereby showing electoral progress. Loo lost 96 votes whilst the number of potential voters increased by 12,000, a magnificent win would be getting a great number of votes from that 12000 and exceeding the last election’s results!
As to the problem of my not being able to count I concede that there were liberal losses which you failed to explain in your rebuttal, only an apologist would claim to have lost and then won to become greater. Compare general elections to general elections.
As a matter of fact I do not fail to post comments; you were posted, you didn’t happen to like the answer to it so you perhaps failed to note the post. It is a matter of policy that on my page all comments get posted, even the ones i vehemently disagree with. Unfortunately that is not always the case with some, this one excluded, I have yet to be moderated - thanks John!
October 15th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
So the navel-gawking politicos discuss 67 seats here or there, assorted percentage point increases/decreases, for Allah’s sake 0.2 change (small change), 96 votes lost and found dead elsewhere.
No wonder constituents prefer re-runs of Cdn Idolatry over voting.
The sweet irony is that the material success of our society continues to improve no matter how many votes dance in the pinheads of smarty party hacks.
October 17th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
For the record, no dissenting opinion will get edited/moderated on this blog. Only crudities or other spam get edited. Also new commenters need to get approved for the same reason (spam). I believe in free speech ahead of my personal opinions.
John Draper/Moderator