Ontario 2018 election

[DC Al Fine]

That's not what I meant. I'm aware of Mainstreet's issues. I wanted to know why you think that polls showing the Tories at 40% or less "more accurately reflect the quirks of individual ridings". It's a bit of a different take.

Quirks include incumbency "bounce", relative strengths of candidates and parties in certain ridings, past patterns--the usual banal stuff.  And you seem to be skirting over my "as well as the contentiousness of Doug Ford himself" point...

That's because it's self evident that Doug Ford is controversial It was the other part I didn't get.

[DC Al Fine]

Abacus is now out and somewhat similar in topline but like Ipsos and unlike Ekos and Mainstreet show a strong divergence amongst millennials.  It seems online polls show millennials heavily tilting to the left while IVR favouring PCs.  Amongst older voters seems more consensus.  Off course if millennials don't show up it won't matter, but if they do could be interesting.  Both favour PCs, but it seems their majority is based heavily on vote splitting whereas with IVR it is a more solid lead.

PC 40%
Liberal 28%
NDP 24%
Green 6%

Those age splits make a Tory majority seem a lot safer. Polls with the Tories in the 40's with high millennial support and the Liberals doing well with seniors indicated that things could tighten pretty quick and/or there would be a surprise on election day. A 40% PC result with standard age splits is a lot more stable for the PC's

[DC Al Fine]

Why is Wynne so unpopular?

She's a woman who has been effective but slightly less than perfect. Seems to be a cardinal sin.

I'm sure in your mind the only reason Kim Campbell lost was because she was a woman

The ironic part is that Hagrid's post is itself sexist, by applying kid gloves to female leaders. You really think a man seeking a fifth term for a scandal-ridden government wouldn't have crappy approval ratings? Ok dude.

Honestly I'm surprised that Wynne is doing as well as she is. I would figured the NDP would have overtaken her like it did Mulroney's PC's in the early 90's.

[DC Al Fine]

Kids gloves? Wynne has done nothing particularly offensive. Parties face atmospheres of fatigue all the time, but rarely do their leaders experience the same sheer force of pure personal vitriol that Kathleen Wynne is facing. People aren’t “tired” of her—they hate her. A 14% approval rating for delivering generally popular policy initiatives isn’t just because of fatigue.

The situation is different for other women like Kim Campbell and Horwath because they never actually had to make any meaningful decisions. We haven’t had to find an excuse to criticize them for absolutely everything yet.

By all means, subject Kathleen Wynne to fair criticism. But most of what I hear is vague BS about her being out of touch, opportunistic, or politically correct. Not everyone who votes against the OLP is motivated or moved by sexism. But to say that’s it’s not a large factor is a deliberate exercise of ignorance.

Off the top of my head, the gas plant scandal, the Sudbury by-election, massive hydro rate hikes since the last election, and Ontario having the worst wage growth in the country over the past decade (worse than even my economic basket case of a province) are all normal, concrete reasons why the government is unpopular... And I don't even follow Ontario politics that closely. I'm sure RB or Harman or LittleTommy could come up with more. Besides this is a government seeking its fifth term, not it's second. One has to expect a much larger level of fatigue than normal.

What's more, some of the vague reasons you cite tie in pretty well with my concrete ones. (E.g. "opportunistic" to "gas plant s" or "out of touch" to "focusing on green projects while hydro rate skyrocket")

I see Hagrid badly wants a replay of the US election.

I actually do think sexism may be a part of the equation (she deserves to be unpopular, but the most unpopular premier? not sure if that's deserved), but it is not the only reason, and probably not the biggest part of it.

The problem with the sexism hypothesis is that we have a recent, relevant test case to compare to in Greg Selinger, and the evidence doesn't support it. Like Wynne, Selinger was seeking a second term and fifth in a row for the party. Like Wynne, his approval rating bottomed out in the teens. One would think that if the sexism hypothesis was true, a male Premier in a similar situation two years ago would have much better approval ratings than their female equivalent today, but that isn't the case.

[DC Al Fine]

Honestly I'm surprised that Wynne is doing as well as she is. I would figured the NDP would have overtaken her like it did Mulroney's PC's in the early 90's.

Is the Ontario NDP in bad shape?

I'll defer to the Ontarians for a detailed explanation, but my understanding is that they aren't in disarray. The problem is that they haven't converted some opportunities and there is still a little bit of a bad taste from their last government in the 1990's.

Honestly I'm surprised that Wynne is doing as well as she is. I would figured the NDP would have overtaken her like it did Mulroney's PC's in the early 90's.

Or the federal Iggy Liberals in 2011.  Of course, re the early 90s, that's seat totals, not overall vote tally--which means, it could still happen (much as it did in 1975 when the NDP became official opposition in the first Davis minority).

Remember that the ONDP still, to this day, suffers from the collateral third-leg-thrust-into-power "not ready for prime time" damage of a quarter century ago.  And if Wynne's doing as well as she is, it's also because Doug Ford isn't a readymade "neutral" vessel for votes a la Jean Chretien or various BC Liberal leaders...

The example I was thinking of was before 1993... Mulroney actually spent much of his 2nd term behind the NDP in the polls. I think the NDP actually led for a little while. Otherwise I agree with what you said.

[DC Al Fine]

Earl, what did Selinger do for you to rate him so poorly? I'd rank Wynne worse personally.

As for the online vitriol, I think that's a fair point. I will grant that sexism is playing a very minor role, but it seems like some progressive posters (not you) use the gender card to ignore the very normal, concrete reasons why a Wynne or Clinton are so unpopular.

[DC Al Fine]

Speaking of Wynne's approval ratings, does anyone know what the approval ratings were like for some of the recent cases of unpopular leaders making comebacks during the election? I feel like Clark or McGuinty (or heck Wynne in 2011) were doing better than she is now.

[DC Al Fine]

Presumably the NDP don't want to touch faith based schools for the same reason the Tories don't want to revisit it...

The NDP is trying to tread a very fine line between keeping their base happy and not blowing a rare chance to win power due to some random controversial platform plank, and I think they're doing a reasonable job of it. Ontario isn't Texas but it's more right wing than people give it credit for. That needs to be taken into account when criticizing platforms.

[DC Al Fine]

Presumably the NDP don't want to touch faith based schools for the same reason the Tories don't want to revisit it...

The NDP is trying to tread a very fine line between keeping their base happy and not blowing a rare chance to win power due to some random controversial platform plank, and I think they're doing a reasonable job of it. Ontario isn't Texas but it's more right wing than people give it credit for. That needs to be taken into account when criticizing platforms.

Why is banning religious schools even an issue? It sounds anti-democratic to me.

It's not banning, Catholic schools would be legal just not publicly funded.

There are two different axes of publically funded education, resulting in four systems in Ontario; English-French and Public (originally Protestantish, but has been secular for a very long time)-Catholic. There is a Charter right for Francophones and Anglophones to have their kids educated in their language but no corresponding right to have ones children educated in a particular religion.

In 2007 the Tories had a botched campaign promise to expand public funding to Evangelical, Muslim etc schools and they got burned by it. Some on the left want the NDP and/or Liberals to eliminate funding for Catholic schools and I suspect they would get burned on that side too.

Personally I think the Tory proposal from 2007 is the most democratic as secular schools present a particular worldview and non-Catholics who disagree are at a significant financial disadvantage in educating their kids in their preferred worldview compared to secular and Catholic parents.

[DC Al Fine]

Where is the mention of getting rid of the Catholic schools?

Getting rid of Catholic schools require amending the Constitution, which the Federal won't do unless there is a general consensus (like there was in Québec and Newfoundland).

All other provinces that got out of it were able to do it.  If Ontario wanted out of the business of being discriminatory, and fully funding these schools, they could do it.

Andrea Horwath's message to young Gay francophones (who can't work openly in a Catholic system): I think you should only have access to 20% of teaching jobs.  That's the message I'm getting anyway.  

The solution is to ban gay hiring discrimination there.

Which essentially makes them non-catholic.  Most of the Catholic schools (particularly in areas of the GTA like Peel) are filled with non-catholics.  So why even have them?

The other thing that I take issue with is when people point to Johny Tory's PC party, and say "look it was a disaster then with what he proposed".  Yeah, it was a disaster because the PCs wanted to EXPAND funding of religious schools, which most Ontarians are against. The opposite, wouldn't you think, would get the opposite reaction (i.e., favourable).

The fact that this exists in 2018, in Ontario, is upsetting.
Again, the issue is more pronounced on the French side, where some 80% of the jobs in most areas with Catholic schools.  It's outrageously discriminatory towards Muslim, Sikh, Atheist, etc, Francophones more than anyone, as the French public boards are so small.
Again, Andrea Horwath is saying loud in clear: I think Muslim francophone teachers don't deserve as many job opportunities as Catholic Francophones for jobs (actually only 1 out of every 5).   Or you're a francophone Sikh family, your child will have to travel across town an hour on a bus to get to a French public school, even though there is a French-Catholic school across the street.  But the catholic family next door, your kids won't have to take an hour-long bus ride.   If people don't see that as discriminatory, than we have a larger problem in this province than we may have though.

Toaster, I'm on mobile, so you'll have to forgive me for not breaking out the paragraphs of your post/my response into seperate quotes.

1) Large numbers of non-Catholics putting their kids in Catholic schools indicates to me that the Catholic schools are providing something that parents want that they don't feel they are getting out of secular schools, whether it's quality of education, morals or something else. For example one of my good friends attended Catholic schools near Hamilton despite being raised Evangelical. He told me that it's semi common for Evangelicals to send their kids to Catholic schools due to the relative lack of secularism. To remove funding is removing options for parents who are dissatisfied with a uniform, secular public system. It's an indicator that there is a segment of parents who are dissatisfied with the public system and a good reason IMO to expand funding to additional groups, both secular and religious.

2) I don't think it follows that opposition to the Tory proposal necessarily indicates the opposite would be positively received. Ontario is about 30% Catholic at least nominally and by your own admission, many non-Catholic students attend Catholic schools. That indicates a large constituency that would have some degree of attachment to Catholic schools (even for non-religous reasons). The NDP would presumably need to win some of those votes to form government.

Oryxslayer had it right; it's not a relevant issue, and the political calculus isn't there for the NDP to make it one. You'd do well to avoid the mistake of my socon peers of confusing principal with popularity.

3) I don't think anyone denies it's discrimination, but politics isnt working out laws from first principles. Progressive governments in Ontario and Alberta are restricting the right to peaceful protest. It sucks and I complain incessantly about it, but I get why progressives are doing it and why the Tories aren't putting up a big fight: Sometimes discrimination is popular.

[DC Al Fine]

Latest Forum poll out this morning is a total bloodbath for the Wynne Liberals:

PC - 46%
NDP - 27%
Liberals - 21% (!) and projected to lose official party status with just 7 seats

http://www.qpbriefing.com/2018/04/20/forum-poll-ontario-liberals-fall-third-place-risk-losing-party-status/

I know it's lolForum, but if that's anywhere near accurate, it will be a bloodbath. The Liberals were down to 11 seats in Ontario federally in 2011 on a 45-25-25 split.

[DC Al Fine]

That makes sense. Another way to think of it is that since the NDP is a third party a PVI of zero corresponds with a much lower vote than it would for the Tories or Liberals. If the 2011 federal election was a normal result instead off the Liberal wipeout it actually was, we'd probably see even more results like Brantford-Brant. E.g. Scarborough North.

[DC Al Fine]

An example of what Hatman is talking about: Thornhill is way more conservative federally than provincially thanks to the Israel issue. If we pretend 2018 is a Liberal landslide, Thornhill would be more likely to get picked off than PVI would indicate.

[DC Al Fine]

This is what, 3 in a row, that have the NDP in the 27-28% range?  As soon as the NDP solidifies its position as the alternative, which I expect is happening now, I expect (like what happened with the federal Layton orange wave), they will only go up. 

Would be interesting to see what the result would be if the wheels fell off for the Liberals and the NDP were a solid 2nd place They only pulled 25% or so federally in 2011, tying the Liberals. I wonder what the map would look like if the results were something like 42-32-21?

[DC Al Fine]

Do you think Ontario is merely disgusted with just the Liberal party or is disgusted with all left wing parties in general?

Definitely the former.

[DC Al Fine]

This is the buzz of the day: Doug Ford promising to pave over the Greenbelt, more or less
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R68vvTuO7w&feature=youtu.be

Dumb move and cannot see this helping him.  How much damage it will do is tough to say, but I suspect a lot will depend on how long this stays in the news cycle.  If it is forgotten by Friday the damage will be minimal, but if still in the news in a week's time could cost him a majority.  Also when it comes to lowering housing prices, densification not building in the greenbelt is the solution.  They just means more sprawl and longer commutes.  Los Angeles is a great example of urban sprawl and is not nearly as liveable a city as many European ones or even some American ones like San Francisco or New York City which have less sprawl.

You just listed reasons why it's bad policy, not why it's bad politics. Bad policy and popularity are not mutually exclusive. Is this an untouchable issue or something?

[DC Al Fine]

Given my disdain for these sorts of questions (though I now get the point more) I thought of this as a joke, but there might be something to it:

Describe a Bob Rae/NDP 1995 (not 1990)-Doug Ford/P.C 2018 voter.

Two guesses:

1) Late 50's male. Lives in Oshawa, Brant or similar. Lost a high paying job in the auto sector in 2009. Back on his feet now but feels left behind by society and that Ford is his kind of guy.

2) Early 40's female. Voted Rae in 1995 in a downtown Toronto riding as a UofT student. Got married, had kids, moved to Vaughan and started going to mass again sporadically. Worries about her commute and hydro prices a lot.

[DC Al Fine]

The issue on the greenbelt is closed as Ford has now promised to not to touch it.  Yes it is a flip flop and looks bad, but would have been worse to let the issue continue to dominate the headlines.  His biggest risk is he cannot afford too many other flip flops.  One or two will not kill a campaign especially 37 days out, but multiple ones will.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-wynne-greenbelt-development-election-1.4643189

Yup... see this is why they (PC party) are controlling him so hard (no media bus, their own media)! things like this are going to happen more and more and the election gets going. He is is own brand, towing the PC line is already looking hard for the man.

Well I'm really glad I questioned Miles reasoning so quickly

[DC Al Fine]

Yeah, I thought that theory had been debunked.

Personally, I've gotten much more left wing with age.

It's gotten debunked for the States where one's party is more or less set after three elections, but I'm not sure that's the case in Canada. Our riding trends seem to indicate that it's not set in stone. E.g. The Tories pulling 40% in heavily Jewish and Italian ridings in a bad year that Chretien used to win with 60-70%.

[DC Al Fine]

Poll shocker from the usually Liberal friendly Pollara

PCs 40%
NDP 30%
OLP 23%

And th poll notes that most of the remaining Liberals would vote NDP if it was clear that Horwath had the best chance of stopping Ford

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-macleans-pollara-ontario-election-poll-welcome-to-third-place-liberals/

What also has to be encouraging for the NDP is second choices:
NDP - 33%
Undecided - 25%
Green - 16%
PC - 11%
OLP - 11%
Another - 5%

This has to be worrisome for both the PCs and Liberals; the PC are basically at their ceiling of 40-45%, with very little room as they are really no ones second choice. The Liberals, if they are stuck at 20-25%, is basically their ceiling as well. The NDP is so far the second choice of a third of voters, AND with undecideds being the next largest group at a quarter, still could have potential for room to grow.
Also bad for the Liberals if the NDP is at 30%:
"... Liberal supporters who want to block Ford were asked: “And, during the campaign, if it looked like Andrea Horwath and the NDP had the best chance of stopping Doug Ford and the PCs from winning the election, how likely are you to switch your vote to Andrea Horwath and the NDP?” Fully 78 per cent of those Liberal supporters who are motivated by a desire to stop Ford said they’d probably switch their vote to the NDP in such a scenario, against only 22 per cent who said they probably wouldn’t."

Well of course people who want to stop Ford are willing to vote strategically The real question is what % of Liberals are seriously concerned about stopping him. I imagine it's a lot (most?) of them but the % makes a big difference.

Lastly I think a certain amount of skepticism is a good idea for these strategic voting questions. The Liberals aren't going to drop to the single digits like that result would imply.

[DC Al Fine]

Off topic a bit, but the NDP have finally got around to nominating a candidate in Kiiwetinoong a riding they should be a slam dunk in. I wonder what has taken so long? The riding may not have a lot of people, but is incredibly difficult to canvass (few roads, you have to fly from community to community), so if wish they had nominated someone month ago to get a head start. The Liberals and Tories have had candidates for a while.

Yeah that's odd. I know the NDP is slow to nominate candidates, but I always chalked it up to having to run more sacrificial lambs than the Tories and Liberals. You'd think it'd be easy to find a local mayor or councilor early to run for your safe seat.

[DC Al Fine]

Just watched some debate highlights on CBC. The lack of podiums was weird and reminds me too much of the 2016 GOP primary.

[DC Al Fine]

A couple more points:

1) I agree with the consensus that Horwath won and Ford lost. I will add that Wynne lost in the sense of coming off as a desperate incumbent and failing to steal any thunder from Horwath, which she needs to do to avoid total disaster.

2) Re Allen: There is a lot of tension between conservative parties and the socon movement right now. Socons are too unpopular to embrace but too important to the conservative winning coalition to disavow entirely. Thats not to say we're on the brink of a realignment but I'm hearing grumbling about the Tories that I wasn't hearing five years ago. Something has to give eventually, although Im not quite sure what that "something" will be.

[DC Al Fine]

Why is the Green Party on the Economic left there?  They are much further right than either Liberals or NDP on that front, with wanting to privatize weed sales and all

Not wanting a government monopoly on weed does not make a party right wing. In fact, getting out of the business of selling weed frees up a lot of money for the government to spend on social programs.

Are you claiming the government can't make a profit with having a monopoly selling weed? 

I realize you're likely arguing that the government would make more money taxing it than being in the retail business itself, but, at least in British Columbia, the government seems to have done a good job with liquor stores (beer and wine can now be sold privately, separate from bars and restaurants of course.)

I only know so much about this because I don't drink alcohol, but the government run stores seem to get a fair deal of praise.

Count your lucky stars. Nova Scotia Liquor Commission is awful.

[DC Al Fine]

A couple more points:

1) I agree with the consensus that Horwath won and Ford lost. I will add that Wynne lost in the sense of coming off as a desperate incumbent and failing to steal any thunder from Horwath, which she needs to do to avoid total disaster.

2) Re Allen: There is a lot of tension between conservative parties and the socon movement right now. Socons are too unpopular to embrace but too important to the conservative winning coalition to disavow entirely. Thats not to say we're on the brink of a realignment but I'm hearing grumbling about the Tories that I wasn't hearing five years ago. Something has to give eventually, although Im not quite sure what that "something" will be.

I suspect if there is a switch to PR anywhere you will see the two split into separate parties and ironically under PR it would help not hurt them.  I oppose PR myself, but there seems to be a strong push for it so wouldn't be surprised if one province goes to it.  If it is a disaster it will sort itself out as they will realize they have no choice.  In addition there is also demographic churn to so as older voters die off and new ones become of age that will diminish their clout.  As for recent immigrants, that is greatly overplayed.  Many maybe social conservatives, but its rarely a major driving issue in how they vote as most understand when they move to Canada it is a more socially liberal country so no real interest in trying to change it.  Never mind the fact a lot of the loudest socons are often racist too scares a lot of them away.

Here's the problem this take: "socons are facing demographic decline" is an oversimplification.

Socons are certainly facing a decline, but data indicates that most of this decline is coming from nominal believers and irregular church attendees. The hardcore is holding steady*, i.e. the sort of people who nominated Sam Oosterhoff and voted for Granic Allen. I think this phenomenon is responsible for current tensions as the bulk of the Tories (read: irregular attendees or nominal Christians) is much less sympathetic to the hardcore than in the 90's.

PR would be the obvious solution to the divide, but assuming that doesn't happen, I suspect we will just see a gradual increase in tensions between a socon base that the party doesn't like but needs to win, followed by a trend towards non-partisan activism and political quietism when the party finally kicks us out.

*Sadly there's no detailed data for Canada, so I'm basing this off of US data, but it does correspond to what I see in my area.