Ontario 2018 election

[lilTommy]

Obviously Forum's seat model is a bit off. With those 416 numbers, York West should easily go to the PCs, it's deep in the heart of Fordnation.

Sadly I think Ford's entry has really hurt the NDP in Humber River-Black Creek and Etobicoke North. The NDP polled second in both and very strong here 39% in 2014 in York West (now HUmber River-Black Creek) and a solid 26% in Etobicoke North.

[lilTommy]

Brampton Centre? Really Mammo, glad your leaving council like Minnan-Wong. Brampton Centre just doesn't feel like a good fit for him; It has a growing South Asian community, over a quarter are South Asian. Brampton Centre or the old Springdale doesn't really have a PC/Con history, was won in 2011 under Harper, but was Liberal in 2008, and won back in 2015. Provincially has been Liberal since 2003. It does looks like somewhat of a swing riding, and if the NDP and OLP continue to poll about the same, PCs could sneak up the middle in a lot of swing ridings.

[lilTommy]

Brampton Centre? Really Mammo, glad your leaving council but like Minnan-Wong. Brampton Centre just doesn't feel like a good fit for him; It has a growing South Asian community, over a quarter are South Asian. Brampton Centre or the old Springdale doesn't really have a PC/Con history, was won in 2011 under Harper, but was Liberal in 2008, and won back in 2015. Provincially has been Liberal since 2003. It does looks like somewhat of a swing riding, and if the NDP and OLP continue to poll about the same, PCs could sneak up the middle in a lot of swing ridings.

The PCs actually came third in the polls that are contained in Brampton Centre, behind the NDP.  Jagmeet Singh represented about 40% of these polls.

Yup, I'd place this as third highest target for the NDP in Brampton, probably all of Peel... After Brampton East and Brampton North. 

[lilTommy]

Giorgio Mammoliti is running, but in Brampton Centre.  I think unlike where he lives that riding is winneable but most simulations show it a three way race so will be interesting as I think all three parties have a reasonable shot there.  Wonder what cabinet post he would get?  Maybe the minister responsible for prostitution (remember he was the one who wanted to make Toronto Island a red light district).

Doesn't he live in York West? York West is a 60%+ Fordnation riding. It's definitely a potential PC pickup.

Yup, but there is already a PC candidate nominated in the old York West riding, now called Humber River-Black Creek. Which even with redistribution this time around, I don't think the boundaries changed here only the name, odd.
The PC candidate probably did not want to step aside.

[lilTommy]

Giorgio Mammoliti is running, but in Brampton Centre.  I think unlike where he lives that riding is winneable but most simulations show it a three way race so will be interesting as I think all three parties have a reasonable shot there.  Wonder what cabinet post he would get?  Maybe the minister responsible for prostitution (remember he was the one who wanted to make Toronto Island a red light district).

Doesn't he live in York West? York West is a 60%+ Fordnation riding. It's definitely a potential PC pickup.

Yup, but there is already a PC candidate nominated in the old York West riding, now called Humber River-Black Creek. Which even with redistribution this time around, I don't think the boundaries changed here only the name, odd.
The PC candidate probably did not want to step aside.

I know, I'm just saying that the PCs have a good chance at winning the riding. It depends how loyal Fordnation is to the Ford brand.

(And yes, I'm aware of the new name, but I keep forgetting it, so I've just kept calling it York West).

I will admit for Humber River-Black Creek anything from the PCs getting clobbered to winning a landslide seems plausible but assume it will fall somewhere in between.  In recent elections PCs struggle just to crack the 20% mark yet Doug Ford got over 60% in the last municipal election.  Otherwise will the PC label push many away who voted for Ford municipally but cannot stomach voting PC or will Doug Ford being leader bring over that 40% who voted for him municipally but never vote PC.  I am guessing the PCs will do much better than usual in that riding, but probably not what Ford got municipally as municipal and provincial politics are different so while leader matters party label and loyalty which you lack municipally does too.

Humber River-Black Creek, and York South-Weston are both areas that should see the PC vote massively increase from their 10% and 11% showings in 2014; But with the NDP also pushing as the ant-Liberal vote in the city, where is this Liberal vote going to migrate to? The NDP was only 7% (about 2000 votes) from winning old York West; while they were 10% (about 3600 votes) shy in York South-Weston. If the NDP is polling higher in TO, and they are in most polls, these two are more likely to swing NDP even with an increase in the PC vote and decrease in Liberal vote. Ford brings huge positive name brand but also is now tied to the less favourable PC brand. While they poll very well outside TO, in the city its usually a three way race or tight two way.

In HRBC with the Liberal incumbent not running, I see this as an NDP/PC battle, If we lob off anything south of Sheppard, the NDP won the riding; its figuring out where the Ford vote will pull from. If the NDP can hold their chunk of votes in the Black Creek/Jane&Finch area and the Weston&Finch area, I could see them winning.  

YSW is a true three way fight; If the NDP can pull in 2014 or even better, 2011 votes (37% and 42%) they will win (winning the Weston area, and the southern neighbourhoods) The north west (the area that used to be in the old Lawrence riding) is very Liberal, might go PC though, this is the area I see most likely to swing PC (I canvassed this riding years ago, this area is older, was mainly Italian and Portuguese). As well as possibly Weston. If the NDP hold the south (south of Lawrence, west of Black Creek), they can win the riding.

[lilTommy]

Another question for people who understand these things better than me, if Ontario has one of the highest deficits and highest upper income tax rates in the OECD, but doesn't have the corresponding social program spending to go along with it, then where is all the money going to?

Good Question -
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/the-2018-ontario-budget-in-charts-and-numbers/

38.7% Health Care!
18.3% Education
13.1% "Other programs"
11.3% Children and Social Services
7.9% Interest on Debt
7.4%  Postsecondary and Training sector
3.2% Justice Sector

Revenue sources are interesting as well:
23.4% Personal Income Tax
17.6% Sales Tax
17.1% Federal Transfers
11.5% Other Non-Tax Revenues
9.9% Corporate Tax
4.3% Employer Health Tax
4.0% Education property tax
3.9% Other Tax
3.5% Income from Gov`t business enterprises
2.6% Health Premium
2.3% Gas and Fuel Taxes

** The NDP is already going to be running on higher corporate taxes, that`s pretty much a given.

[lilTommy]

On the issue of taxes related to the election.  It's obviously a no brainer the PCs will be against any tax hikes but with tax cuts they have to be careful as whatever hole they leave, that means spending cuts so while their tax cuts will be popular, the potential spending cuts is where the danger is.  Don't know what they will do, but probably smartest would be make their tax cuts noticeable but relatively small in treasury cost or backload them to the final year.  As for tax hikes, raising corporate and income taxes and high net worth individuals is an easy sell, the problem is when you crunch the numbers the amount of revenue you will get is not very much.  You have to raise the HST, fuel taxes, or middle income taxes to gain significant revenue and any of those will be politically harmful.  There is also sin taxes which governments of all stripes raise but again revenue from that is not particularly high, especially in the case of tobacco taxes as smoking rates are declining.  There is off course the marijuana revenue but again you put the tax too high on it, people will just turn to the black market.

As for deficits, my thinking is most NDP supporters probably don't care so no risk for the NDP.  For the PCs most do care so would be politically stupid not to at least have a plan to return to balance even if it takes a few years.  For Liberals its a mixed bag.  Large deficit could cost them some Blue Liberals (but I think Wynne has already given up on them or figures the only way she can win them back is from fear of Doug Ford not support for her) whereas amongst their left flank it doubt it will hurt them.  Apparently the PC platform will be five points and will be released in stages.  Risky in the sense the Liberals will try to poke holes, but could be very effective.  After all that is what Harper did in 2006 and it worked there and he entered the campaign with similar negatives to Ford.  Although he only got a weak minority on his first try, but Paul Martin's approval rating was also a lot better than Wynne's too.

The NDP has to be careful here two, they have two voting pools: urban/intelligentsia progressives/social democrats and Working class/blue collar/unionized populist/progressives. So Higher corporate taxes (major differentiator from the OLP) is usually a staple in policy as is increasing taxes on the wealthy since both of these groups essentially support this policy. Raising the HST, across the board will not happen. BUT perhaps the ONDP will pull a BCNDP and raise the HST on luxury items (i'd like to see this paired with a decrease on essentials like food, infant products, what used to be the old PST exempt stuff). That could be one way the NDP can run on raising revenues and not turn away their voting pool and potential pool. Hopefully the NDP takes the opportunity to look at BC (and Alberta) to see what's been done there; they can look at a increasing the speculation tax perhaps, and sin tax increases.
I would like to see the party embrace taking back ownership of the 407 as well... and expansion of public assets (more public corporations) but we shall see.

Remember outside of Toronto, especially in SW ontario and the North, the NDP competes primarily against the PCs. These areas is bread-and-butter, pocket book issues that matter.

[lilTommy]

Ford is resisting pressure to DQ Granic Allen over comments she made about Muslims and LGBT.

If she wins the Mississauga Centre nomination, those remarks will not go over well here I think. Over 16% of the population are Muslim, only 32% are white; this is a very ethnically/religiously diverse district

[lilTommy]

NDP has now released their platform which includes in its highlights the following:
-  5 years of deficit including $3.3 billion which is lower than the Liberals but possibly higher than the PCs.
-  Immediate minimum wage hike to $15/hour no waiting until January 1, 2019
-  Raise the corporate tax rate to 13% (so Ontario would have the highest corporate tax rate outside Atlantic Canada)
-  Raise the top rate by 1% for those making over 220K, 2% over 300K so a combined federal + Provincial total of 55.53% which would be the highest in North America and one of the highest (although not the highest) in the OECD.  Also a luxury tax on vehicles over 90K
- $12/a day childcare and free for those making less than 40K
-  Free dental care and pharmacare
- 100% buy back of the shares of Hydro One

So in summary a fairly left wing one suggesting to me the Liberals and NDP are largely fighting over the same voters.  It was signed off by Kevin Page so adds some fiscal credibility.  Still considering how poorly the Liberal budget went over with voters I am guessing the individual items will be quite popular but the general direction won't be.  The NDP has greater potential for growth than the Liberals due to lack of baggage, but both are fighting over similar voters so one needs to implode for either party to realistically have a shot at winning.  Also strong turnout amongst millennials will be key to either Liberals or NDP winning and also hope Ford shoots himself in the foot which is quite plausible.

I'm going to add a few more highlights since they have some key significance, most were known already:

-funding 50% of TTC operating costs and building the Yonge relief line/Hamilton LRT
-converting OSAP loans to non-repayable grants
-banning carding
-non-ontario based speculation tax
-updating the cap-and-trade carbon pricing so 25% revenue going to support low-income, rural, north, and trade exposed
-an entire plank section on Reconciliation/First Nations Issues. 

Agreed this is a decidedly left wing platform, which should eliminate the infighting that arose during 2014. the internal criticism that the plan then was not left enough. The ONDP will be and from what I can see much more unified now then 2014

I think the overall "meh" response to the Liberal budget was more in the fact that is was a Liberal Budget. Less the content and the fact that people are tired or the Liberals more or less.

I think, for those who bother, the difference between the Liberals and the NDP is that the Liberals approach the big plans with a targeted, exceptions/exclusions based policy (i.e., OHIP+ is only for 65+ and 21 or 25 under, Tuition grants only 30% of students qualify, $15 min.wage has exemptions, etc) While the NDP are taking a Universality approach (i.e. Pharmacare and $15min.wage for everyone, Dental care extend for those without coverage, Tuition grants for all OSAP).

[lilTommy]

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.

I think you're over thinking this a tad. I'm a secular senior in a catholic school in Belleville which has like 5 or 6 catholic highschools within the area and a majority of secular kids that go here are either for friend groups or geographical convenience. 
The secular population is so incredibly strong in these highschools that the religious church girl cliques are a tiny minority in the school atmosphere.
Another point I wanted to tackle, It's certainly not morals. Our school has just as much weed and vaping as the public schools and everybody knows it including the parents, the culture here and the schools is shockingly unreligious and even in religion class it's just them teaching about the history of the bible and a couple "ABSTINENCE IS THE ONLY OPTION" classes are mixed inbetween.
Even the notion of "parents sending their kids to school" i disagree with, its very culturally appropriate for highschoolers to pick where they go.

To circle back to my original, its really just geographical convenience.

If a party came out and proposed the abolition of the catholic school system they likely wouldnt lose any secular votes, its the the catholic portion of their voting base that theyre worried about.

This really was my experience as well, and that was about 18 years ago when I graduated!
for me, it was the fact that all my friends were going to the catholic school and it was just a given I'd go there as well.

Within the NDP this has been talked about, in 2009 leadership race Michael Prue ran very heavily on ending separate school funding in his leadership race. In 2010, the party commissioned a task force, now i don't totally agree on this but, it came to the conclusion that:
"that the cost savings are unproven. Past amalgamations have produced few efficiencies because of per-student funding rules."
Good article from 2012 - https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/06/06/cohn_why_catholic_schools_arent_going_anywhere.html when GSAs were the issue.

For me the issue is one of rights; with the GSA issue and now the fundraising/volunteer issue, it comes down to the fact that Charter Rights are fighting each other. Personally there is a hierarchy to charter rights, and Human Rights is paramount. These are the indelible rights like protections based on Sex, Race, Orientation. Religious rights do not trump these since Religion is not indelible but rather a choice.

[lilTommy]

Changing topics for a bit - I've created a "partisan index" for every riding, similar to the Cook partisan index, but not exactly. I've averaged the difference between the results of the last two provincial and federal elections in each riding and the province wide popular votes for each election.

I've made a map which shows each riding coloured by the party with the highest index score for each riding.



One interesting riding is Brantford-Brant, which the NDP has the highest score despite never having won the seat in any of the elections.

Interesting; especially Brantford-Brant, how does the formula work to have this riding labelled NDP but not won by the party during this period?. Not too many other surprises eh?
I wonder what impact redistribution would have moving forward? Specifically i'm thinking Toronto Centre, University-Rosedale and Spadina-Fort York. I think TC would be much lighter red now moving forward, UR would be also more favorable to the Liberals? I see these three as swing progressive riding all three being more pale coloured red or orange? 

[lilTommy]

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

Given that planning disasters are a Toronto tradition by this point, I guess this will prove to be grimly popular?

Probably not in Old Toronto, maybe as you get farther out.

This makes me think; the Greenbelt is largely a conurbation stretching from Northumberland, to Niagara Counties, mostly around TO and not really In TO. So, is there a big push, a big demand for this land to be given up to developers in the 905?
This will play well with the rich, corporate type, developers and many in the real estate employee I suspect. Its hugely popular with younger voters, urban voters and from what I hear farmers (the greenbelt protects farmland as well as parkland) so Ford doesn't really lose much unless this is just overall popular in the 905. Then, it's kind of a dumb move since he risks losing more voters then gaining money-men.

[lilTommy]

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.

[lilTommy]

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."

[lilTommy]

It should come as no surprise that the (opt-in) online pollsters are showing the most disparate results.

That makes sense.  When is Ekos coming out next?

The regionals for Toronto and 905 sound about right, however I have a tough time PCs being at only 32% in Eastern Ontario and Southwestern Ontario considering how strong they are in rural ridings.  Likewise some others have put them close to the 50% mark or slightly over in those areas (doubt they are over 50% so best to take the average).

http://onpulse.ca/blog/new-data-as-first-debate-looms-ford-and-pcs-dip-as-ndp-rises

Eastern and Southwestern Ontario are very different though: SW has much more of an industrial history, more rust belt with higher rates of Unionization in smaller manufacturing towns. Eastern ontario does not have this more NDP-like friendly history; the east was more influenced by religious/linguistic traditions around Franco-ontarians, the rural nature is much more agricultural around dairy more then in the SW which was cash crops like tobacco. I'm sure there is more but, the two rural characters are not the same.
BUT the NDP at 42%? I like it, but wow that would be a huge # for the NDP, and a Liberal gutting.   

[lilTommy]

I think the "unscientific" polling they did overall shows how bad it will be for Wynne:
Before the Debate, who would you vote for:
Ford - 42%
Horwath - 27%
Wynne - 24%

After the Debate:
Horwath - 43%
Ford - 39%
Wynne - 14%

BUT if anyone watched the Debate, Ford did not perform well; he checked out, literally was blank and just standing there for the first two rounds of debates basically. Wynne pulled him into the debate. After that he was nothing but simplistic comments with no dept, he kept getting called out on the lack of detail in anything he said. Not adding any details meant he was constantly attached over this, particularly from Horwath who called him out to detail his cuts "efficiencies" so much so that she even said roughly that "At least Harris and Hudak had the guts to tell people what they were going to cut" But no major gaffs other then that "you have a nice smile" comment, and his deer-in-headlights moment.

Wynne was, OK, she performed her best when she was attacking Ford, obviously. But overall I thought she looked weak, tired and frustrated. With exasperated sighs (through smiles) when called out on part policies, particularly well by Horwath. She has the problem of getting the good things out, even when she has a chance, she never really did, she was always on the defense. And this weakness is why she failed and the poll showed that (again unscientific twitter)

Horwath was indeed the winner. Most concise most detailed, Had the best closing statement and overall performed very consistently well in the on-on-ones. She forced herself in there to prevent the Ford-Wynne battle that both of the other two want. In fact she used some of their battles to plug the NDP tag line of "you don't have to vote for bad or worse" In one of the Ford-Wynne exchanges around backroomers this was set up for Howrath perfectly, jumping in with "this is the problem right here" phrasing. I think there were a couple of missed opportunities around transit (calling out both Ford and Wynne as the killers of TransitCity) but overall I was impressed and I was already voting NDP.

[lilTommy]

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.

I thought the same, I read an article that they have "Some interested candidates" but were being vetted. I wonder why that took so long?
For the NDP, another riding I am worried about now is Brampton North, this is very winnable yet nothing? I don't see a candidate or nomination meeting?

[lilTommy]

https://votecompass.cbc.ca/ontario/results/?s=9582aaad3bd3808761d671c5271f76f39579efc51525884901

Out lefting everyone

[lilTommy]

You just beat me to it!

http://torontosun.com/news/provincial/poll-favours-ontario-ndp-as-opposition-to-a-pc-majority-goverment

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/5d6357bf-f171-4aa2-839c-381e714ff96fOntario%20Horserace%20Day%201.pdf

PC: -6
NDP: +6
OLP: +1

[lilTommy]

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.

The government can make a profit selling weed, but I think if they weren't in the business, they'd make more money off of the taxes, and they wouldn't have to spend money running the Cannabis Control Board (or whatever they're going to call it).

Perhaps this is 'unsocialist' of me (I do have a bit of a libertarian streak), but I don't think the government should be running unessential businesses. Especially when it comes to vices, I think it's very puritanical.

I wouldn't say it's libertarian, I would say it's pro business/capitalism, or for lack of a better term, on the right fiscally.  Even if the government lost money on the sale of cannabis (which they won't, once the system is up and running), it brings a large number of good unionized jobs with it, instead of a few at the top taking in all the profit.  It doesn't really matter to me if it's Galen Weston or Mom & pop shops, I fundamentally disagree with a few people making large profits when we could share the wealth (and the jobs) across a larger group of people (i.e., employees), and help expand that shrinking middle class. The government can also re-invest the profits into healthcare, education, and infrastructure.  Or we can put that money towards new houses for the ultra rich.

I tend to support the Gov't ownership model as well, but would be supportive of heavily regulated private sales via independent owned, co-operative/worker owned small shops.  Restricting out Big franchises and large corporations like Shoppers.

[lilTommy]

Well, ideally the private marijuana shops would be unionized as well. If you're going to use that as an argument, why not just mandate that if you want to sell cannabis, you have to have a unionized work force?

*** frantically emailing the ONDP this idea***

to really no ones surprise, ETFO endorses the ONDP
http://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/05/10/etfo-ndp-ontario-election/

I believe the OFL has already done this?

[lilTommy]

I think the NDP is going to win the election actually. Something like 41% NDP, 38% PC, 19% Liberal.

Using the simulator http://www.tooclosetocall.ca/p/ontario-2018-simulator.html

We get:
PC - 40% - 75
NDP - 33% - 44
OLP - 22% - 5

NDP - 41% - 62
PC - 38% - 61
OLP - 19% - 1 (that 1 is listed as Toronto-St.Paul's)

Fun, but pretty un-realistic; The OLP at even 20% would have about half a dozen seats I think, MPPs who win almost solely on their personal popularity or like Toronto-St.Paul's, a strong hold riding for the Liberals, I think their strongest? as of 2014.

[lilTommy]

https://globalnews.ca/news/4208537/ontario-election-ndp-liberals-anti-ford/

PCs lead - 905 (49%, NDP 29%, OLP 20%), central (39%) and Eastern(49%)
NDP lead - 416 (38%, PC 34%, OLP 26%), SW (47%), North (41%)

Best Premier:
Horwath - 47%
Ford - 36%
Wynne - 18%

[lilTommy]

It would be nice if the Liberals hold their vote in the north Toronto ridings that John Tory dominated municipally and Doug Ford bombed in.  But I don't even know if that can happen at this point given anti-Liberal sentiment at this point.

Federal 2011 result in Ontario was about 45-25-25 and Willowdale/Don Valley East/North/West were all pretty tight. Right now the Tory Liberal margin is slightly narrower than that and I imagine Ford will underperform Harper there. If the Liberals can stop the decline in the low 20's I think they'll be ok.

Those areas, Don Valley North/East/West, Willowdale were not won by Ford in the mayoral 2014 but were won by Tory, so no really big Ford name/nation advantage here.
Don Valley East - Interesting as its a Cabinet minister (Coteau) vs a City Councillor (Minnan-wong), two big names and I could see this going either way.
Don Valley North - OLP nominated a city councillor as well (Carroll) so name advantage here, with no star PC candidate
Don Valley West - Wynne's seat, no "star" PC candidate really (an executive? i think)
Willowdale - OLP Cabinet minister (Zimmer) no star PC candidate.  

If the Liberals are at the point of saving what they can, and they are getting there (if not already) they need to target key seats. I think all of these are salvageable for the OLP; DVE will be the hardest since the PCs arguably have a star candidate.  
I think their best shots additionally are - TO-St.Paul's and Eglinton-Lawrence, and maybe University-Rosedale mostly b/c of the Rosedale area. These areas are just too wealthy to vote NDP and never really have, UniRose being outlier.
If the PC and NDP under perform here, the OLP can hold on. As I see it now, I think the NDP, polling as well as they are, will eek out the OLP. It will be a East vs West side of the riding though.

[lilTommy]

I'm thinking Avenue road and anything east of there, but I think your right, that wouldn't really represent even 50% of the riding.

Interesting looking at Eglinton-Lawrence, Ford won ward 15 (looks like over 40%) and Tory won ward 16(over 60%); Ford won West of Bathurst, Tory East. now the Tory/Ford battle might not mean too to much since they are just two different shades of conservatives, but interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_mayoral_election,_2014 Looking at the 2015 the Tory's won the corridor running from Avenue west to Allen. In 2011 looks like Tory's won the riding by winning over the polls east of Avenue. West of Allen is very strong for the Liberals even in 2011.