Mark's Blog

I watched the Ontario leaders' debate with a good deal of interest tonight. I'll declare my biases first off, and then try to be as objective as possible (not likely, but I will try) in the rest of the comment. I try to vote for governments that reduce the size of government, taxes, debt, and are reasonably socially liberal. The Ontario PC party is pretty close to this (although I disagree with a couple of their current election promises, such as getting rid of property taxes for seniors, and I'm perpetually undecided on the issue of private school tax credits) and I will be voting that way in a week. I used to identify with the proverbial "right-wing", but not any more since I'm not in favour of big right-wing governments like the current U.S. Republicans, and I'm not a social conservative as many traditional right-wingers are. Therefore, I identify as a libertarian, but I'm enough of a pragmatist to not vote for the Libertarian party and cast my vote for a party that actually has a chance of winning something.

I haven't seen any of the commentary, so this is untainted by seeing the Wednesday newspapers. On to the debate, between Ernie Eves (PC), Dalton McGuinty (Liberal) and Howard Hampton (NDP):

Hampton had the most passion of the three leaders, actually looking like he was having fun and wanted to be there. McGuinty got passing marks here. Eves scored very low in this category, although he warmed up a bit during the three-way debates. McGuinty definitely had the most problem staying on topic, although Hampton dodged a lot of the material at the start too. Eves stuck to the posed questions the best, although he did kind of dodge the "What will you sell?" question, which probably scored some points (although it is kind of a bogus question). They all had their share of talking over the others, which comes across as a negative if done too much.

Miscellaneous comments:

• Is it really 25,000 per year to go away to university now? It was around 10,000 when I went away to school, which ended only 5 years ago. I find that really difficult to believe. I know tuition has increased some, but that can't possibly account for all of the difference.
• What was up with the line about McGuinty wanting to promise a "steak dinner and pony" to every boy and girl in the province but not being able to? I'm sure his handlers were cringing on that one. I'm reminded of The Pony Remark. Jerry: "In fact, I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up."
• Do left-of-centre leaders actually believe that corporate taxes do not affect everybody? Thinking that maybe a company that is taxed more wouldn't raise prices or make the company less able to hire new workers?
• Huge negative marks to McGuinty for hammering on about how Ontario is 10th, i.e. last, in health care per capita. Has he never heard of "economies of scale"? Or is he just hoping 95% of the voters haven't? The provinces that score high are small provinces, like P.E.I. or Newfoundland, where services cost a lot more because they are dealing with such low volumes, or the people are not mostly in big cities. Minor negative marks to Eves for not helpfully pointing this out.
• The whole rhetorical tactic of "you are taking X dollars from Y that is now going to Z" has got to stop. The government has a whole big pot of money. The money does not go directly from one thing to another. There are unlimited ways to spend money, and obviously the idea is to choose good ones, depending on your definition of good. The point being, you'll never hear Hampton saying "You took X million from education and [big pause] spent it on health care."
• What was up with the multiple shout-outs from Eves to Paul Martin? I couldn't believe it. I suppose it was part of the plan to equate McGuinty with the soon-departing Chrétien and himself with Martin, the presumed new face of the Liberal Party
• I'm highly skeptical that public auto insurance is going to save me $500 a year. Unless by "save" he meant, save ME $500 a year, but cost future generations $750 a year paying off the debt racked up by the public auto insurance department. But what do I know.
• What about the Hampton plan to "freeze rents"? Let's see: poor people need food. Do we freeze the price of milk? If people are poor then the government should be helping them, not landlords.

What I really want to know, is if anyone (other than his perpetually-mentioned family) actually thinks Dalton McGuinty is a good politician? I understand that some (many?) people don't like the Conservatives. I understand that to many he may be the lesser of a few evils. I understand some people want change. I really do try to be objective as much as possible with politics, and I keep trying to reset my opinion of him, to give him a fair chance, but he just always strikes me as cheesy and ill-informed. He seems to go on auto-pilot on every question, to a different question than the one that was asked, and he's brutal extemporaneously. I always get the feeling that his sentences have been crafted by his handlers, and then he just kind of regurgitates what they told him to say.

I haven't given all that much attention to Eves. I thought he did pretty well, on the whole. He could have been more enthusiastic, but I think he looked the most like a premier (cliched as that description is) and stood up well to the debate and the questioning. I give him the win, with a B- grade. Hampton I give a C+ and McGuinty a D.

Quick summary in which my biases resurface:

• Parties: NDP = usual socialist fare. Liberals = PC-lite. PC = usual fiscal conservative fare.
• Leaders: NDP = a good guy, if misguided. Liberals = Waffle King. PCs = bland rich guy.

I have to get some sleep. This was a lot longer than intended, and it's all going to be moot by October 2. Oh well. Don't forget to vote!

I was cleaning the house Saturday afternoon and tuned into the NDP leadership convention on CBC by mistake. Strangely fascinated, I ended up watching a good bit of it.

The thing that really irritates me about the NDP is that implementing their policies would require a lot of money, yet their policies are almost uniformly anti-business and anti-wealth creation. I will never understand how one can continually endorse spending a lot of money without provisions for making it. You often hear the left bemoan money and capitalism, and then in the next breath call for massive public spending. News flash, it takes a lot of money to buy good health care!

Back on topic, I noticed that the CBC announcers kept on using this phrase "one person, one vote", or a variation thereof. The first time it kind of slid by me, but then they used it a few more times. I couldn't figure out why they kept on repeating this. Isn't it assumed that each voter has one vote? Finally the subject of "super-votes" is brought up, and the announcers mention that the NDP has an arrangement with labour unions so that the unions get 25% of the vote. After the vote, they do some math, and the labour votes get multiplied by some number (this year approximately 15, apparently) in order to make up the required 25%. We could debate whether or not this is a good idea (I would say no, because it seems profoundly undemocratic, but that's not my point), but why constantly repeat this completely false "one person, one vote" statement? In any case, the Canadian Alliance observer seemed fairly amused, wondering aloud to a CBC reporter what people would be saying if the Alliance gave 25% of their vote to big business.

Jack Layton, a Toronto city councillor, ended up winning the nomination on the first ballot with a healthy 53.5% of the vote. Hearing the announcer call out these fractions of a vote (to the nearest ten-thousandth), due to the voting scheme, was just a little comical. I kind of got the "limousine liberal" feeling about Layton, but that's based on nothing resembling a fact. I heard a whole lot of generalities and precious little in the way of specifics in his speech, but I'm sure he'll be able to formulate some plans as he waits a year and a half to run for office. As for the other serious candidates, Blaikie looked plain bitter throughout the proceedings, Comartin looked like he was standing in line waiting to get his driver's license renewed, and Nystrom looked resigned to political oblivion. As for the more fringe candidates, Ducasse apparently stole the show with his speech, and Meslo just kind of looked out of place.

In any case, I think everyone who's not voting Liberal will hope the NDP does well in the next election, since they are most likely to steal Liberal votes. As for me, I'm still firmly in the "Undecided" category.