Pre-election Rant
I was meaning to write about the PEI election, but since I'm Ontarian, I ranted about the election happening there. Just to mention PEI though, the PCs practically swept the province, giving them a third consecutive Majority government (a true Majority too). Now here's the rant.
Well there has been an election call in Ontario. On October 2nd, millions of Ontarians will cast their ballots and a new or renewed government will be formed which will govern us, serve the Queen and her representative and more or less enforce a promised platform. Now I know I wouldn't do anything similar for any other province and this is another proof that Ontario is seen as more important, the truth is, I need an idea for the month, and I'm Ontarian, I'm allowed to be biased. At least I'm telling you I'm biased. For the record, I'm also a Card-carrying New Democrat. That may make a difference on the point of view made in this article, but mostly I'm just going to ask a bunch of questions and make some personal opinionated commentary.
In 1995, an election was called in which the rulling NDP, due to their poor management of the province, was supposed to lose to the opposition Liberals. Out of nowhere, the third party Progressive Conservatives ran on a platform of change called the "Common-Sense Revolution" in which a bunch of cuts were made, to both spending on public services and to provincial tax cuts. Much downloading onto rural and municipal governments and reduction of the size of governments (some ministries disapeared like Francophone Affairs which became a sub-ministry) and other cost-cutting initiatives like getting people off welfare by changing the criteria), privitization and amalgamation of the City of Toronto with the Cities of Norh York, York, Scarborough and Etobicoke and the Borough of East York (despite a 70% plebicite against the mega-city). Long story short, the Revolutionaries won the day.
In 1999, another election was won, and under Premier (why don't we go back to saying Prime Minister of Ontario? It sounds better. And for those who say we never said that, look at historical plaques. Yonge Subway is a good place to look) Mike Harris, the Tories were back in power, playing mostly on their never quite decreasing popularity in the 905 and the fact that the leader of the opposition was an unknown geeky looking Liberal.
Now enough history and I'll start speaking of more interesting (at least to me) information. At least in Toronto, there was much talk of Strategic Voting. Now I'm not going to look at this from the point of the government (read: tories) but rather of the opposition. Is strategic voting the thing to do?
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