This morning NDP leader Andrea Horwath strode into a room of cheering NDP candidates and supporters to unveil her party’s platform. To a round of cheers she pledged a government that “respects taxpayers.” The front page of the platform pamphlet portrays an image of Horwath as the premier in waiting. The party strategy is clear in the title for the platform, it’s “Andrea Horwath’s Plan that Makes Sense.” The pressure is on Horwath to sell the platform.
The NDP will balance the Ontario budget by 2017-18. To do that it will cut provincial spending by more than two billion dollars over the next four years. When asked if there would be job cuts the NDP says it will “leave job cutting to Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives.” The NDP says it will protect front-line provincial services by reducing staff to management ratios. That sounds to me that management jobs in the public service are not guaranteed. The NDP say that the cuts represent half of one per cent of the total Ontario budget and so getting the cuts is “very doable.”
The total in new revenues and savings is almost $2.6 billion in this fiscal year and grows to $3.7 billion in 2017-18. Those are very big numbers. Horwath said “the Liberal government wasted precious money.” And she didn’t have much good to say about the Progressive Conservative plan either. For Horwath it’s all about “making sense” and so it “doesn’t make sense to create one million jobs by laying off 100,000 provincial staff.” And if you missed the point she added “Mr. Hudak does not make sense.”
The NDP says some of the dollars saved and reallocated will go into billions in new investment for Ontarians. The big ticket investments are job creation and manufacturing tax credits. The NDP also promise an additional $500 million a year in transit and highway expansion projects. The NDP says the transit money is on top of what is already committed in the Liberal Budget tabled May 1. There’s also money for everything from bike networks and safer roads to increasing protection for tenants and expanding dental care for children from low-income families. Horwath acknowledged that Ontarians “don’t trust government anymore” and it time “respect tax payers.”
With the focus on the NDP today, the Liberals dialed in on its pension plan. The NDP have opted to leave Ontario’s pension plan alone. Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne repeated her party’s plan to create an Ontario retirement pension plan. She enlisted former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin to help promote her plan. It is a big ticket item that only the Liberals are supporting. The Liberal Party also announced its party platform will be released on Sunday afternoon in Thunder Bay.
Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak was in Ottawa today and this morning he took a short break from his jobs, jobs, jobs campaign. Instead Hudak focused on the Liberal gas plant scandal and promised a full judicial inquiry if elected. The inquiry would have the legal authority to call former premier Dalton McGuinty and others to testify. Hudak said Kathleen Wynne has chosen to cover up the scandal.
Is all of this turning the heads of voters? A CTV/CP24 IPSOS poll released today does suggest a tighter race. The PCs are still ahead with 35 per cent - down 4 points from a week ago. The Liberals are holding at 31 per cent – up one point. The NDP have come up four points to sit at 28 per cent. There are still 19 per cent – almost one in two voters – who say they have not yet decided on whom to support. That means there’s only a 7 per cent spread between the three parties.
The numbers widen when one looks at those most likely to go out and vote on June 12. Then, like last week, the PC support jumps to 41 per cent with the Liberals at 30 per cent and the NDP at 26 per cent. The IPSOS poll finds that “the Tory vote is most committed to show up and vote.” Three weeks today the Liberal and NDP organizations will be put to the test to get their voters energized enough to go out and vote.
