By Mathew Katz

Policy Sunday is a weekly feature during the lead-up to the provincial election where Torontoist will dive into the mean and gritty world of public policy. Each week, we’ll turn a critical eye at a specific area of the policies and machinations of the four major provincial parties.

Photo by (: Spiral from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
Even though the 2007 Ontario election campaign hasn’t officially begun, politicians of all stripes are using the end of the summer as a time to announce one new policy after another. The end-of-summer announcement period is a time for all parties to make blatant campaign promises under the guise of regular policy announcements. We’re in the thick of it, people.

Liberals

The standing government is usually the worst offender in pre-campaign policy announcements. Eco-cred has been the name of the game for McGuinty and the rest. Since McGuinty ended the last session of the Legislative Assembly early in June, the Liberals have been promising funding to several green causes. This week alone, the Liberals have announced millions in funding for a tree-a-palooza, $30 million to turn Kipling Station into a suburban transit hub, and another $30 million to clean up Hamilton’s incredibly polluted Randal Reef.
The Liberals are buying into their own eco-hype, consistently issuing press releases about how environmentally friendly their promises are. They even have the UN on board to back them up.
The government’s other spending babies include $12 million for families with autistic children in response to those pesky parents and $28.5 million for youth employment. They also, for some reason, have only announced recently that there’s a budget surplus—something that will presumably help pay for all of these spending announcements. With all of that extra money, you’d think they’d be able to help us out a little with our current budget shortfall.
The Liberals have the power of the Government of Ontario website, which is currently acting as a public-relations mega-site, heaping nothing but praise upon Dalton. The unfortunate thing about all of these announcements is their simplistic focus. The Liberals want you to know that they are spending x amount of dollars to pay for x green initiative, yet aren’t quite as vocal about the fact that it will take thirteen years to do so. Most announcements lack a firm plan beyond spending—a symptom of election season. McGuinty wants you to know that he’s doing a good job and that he’s Getting Results^TM.

Progressive Conservatives

John Tory and his buddies have been a little more restrained. His announcements are a little bit better-planned and policy-oriented rather than declaring rampant spending. The PC’s big pre-election announcement has been their plan to fund faith-based schools. He also wants to re-jig the province’s funding formula so that the gas tax goes purely to improving roads and transit. One of Tory’s more uninspiring and uncreative announcements is a promise of more police on the streets. Yawn. We hear that every election.
That being said, not all of Tory’s announcements have made sense. Tory has been more vocal about helping out Toronto’s budget crisis, but won’t say how. We think he might use magic. The PCs claim they are waiting to review the situation before determining any solutions. That means they wouldn’t have any sort of solid plan until December at the earliest. The only thing we do know is that their solution to the city’s budget crisis won’t involve the proposed two new taxes—those are dirty, dirty McGuinty taxes.
The Progressive Conservatives’ announcements are almost the exact opposite in style to the Liberals’. Rather than issuing headstrong funding announcements, Tory has been vowing to study problems before taking any sort of immediate action. This is admirable, but voters like to see things getting done rather than being researched. The party’s news page has been quieter than the Liberals’.

New Democrats

The Ontario NDPs have been responding to other announcements more than producing their own policies. The party has, however, laid out the most solid plan to help our own fair city out of our current woes—by uploading numerous services back to the Province. More than the leading two parties, the NDP have been making policy-based announcements rather than throwing cash at issues. Some of these are pretty good ideas—freezing transit fares and taking back the province’s responsibility for paying for 50% of municipalities’ transit budgets.
However, the NDP’s status as permanent opposition party shines through in their pre-campaign announcements. Too many press releases are simply criticisms of McGuinty’s own announcements and not enough are bona fide promises. Hampton knows that he won’t be elected in October, even if he won’t admit it.

Greens

Unlike its federal cousin, the Ontario Green Party hasn’t been receiving much media attention or respect. The party has been the least active in releasing pre-campaign announcements, and what has been released is decidedly less partisan than those of the other parties. Green Party leader Frank de Jong has gone so far as to do the political unthinkable—praise other political parties for going small-g green. It’s also a little curious that the party is publishing press releases regarding their leader’s messages to Australia when an election is looming. The Greens, like the NDP, know that they have little chance of winning any substantial power and are trying to do good where they can.
De Jong’s few announcements actually have some pretty comprehensive policy layouts. Unlike the Tories, the Green Party actually has a plan for addressing Toronto’s budget crisis—give the city a portion of provincial land transfer taxes. In order to afford this blow to provincial revenue, the Greens would need to institute a “green tax shift” and create a whack of new pollution and carbon taxes.
Of course, all four parties’ announcements are just that. We don’t know if these promises will actually be implemented or not. We’ll just have to keep paying attention to them in the coming weeks and decipher the gobbledygook in the weeks leading up to the October election.
Photos by sabocracy and ethervizion from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.