According to CBC’s Chris Boyce, the goal of this weekend’s CBCMusic.ca Festival is twofold. First and foremost, the CBC wants to celebrate Canadian music. Second, it wants to celebrate CBC Music, the broadcaster’s online music service, which launched a little over a year ago.

In 1996, Theatre Columbus premiered playwright Michael O’Brien’s “freely adapted” take on the famous Beaumarchais play The Barber of Seville, which was written in 1775. O’Brien’s version mixed in music from the 1816 opera of the same name by Gioachino Rossini, as well as original tunes by composer John Millard. The adaptation also propelled the story forward a couple centuries, with pop culture references galore. With Theatre Columbus co-founder Leah Cherniak at the helm, the musical ended the season with six Dora Award nominations (it won three) and plenty of critical acclaim.

Seventeen years later, Soulpepper Theatre is remounting this zany reimagination of The Barber of Seville, updated once again by O’Brien, Millard, and Cherniak. But, for some reason—the change in decade, or company, or sense of humour—whatever had made the original so magical, has faded, save for a few key performances.

So, that happened.

Really, what else are we supposed to say about the provincial election? For all the furor over the possibility of a minority government, we already know what’s going to happen. Dalton McGuinty will be in charge. Tim Hudak will do nothing to bring down the government until he thinks he can win; Andrea Horwath will do nothing to bring down the government until she thinks Tim Hudak can’t win and the NDP can do better than they already have. The next two years will be filled with meaningless political drama involving backroom deals, and then maybe Hudak and Horwath will both want to pull the trigger, and voters will eventually vote for whichever party promises not to have an election for the longest amount of time. (It’ll probably be the Tories, because Tories are naturally already inclined not to offer people freedom of choice anyway.)

As we write this, just past midnight, some TV reporters are blathering about an NDP/Tory coalition government, which is quite possibly the stupidest thing ever. Can you think of a worse alliance than that, between two parties whose political beliefs are more diametrically opposed to one another, and whose bases are more antagonistic to one another? Oh, wait. We can, because they just tried this in Britain and it didn’t work at all. Sometimes it seems like TV reporters just really, really liked The Odd Couple and want to apply it to all situations in life, regardless of context.

But are there any narratives, sitcom-based or not, that apply to this election? Voters didn’t decisively reject Tim Hudak’s bigoted crap: he pulled about 35 per cent of the popular vote, only two per cent less than the Liberals. Voters didn’t come out in huge numbers for the NDP: yes, Andrea Horwath pulled 23 per cent and did very respectably, but 17 seats is still only 17 seats. That the Liberals didn’t collapse like they did in the federal election is sort of a story, we guess, but when our standards for a narrative drop to “well, they could have died, but didn’t die after all,” we know we’re bored. The final voter turnout numbers aren’t out yet, but early reports indicate that they’re low—so it isn’t just us who feel underwhelmed.

It’s been an election full of unrealistic promises that absolutely everybody knew were unrealistic. No party put together a political platform that had anything to do with the realities facing a province that has based its economy on manufacturing for most of a century and now suddenly finds its manufacturing sector beginning to dwindle in the face of an international economic upheaval. The Liberals said, “Let’s build green technology instead,” the Tories said, “Tax cuts!” and the NDP said, “Small-business tax credits!” and none of these were answers, and absolutely everybody knew this. The differences between all three economic platforms were relatively minor, forcing partisans to feud over wonkish details that only wonks care about. (That’s not to say they weren’t important.)

In his sort-of-a-victory speech, Dalton McGuinty said that Ontario likes to work together, that Ontarians come together. This election was not about coming together. This election was about working the tiny dividing lines between us to wring every last possible advantage out of an electorate that has grown used to politicians not saying much of anything of real import. Now, in order to get anything done, the parties will have to work together, at least to an extent. How well do you think that will go, after they’ve spent so much energy maximizing their differences?

12:13 AM: Answer: as a win. Upbeat, looking relaxed (relieved?). “Liberalism is alive and well in Ontario,” he proclaims.

12:01 AM: McGuinty speech in a minute. Everyone curious about how he’ll position this result: better than feared, not as good as hoped for. HD

11:55 PM: Jagmeet Singh is naturally charismatic. He;s going to go far. CB

11:48 PM: Talking heads on CP24 are saying that Dalton McGuinty should basically come out for his speech and say “we got our butts kicked, and I’m so so sorry.” This is why talking heads don’t actually work in politics any more. CB

11:45 PM: The NDP did what it realistically could: a significant increase in seats, a necessary partner for the minority Liberals, and flipped some seats in the GTA (notably: Davenport in Toronto and Bramalea-Gore-Malton in the 905). HD

11:43 PM: CBC IS CALLING THE ELECTION FOR A LIBERAL MINORITY.

11:42 PM: They ran the cover of tomorrow’s Toronto Sun [on SunTV]. Headline is “Welcome to Hell.” PM

11:41 PM: There’ll be fistshaking and face-saving compromises but that’s about it for at least two years. PM

11:41 PM: …and Horwath isn’t going to let Hudak trigger an election where she thinks he’ll win, because she’s not an idiot. CB

11:39 PM: More of the same. McGuinty will do what he was doing and the other parties will bitch and posture but they don’t have enough differences between them to bet an election on them [if the Liberals end up with a minority]. Hudak isn’t going to risk an election over chain gangs or smart metres and Horwath is in a great position and not likely to do better. PM

11:39 PM: So, what do these results mean so far? HD

11:26 PM: It’s official: all former Toronto mayoral candidates running in this election have lost again. Sarah Thomson and Rocco Rossi have both been declared defeated.

11:21 PM: Andrea Horwath, who ran a pretty freaking negative campaign, says her voters voted for “hope.” Okay, Andrea. CB I actually don’t think the NDP campaign was negative; it was just based on fantasy PM.

11:19 PM: After approximately 400 minutes of folksy guitar music and video of slogans about change, Andrea Horwath seems to finally be up to making a speech. CB

10:59 PM: Hudak: “It is very clear that the people of Ontario have sent a very strong message that they want a change in direction.” Says nice things about Andrea Horwath. Turns to policy, focuses only on fiscal issues. Learned his lesson on social issues, perhaps. HD

10:57 PM: Hudak giving his speech now. An interesting choice given that we don’t know if the Liberals have a majority or minority government yet—though it’s fair to say the Liberals will almost certainly look to the NDP if they need a partner much more than they’d seek Tory support. HD

10:50 PM: Rosario Marchese (NDP) now has a 452 vote lead over Sarah Thomson (Lib) in Trinity-Spadina. Bet: if he wins and runs again, he’ll actually campaign next time. In Davenport, Jonah Schein has a 428 vote lead for the NDP. He’s one of the NDP’s great hopes for fliping longtime Grit ridings orange.

10:38 PM: Nailbiter ridings right now: Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Lib/NDP), Sudbury (Lib/NDP), Glengarry Prescott-Russell (Lib/PC), Niagara Falls (Lib/PC), Kitchener Centre (Lib/PC), Bramalea-Gore-Malton (NDP/Lib). CB

10:36 PM: We’re probably going to see a bit of a lull now as everyone waits for the tight races—which will determine whether the Liberals are returned with a minority or majority—get called. Differences of a few dozen votes might matter now. HD

10:36 PM: Some bitter Tory ranting about how taxes will now continue to rise and our children will pay for it. Of course the Tories promised to increase spending by almost the same amount.
I wonder sometimes if people even read their own platforms. PM

10:27 PM: Trinity-Spadina now the biggest nailbiter in Toronto; Sarah Thomson leading by a few hundred votes. Eleven seats in total still not declared. HD

10:25 PM: Really, is anybody more plreased by Rocco Rossi losing his race than I am? Rossi spent a decade being a power behind the throne in Liberal politics, and then threw it all away because he decided what people really wanted to vote for was a slightly crazy and weird centre-right party-jumper. His self-importance and ego deserve to be stomped all over repeatedly. Really, I just want to see him run for something else next and lose that, too. Is anybody electing a dogcatcher anytime soon? “Rocco Rossi will catch all the dogs and then MURDER THEM! Vote Rossi! Bocce balls!” CB

10:19 PM: “This is a tweet from Sarah Thomson herself!” STOP. HD

10:18 PM: GTA results: Right now, 32-6-5 Lib/PC/NDP. Fortress Toronto seems to have held. CB

10:16 PM: Another municipal implication: Colle’s son is Josh Colle, councillor for Ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence), and he’s been keeping very much under the radar. Will his father’s victory mean he starts coming out more firmly as a centrist? (Speculation: no, because he also has to keep his head down in order to keep working on the Lawrence Heights revitalization, which Ford doesn’t love. Colle, I don’t think, will rock any boats if it means keeping that project going.) HD

10:14 PM: Rocco Rossi bites the dust, having lost to Mike Colle (according to CP24):

10:11 PM: On the upside, cake:

10:09 PM: NDP HQ as the Liberal victory is announced:

10:05 PM: Everyone who keeps saying how much voters don’t care for Dalton McGuinty and also represents a party that got fewer votes than his needs a time out. Cause they may be right, but we all like them even less. They should spend less of their time calling attention to this fact. HD

10:05 PM: CP24′s social media expert explains that Tim Hudak got twice as many likes on Facebook as Dalton McGuinty. NOBODY LIKES DALTON McGUINTY! CB

10:05 PM: SunTV: “We now have a huge audience watching because the Leafs beat Montreal 2-0.” PM

10:00 PM: CBC saying goodbye to hockey viewers after breaking into the game for a few minutes. Reminder: our national broadcaster chose to put hockey on their main network instead of this. All due respect to hockey, but really? HD

9:58 PM: Worth noting: popular vote much closer, still, that seat count. HD

9:54 PM: PC spokesperson: “We wanted to focus on change and pocketbook issues.” This is why they spent the last few days of the election complaining about cross-dressing schoolchildren.CB

9:51 PM: How many more elections do we need to go through before the media gets over trumpeting the fact that they are on Twitter. Cause really, we get it. YOU ARE COOL AND MODERN AND STUFF. HD

9:50 PM: Social media expert Gina Phillips is back and showing off her Tweetdeck. PM

9:47 PM: At NDP hq in Hamilton, supporters are clapping along with every NDP seat won. Mood is chipper, but that’s also due to the libations at cash bar. Christopher Drost

9:46 PM: Some Dipper explains that the NDP will help you if you’re “middle class, working class or lower class.” Is there a difference now between the latter two? I was not informed. CB

9:44 PM: The Liberal “kitchen party’s” applause for the Dalton re-election could politely be described as “tepid.” NOBODY LIKES DALTON McGUINTY! (The NDP “kitchen party” is actually in a bar. The NDP know how to party.) CB

9:44 PM: On SunTV, Christina Blizzard is slightly smug that she picked the right horse. Brian Lilley is smugger still, saying he called a Hudak loss back in July. PM

9:43 PM: Sarah Thomson is leading Rosario Marchese by a handful of votes. CB

9:42 PM: Very curious whether Lorenzo’s win means his wife Michelle, Toronto councillor for Ward 35 (Scarborough Southwest), will now feel free to stand up to Rob Ford more now. (She’s so far voted with the administration a fair bit of the time.) HD

9:41 PM: Rocco Rossi now leading. BOOOOO. CB

9:39 PM: “This was a man who was political toast” – CBC commentator on McGuinty at the beginning of the campaign.

9:37 PM: CBC also projecting Liberal government.

9:34 PM: CP24 declaring Grit win. Although they aren’t saying if it’s a majority or minority yet. CB

9:34 PM: Oh for chrissake. CP24 is interviewing young people about how American Idol gets more votes than real elections and what can this teach us? “Well, clearly the answer is to allow 12-year-olds to vote as many times as they like!” CB

9:26 PM: Tim Hudak wins his riding! Whatever else happens, we get another four years of having Tim Hudak in office! That means we’ve all already lost a bit! CB

9:26 PM: Oh my god George Lagogianes is now a CP24 correspondent? How the mighty have fallen. Well, George Lagogianes was never really “mighty.” But he was on MuchMusic when I was a kid. So I guess I’m just old. CB

9:26 PM: Talking about Rocco Rossi – early on he is behind both Grits and NDP. PM

9:24 PM: CBC is noting that Twitter “lit up” as soon as the polls close, and that they are keeping their finger on the pulse of social media. CBC: no. This is not what we need from our public broadcaster. Actual reporting please. HD

9:23 PM: CP24 scroll line: More than 600,000 voters voted in advance polls this election CB. On the upside: better than last time. On the downside: last time was an historic low HD.

9:22 PM: SunTV shows their colours—”many would say Dalton McGuinty was the worst premier in the history of Ontario.” Also, in a shocker, Adam Giambrone admits he didn’t vote for Dalton McGuinty. PM

9:21 PM: Share of popular vote: 35.3% Liberal; 35.1% PCs, 24% NDP, 3% Green. HD

9:19 PM: Easiest way to be ignorable forever: say that any country is “the new Greece.” Also: comments about how candidate X “isn’t doing very well, but it’s still early” are the most pointless thing when poll counts are still in the teens. CB

9:19 PM: …and suggests we are turning into the new Greece. PM

9:18 PM: CP24 reminds us all that the Leafs are up 2-0. BOY THIS ELECTION IS SO EXCITING. CB

9:17 PM: CBC points out that no Liberal has been returned for a third premiership in over 100 years. HD

9:12 PM: Someone at the Tory HQ is explaining that social media means “you don’t have to talk to the youth.” CB

9:11 PM: Popular vote so far: 47% PC, Libs 33% NDP 12% PM. That’s way out of whack with the polls CB.

9:09 PM: The scene at NDP central in Hamilton, just before supporters were let in at 9:

9:09 PM: What does this mean for the Northern Heritage Party? PM

9:07 PM: Sun commentator saying that PCs have advantage because older voters are more likely to vote for them, while younger folks get distracted by hockey games and the like. PM

9:07 PM: CP24 is bragging about “kitchen parties” where people on iPads will participate somehow in tonight’s election analysis like this is something anybody wants. CB

9:06 PM: David Akin: “There is plenty of drama tonight” but he seems unconvinced. PM

9:06 PM: Remember, if you’re in Toronto Centre or Trinity Spadina, you can still vote for another half-hour! (Because you’rea downtown elite.) CB (Also because there were problems at the polling stations— HD)

9:05 PM: Right now it’s all chairlifts, tempurpedics, and Christian love on SunTV. PM

9:04 PM: Rocco Rossi still has zero votes at this point! I am savouring that for now. CB

9:03 PM: John Robson on SunTV: “This was [Hudak's] election lose and he seems to have done just that.
What did he do that a lamppost couldn’t have done if you put a blue tie on it.” PM

9:02 PM: Advance poll results: Tories leading in 3, Liberals in 1. HD

8:50 PM: CP24 is promising results at 9 even though osme Toronto polls will remain open until 9:30. SOMEBODY CALL ELECTIONS CANADA! CB

Dalton McGuinty has run an upbeat, optimistic campaign, but let’s be honest: nobody in the province is particularly enthusiastic about Dalton McGuinty. Under eight years of his leadership the province of Ontario has mostly fared…well, kind of okay. There’s the occasional eHealth scandal, of course, but for the most part the Liberals have provided the usual bland competence with undertones of complacency and slight corruption that have become the hallmarks of Grit rule anywhere in Canada. Dalton McGuinty is the Safe Establishment Choice: he might chicken out in the face of Charles McVety’s lobbying over sex education, and calls for a post-G20 inquiry—both of which are deeply concerning—but he hasn’t himself instigated any policy initiatives that render him unfit for office. Really, the failure of Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals is that they have done a passable job when people are asking for an exceptional one. In a time when decisive leadership is needed, Dalton McGuinty offers…not so much of that.

Andrea Horwath has done good work in putting some important but politically unsexy things on the table—most notably, in her call for the province to re-assume 50 per cent of the TTC’s operating costs. The NDP has maintained its strong defence of health care, and has the appetite to challenge big polluters in a way that other parties perhaps do not. But our concern with Horwath is that while she has a lot of good ideas, her party’s platform fails to fund them in any realistic manner. Corporate taxes and “efficiencies” (and really, haven’t we learned enough about the perils of that word by now?) won’t get us close to where the NDP wants to go.

(We also feel obliged to mention that the Green Party does, in fact, exist. But not much more than that, to be honest. After all, this is a party where the Eglinton-Lawrence candidate refused to send out flyers because he didn’t want to kill trees, instead campaigning with a song on YouTube.)

So, with all the apathy we’ve accumulated from the NDP and Liberal campaigns, why are we even bothering to make any sort of endorsement at all? The answer is simple: Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives have run an ugly, ugly campaign, one of the ugliest in modern memory.

In this campaign, Tim Hudak has repeatedly characterized the new Canadians targeted by a pro-jobs Liberal tax credit as aimed at “foreign workers,” calling it “affirmative action.” Calling new Canadian citizens “foreign” is asinine. Calling a tax credit designed to make hiring them more attractive “affirmative action” renders that phrase completely meaningless. The fact that Tim Hudak quite obviously did all of this to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment is monstrous. The fact that, when called out for it, he then lied about calling them “foreign workers” is pathetic, the sort of thing Canada’s Jon Stewart would play on The Daily Show Canada if we had something like that. This tells you a lot about Tim Hudak: it says that he thinks you’re stupid and won’t pay attention to him for more than ten seconds.

In this campaign, Tim Hudak has promised to bring back chain gangs. That is not hyperbole: the Tories bragged about chain gangs specifically. It doesn’t matter that the program’s usefulness is highly debatable, given that most prisoners in Ontario provincial prisons aren’t exactly there long and prisoners working for free will just be taking away jobs from people who aren’t prisoners. Tim Hudak wants you to know he is a tough man who isn’t afraid to make criminals pay. This tells you a lot about Tim Hudak: it says that he values his personal image and his ideology over inconvenient reality.

In this campaign, Tim Hudak has released a platform full of graphs that, to a one, fail to conform to “the normal requirements of academic or professional practice.” Three of them presented data that was outright false. The rest are simply misleading by presenting data in ways that, while stating the actual numbers, have been graphically designed to present misleading information. This tells you a lot about Tim Hudak: it says that he thinks you are shallow, uninformed, and lazy, and that you can be distracted by pretty pictures.

Most recently, in this campaign Tim Hudak and his Tories released a direct-mail flyer that was full of homophobic, transphobic garbage. The claims in the flyer were, unsurprisingly, bullshit. Hudak has since doubled down, complaining about how his young daughter will soon be starting junior kindergarten and he doesn’t want her having to learn about sex or anything like that. This of course continues to ignore the fact that nobody in power has proposed anything of the sort, but that was never the point. The point is that it tells you a lot about Tim Hudak: it says that he wants you to know that he doesn’t want your kids doing anything faggy. He wants you to know so bad he sent you a flyer making sure you knew.

Really, it’s sort of amazing to see what Tim Hudak has done. At the start of this campaign his victory was more or less assumed: all he needed to do was put forth some vaguely centrist and sober fiscal plans for the province’s future and then coast to victory. He may still win. But if he doesn’t, it is entirely his fault. Ontario is full of fiscally centrist, socially liberal voters. Mike Harris understood this and Stephen Harper understands it—both were smart enough to not campaign on social issues (though of course that’s a separate question than their policies once in office). Even Rob Ford downplayed the fact that he sat out Pride, but Tim Hudak decided to stick to his guns on minority-baiting. We repeat: Tim Hudak isn’t as politically astute as Rob Ford. This is not a man who should be made premier.

So, even though we are hard-pressed to do aught but sigh at the prospect of McGuinty or Horwath and cannot bring ourselves to endorse either of them, we will instead provide an undorsement. Thus, Torontoist officially endorses Not The Tories. If a PC candidate has a shot at your riding, find whoever is most likely to defeat them, and vote for that candidate: Liberal, NDP, even Green (if you happen to live in the riding of Unicornland, where we understand the Greens are running strong). If the riding is safe from a Tory getting in, vote for whomever you like, but if the Tory is a threat at all, just go ahead and vote strategically. In this election there’s really no voting for; there’s only voting against.

Luckily, the Tories provide us with whole reams of against to vote for, because this isn’t just about Tim Hudak: it’s about every last Tory running for office. The silence from the various MPPs and candidates on Tim Hudak’s bigoted, dishonest, and stupid campaign says all you need to know about them. They are either cowards or hold indefensible positions, and in either instance they are simply not worth your vote.

TRANSIT and INFRASTRUCTURE

EDUCATION

ENVIRONMENT

HEALTH CARE

ECONOMY

Polls are open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday.

—Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak, offering what we can only call an incredibly disingenuous defence of the flyer at right. Paid for by the Tories and distributed in the GTA in the run-up to this week’s election, the flyer comes hot on the heels of last week’s transphobic ad issued by the Institute for Canadians Values, which appeared last week in the National Post (which has since apologized for running it) and yesterday in the Toronto Sun (which so far has not). (If you’re interested in the policies that govern the presentation of these issues, here is the TDSB’s curriculum and guidebook on homophobia and heterosexism [PDF].)

Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinreis/6198297056/in/pool-89872566@N00/"}Martinho{/a} from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/pool/"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

SPOTTED BY: Martin Reis

WHERE: Bay and College streets

WHEN: September 30

WHAT: Newspapers? Pfffft. Websites? Who needs ‘em. Someone decided an Old West–style notice was the best way to keep the people of Toronto posted on the happenings in their city, and who can argue? It certainly doesn’t mince words:

OFFICIAL NOTICE

The deep cuts to city services have been
POSTPONED until after the election.

Proceeding with the cuts now would harm the prospect
of electing a Hudak Conservative government.

R & D FORD, MAYORS

BE ASSURED THAT THE CUTS TO JOBS AND SERVICES WILL BE BACK ON
THE CITY AGENDA BEFORE THE END OF NOVEMBER.

GUARANTEED

REMINDER: Election day is this Thursday, October 6.

Spotted features interesting things our readers discover in their journeys across Toronto. If you spot something interesting, send a photo and pertinent details to tips@torontoist.com.

In the run-up to the provincial election on October 6, we’ll be comparing the major parties’ platforms on issues that matter to urban voters.

The economy is a meta-issue, or a super-plank, the issue under which all other issues are subsumed. If the economy doesn’t work, then there’s no money to pay for any of the programs and promises that get tossed around at election time.

Fortunately, the politicos have you covered. In these times of “are we/aren’t we in recession” speculation, the oft-stated concern of all parties is making sure Your Family is working (except for children and seniors, who should be at school being educated, or at home being dignified, respectively).

So how are they planning to restore Ontario to its gold-plated glory as the economic engine of Canada? Here’s what they’re saying.

Liberals
The Grits have put their money on green energy as the best way to kick-start the economy back to life and keep it competitive in the long run. The Green Energy Act of 2009, which subsidizes producers of sustainable energy, and the much-criticized Samsung deal are key components of their strategy.

The economic premise behind the push to green is that as fossil fuels get more costly, renewable energy will become much more attractive. By building the industry out early, Ontario gets ahead of the curve and when the world is crying out for sustainable energy technologies, our factories are already up and running. In the meantime, all our displaced autoworkers and outsourced call centre reps get retrained and are busy building wind farms and installing solar panels. And, of course, paying taxes.

There’s an ancillary environmental benefit, of course; if we clean up our air and water, we can expect some (difficult-to-quantify) savings on health and car washes.

The sunny outcomes predicted are predicated on renewables achieving economies of scale that make them as attractive to individuals and business as fossil fuels. It also assumes that Ontario can compete effectively with other jurisdictions that are ramping up their eco-industry (China, for example).

The Grits also say they’ll triple the number of start-ups in the province through unspecified incentives designed to provide capital to new businesses.

The Liberals tout education and training as a key to economic renewal. Most would agree; while being a mighty hewer of wood or slayer of bears may make you an in-demand cottage guest, it’s really just a footnote on your CV and doesn’t prepare you for most 21st-century jobs.

Taxes: the Grits look to attract job-creating businesses to Ontario by keeping it cheap. Corporate taxes have been lowered by 20 per cent in the last four years, and the Liberals propose to cut them further. That said, Ontario already has lower corporate tax rates than many American states, so the bang for the buck on further reductions may be questionable.

Progressive Conservatives
The Tory economic agenda can be stated in one word, repeated three times: jobs, jobs, jobs! And not pie-in-the sky eco-jobs, but regular-folks jobs like… well, we don’t need to get into detail. But jobs, for sure.

The PC five-point job plan is focused on two things: blaming Dalton McGuinty for the global recession, and helping small business. The Tories promise a Small Business Bill of Rights to reduce red tape and government interference and make operating a business cheaper and more efficient.

Tim Hudak also notes in the jobs plan that a Tory government would “treat energy policy as economic policy—not as a social program,” which means ending subsidies to renewable energy businesses and letting the free market determine prices.

In another move more ideological than economic, the PCs propose to introduce laws that would require unions to increase transparency about their finances and allow union members to be able to decline to pay union dues that go towards political causes they may not support (do you hear that, Horwath?). While not necessarily bad ideas, it’s unclear why they’re part of a job-creation plan.

More practically, the Tories promise 200,000 more apprenticeship spaces over four years and to create a system where colleges match trainees with employers.

On the tax front, the PCs would join the Liberals in lowering the corporate tax rate, in addition to their promise to reduce consumer taxes on gas and hydro.

NDP
The NDP keep to the left with their economic plan, starting off by making it clear they would not support further corporate tax cuts, although they would keep rates below those of the U.S. They would, however, cut taxes for small businesses and give a 10 per cent tax credit to companies that create jobs in Ontario.

The New Democrats would also put in place policies to ensure that goods and services purchased by the Ontario government are made in Ontario, and they say that as a government they would be resistant to foreign takeovers of Canadian companies.

A more difficult commitment to live up to would be the requirement that resources produced in Ontario be processed in Ontario, a concept so broad as to be meaningless and so far-reaching as to be impossible (“Sorry, guys, we can’t cut any more timber until we can find somebody to build some more Ontario sawmills.”)

The NDP would also raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour.

Like the other parties, the NDP recognize that employers need educated employees and promise to spend a bunch of money on reducing tuition fees and increasing government subsidies for higher education.

Green Party
The Greens have a surprisingly fleshed-out economic plan for a party that has yet to take a seat in the Legislature and offer more ideas than any of the big three. Key points:

Like the Liberals, they would focus on creating jobs in green industries. Unlike the Liberals, they would favour partnering with small, local companies rather than partnering with multinationals like Samsung.

Like the Tories, they would take measures (unspecified) to remove government red tape that hurts small business. In a New Democrat twist, they would also favour (but not mandate) local suppliers when making government purchasing decisions.

Taking some leaves from the Book of Ford, part of their economic plan would be to identify and eliminate inefficiencies in government departments, and “work with all public employees and public sector unions to restrain the growth of the wages and salaries until the budget is balanced.”

Most controversially, the Green Party advocates tripling the cost of industrial-water taking and quintupling royalties on resource extraction, with the proceeds going towards conservation programs.

On the tax front, the Greens propose to postpone future corporate tax cuts but also to reduce the tax burden on families and small businesses (details not specified). Overall, the Green goal would be to reduce taxes on income and property, while “maintaining revenue with taxes on waste, pollution and unsustainable resource use.” They also advocate a carbon tax, to be rendered revenue-neutral through cuts in income taxes.

The Upshot
Firstly, all parties promise to balance the provincial budget no later than 2018, although the ratio of tax rises to spending cuts advocated vary. That said, if the province or planet slip back into recession, some of the revenue assumptions made will be rendered unlikely, and we may be having the deficit conversation again in the election of 2015.

The Liberals like what they’re doing now and promise to do more of it—growing green industry with government help and further reducing taxes on corporations.

The Conservatives would scrap the whole green thing, and focus on small business and lower taxes as a driver of job growth. Programs and tax cuts would be paid for through reducing government waste and cutting the public service, although no one has yet used the term “gravy train.”

The NDP want to spend our way out of tough times, with 80 per cent of the money coming from higher corporate taxes and “savings identified in Public Accounts and Expenditure Management review.” They also exhibit an anachronistic protectionism, which could be counter-productive in an unavoidably global economy.

Finally, the Greens have adopted a good grab-bag of workable ideas from across the political spectrum. However, their ideas around charging wasters and polluters for waste and pollution will be radical enough to shut them out at the polls again this year.

In the run-up to the provincial election on October 6, we’ll be comparing the major parties’ platforms on issues that matter to urban voters.

Infrastructure sounds like a boring subject until a bridge falls on you. In Toronto, where we have as much infrastructure as the rest of the province combined and the only subway, we’d be wise to vote in a government that’s willing to repay our loyalty by showering us with pirate gold, building projects, and shiny red rockets. So who should we love?

Liberals
Once again, the Grits have the advantage, because as incumbents they have office towers full of minions who get paid to plan infrastructure projects. As a result, they’ve got a document called Building Together, which includes a lengthy list of present and future builds, from splashpads in Whitehaven to hospitals in Vaughan.

For today, however, we’ll focus on what the McGuinty government has been doing for Toronto and what they’re promising if we give them another four years.

Transit-wise, Toronto got shafted during the Mike Harris years, when the Eglinton West subway was scrapped even as shovels were in the ground. At the same time, the downloading (or if you’re a Harris fan, “services realignment”) of most transit operating costs made it tough for the TTC to maintain existing service levels, let alone expand.

The Grits have a mixed record when it comes to transit in Hogtown. When David Miller was mayor, the Liberals agreed to fund GTA transit projects (including the Transit City plan to build light rail across Toronto) to the tune of $9 billion, but later, pleading recession, deferred $4 billion of the money. Earlier this year, the Grits bought into Rob Ford’s ask to scrap the Transit City plan they had just approved and replace it with a single, all underground line on Eglinton. However, they subsequently declined his request for another $650 million in funding to complete the now-orphaned Sheppard subway extension.

The Liberals also instituted the arrangement that gives two cents of the provincial gas tax to municipalities for transit, the lion’s share of which comes to the GTA.

In future, they commit to “Improving and expanding transit with the ultimate goal of creating a truly regional transit system in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area,” although beyond projects already underway there’s no detail or dollar figures. Similarly, they’d “give commuters fast, affordable, and environmentally sound transit options,” which sounds good but could mean anything from wider highways to nuclear bullet trains.

The Liberals would expand GO Transit to provide full-day, two-way service on all corridors, along with a money-back guarantee if trains are more than 15 minutes late.

Beyond transit, McGuinty would “continue to find ways and means to work with other orders of government to build and renovate social and affordable housing,” which sounds like something Toronto could use, but no specifics are offered.

It’s also worth noting that if you do some zooming on the map of selected infrastructure projects on the Building Together site, there is literally nothing to be found in the city of Toronto. We do, however, get a single feature stimulus project, a capital investment at OCAD University.

Progressive Conservatives
The Conservative platform promises to spend $35 billion on new infrastructure in the first three years of a Tory government, “much of it in transit and transportation.”

What does this mean, practically speaking? Well, the plan is lacking detail, but we can glean some clues from the phrasing. Firstly, a lot of platform real estate is spent on complaining about traffic congestion, even referencing particular highways in Ottawa and Northern Ontario.

And while the phrase “our transportation policy needs to be a balance between public transportation and the cars we drive” sounds even-handed, when combined with the Fordish “We will stop the war on the car,” it’s clear that Tim Hudak thinks—inexplicably—that current policy favours public transit.

The PCs would continue to return some portion of the gas tax to municipalities. However, instead of limiting the largesse to 89 cities for allocation to public transit, he would distribute the money among 444 municipalities to build out roads or other infrastructure. Even with a promised bump of some $60 million to the money by the fourth year (roughly a 20 per cent increase over what was doled out this year), it’s hard to imagine that Toronto’s current share of the money wouldn’t be diluted.

Hudak has also taken toll roads off the table.

NDP
The NDP are taking the opposite tack, courting carless urban voters with promises of new support for public transit. Andrea Horwath recently committed to covering half the operating cost of transit for cities in return for a four-year freeze on fares.

She’s also said the NDP would create an ongoing arrangement with cities to allow guaranteed cash injection for infrastructure, which would make for better urban planning and would maybe eliminate the dispiriting spectacle of Toronto mayors panhandling at Queen’s Park for money to keep the city from physical collapse. Timing and dollar amount would be subject to negotiation.

That money would be in addition to a previous promise to allocate $70 million annually for road and bridge repairs across the province.

Further looking to restore an enviro-rep somewhat shredded by a proposal to cut gas taxes, the NDP have also promised $15 million for bicycle infrastructure.

Green Party
Green infrastructure proposals predictably centre around sustainability. The Greens would create a $200 million fund for “active transportation” and “complete streets initiatives” (if you’re not a transportation wonk, the former term means any human-powered form of transport, and the latter references urban streets that are friendly to all users—cars, buses, bikes, and pedestrians). They’d also provide $400 million in tax credits over four years for benefits that support ride sharing and carpooling, as well as a refundable provincial tax credit for transit users.

One of the Green’s more interesting ideas is to build Combined Heat and Power systems (CHP), which take heat from existing buildings like factories, schools, and malls, and use it to generate electricity. Such systems are usually used locally and are relatively inexpensive to operate.

The Upshot
From a Toronto-centric point of view, there are a couple of things to consider. Premier McGuinty has been negotiating with Toronto mayors for eight years. On the one hand, he declined to pony up the last $650 million requested from our effervescent mayor, but on the other hand, over the years the Grits have come to the table with significant capital for transit. On the third hand, they pulled back $4 billion that had already been allocated to Transit City, and on the fourth, strangely mutated hand, they still haven’t jumped on the opportunity to pick up TTC operating costs.

While Dalton McGuinty is casting flirtatious glances in Toronto’s direction, Andrea Horwath really wants to take us to the prom. Operating funds? Sure! Fare freeze? Of course! Regular, no-strings-attached infusions of infrastructure cash? We could never say no to you, Toronto! But all this stuff costs real, tax-payer provided dollars, and in a troubled economy that could mean other, unpopular budget choices.

Tim Hudak knows you like driving places in your privately owned car to spend time with your family, and he aims to make that easier. The Tory platform woos the voter who doesn’t need or even like transit, not hardcore elitist urbanites sipping lattes on sushicycles. Decide where you fit in best.

The Greens, god bless ‘em, want to make every street Sesame Street, and every building a green one.

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Penal labour certainly isn’t uncommon, though framing it as a “chain gang” certainly is. And yet, a recent missive from the Ontario PC Party—titled: “Hudak Government Will Make Prisoners Work,” and an attachment labelled “Chain Gang Backgrounder”—calls for mandatory manual labour, stating that “an Ontario PC government will not make prisoners do anything more than what hard-working Ontario families do every day–put in an honest day’s work.”

The release says that Ontarians pay for such prisoner perks as HD cable packages, cooking lessons, and yoga classes titled “Freeing the Human Spirit,” that are, appropriately enough, designed by a Zen master. Also mentioned are interactive writing workshops that “express and honour each person’s unique experiences” (as if a prisoner’s individual experience couldn’t get any more unique). Any work a prisoner does is voluntary.

For Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak and his party, the desired alternative is 40 hours of required labour such as cleaning graffiti, picking up trash, and raking leaves. This would earn prisoners credits for such perks as gym and television time and coffee. No mention is made as to whether the prisoners would actually be chained.

This enforced labour proposition is sweetened with mention of potential savings for taxpayers, though $20 million (5 per cent of the corrections budget) is being allocated to the proposed program just in case.

And yet, the median sentence of inmates in Ontario prisons is 20 days, according to Anthony Doob, a criminology professor at the University of Toronto. Around 100,000 prisoners are admitted every year into Ontario’s prisons; only approximately 31,000 are sentenced. Of this number, 57 per cent are incarcerated for less than a month.

This makes rehabilitation of prisoners through a hard day’s work, or simply the teaching of a transferable skill, pretty much a non-issue (though what exactly raking leaves and mowing grass would qualify a prisoner for is questionable).

Tim Hudak’s PCs may have in mind U.S. penal labour programs that occupy long-term prisoners in such trades as telemarketing and garment manufacturing (of lingerie, no less). But, as it stands, Ontario provincial prisons only take on inmates with sentences of less than two years (and most are there less than a month). Anyone with a longer sentence goes to federal prison.

Said Doob, “The image that [the Ontario PC party is] trying to portray is that these are tough, nasty people and we’re going to make them work for a living.” And yet, hardened criminals will largely not be eligible for this proposed program.

It’s likely that Hudak is looking to appeal to those who approve of Stephen Harper’s tough-on-crime agenda, captured most eloquently by the sweeping omnibus bill currently before parliament, which would implement a three strikes policy and longer drug-related sentences—measures in use by our neighbours to the south.

There’s also the allure of saving the average person a buck, though Doob cautions that the proposed program would be hampered by attendant costs such as providing guards, transportation, and other supports for prisoners leaving jails to work. “We as taxpayers will end up paying more for services done for ‘free’ by prisoners than if we had a municipal labourer perform these services,” he said.

There’s also the issue of whether, with rising unemployment in Ontario, Hudak’s frequently cited “Ontario families” would feel comfortable with convicts edging them out of jobs.

Even more uncomfortable is the issue of how to manage compensation and working standards for a population with no bargaining power. Ontario prisoners may be only behind bars for the briefest “Hi, how are you, and good-day,” but it’s the principle of it that really matters, especially when framed in the context of something so archaic.

In the run-up to the provincial election on October 6, we’ll be comparing the major parties’ platforms on issues that matter to urban voters.

Health care is a portfolio that’s eventually of great interest to all Ontarians; while it’s all well and good to be transported or educated, being alive is what life’s all about. In 2010, health care spending accounted for 46 per cent of provincial spending, and that’s expected to rise to 80 per cent by 2030. Here’s a rundown on what your parties want to do with all that money.

Liberals
The Liberals don’t lack for self-esteem, and once again they get things rolling by congratulating themselves—18 hospitals built, 11,500 nurses hired, surgical wait-times reduced. It’s a nice picture, but not really an apples-to-apples comparison with non-governing parties, who might also have built hospitals if they’d had access to hundreds of billions in taxpayer cash.

The Grits then promise to do more of the same, making pointed reference to “revers(ing) the PC cuts and hospital closures by investing in new hospitals and renovating existing facilities.”

With that a given, we move on to the new stuff.

Firstly seniors, disproportionate consumers of health care, who have a powerful lobby and also have the time and the inclination to vote. The Grits commit to building on their Aging at Home strategy, designed to keep ailing elders out of expensive hospitals and in their own homes. (Note that in previous years, the strategy hasn’t seen the growth that was promised, in part because the health ministry diverted some of the funding to financially troubled hospitals.) Besides putting money into homecare for the those needing it, the plan would subsidize certain renovation costs up to $1,500 to make houses more accessible and allow seniors to defer property tax increases while they remain in their homes.

Put down that Whopper, son! Recognizing that chubby, chain-smoking kids become wheezing, heart attack–prone adults, the Liberals promise to get Ontario’s children on the health highway early. They’d put money into increasing healthy, local foods in schools and hospitals, and bump the Children’s Activity Tax Credit from $50 to $100 per child. They’d also start a Council on Childhood Obesity, which would look to reduce the childhood obesity rate by 20 per cent within five years.

As part of what they call “smoke-free Ontario,” the Liberals say they’d crack down on those who sell cigarettes to kids, whether they’re shady convenience store owners or smugglers hauling garbage bags full of smokes to playgrounds.

Finally, the Liberals promise to put more resources into mental health, an expensive and often overlooked issue, starting with kids and moving on to “prevention, early identification and services for adults” (although no money is budgeted for the latter until 2014).

All the new programs are costed at $237 million in their first year, which would buy a lot of tongue depressors but is still less than half a per cent of a health care budget of $49 billion.

Progressive Conservatives
The Tories start off with a bold statement—”It’s not about money”—and then prove that it actually is, saying that they’ll increase investment in health care by $6 billion in their first term in office. (Note: The Liberal plan commits to a similar bump; a significant portion of that funding comes from a six per cent annual increase in federal transfers that will have to be renegotiated before the current agreement expires in 2014. The feds are already suggesting that the current rate of increase is not sustainable.)

The PC health platform is couched in business jargon, full of buzzwords like “health outcomes” and “patient experience.” After sifting through tedious paragraphs of this stuff, we determined that what they’re saying is that people who run hospitals will be accountable for how well their hospitals work, which in turn will be measured by patient feedback and specific metrics like emergency room waiting times.

As part of a plan to bring down those waiting times, they would would be made available through Telehealth and online so when you get that shooting pain down your arm you can jump on the iPad and figure out which hospital is likely to get you from reception desk to defibrillator the fastest.

Like the Grits, the Tories recognize the economic, political, and social sense in expanding home care for seniors and say they’ll give seniors more choice in which home-care provider they deal with. It’s not clear what this means in practical terms, as seniors already have choices, and it may just be free-market bizspeak.

Conservative rhetoric in this campaign has leaned heavily on outrage, and the health care platform is no exception. They would scrap the Liberal-created Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs), which they deem “unelected, unaccountable, faceless bureaucracies,” and promise to take money from administrators and give it to doctors and nurses.

Tim Hudak also likes his law orderly, and vows to fight health-care fraud, in part by requiring people who use the old health card to provide government photo ID when seeing a doctor. Actually, why don’t we do this now?

NDP
Don’t tell Andrea Horwath, but NDP ambitions are pretty similar to those of their Conservative counterparts. Like the Tories, the NDP say they will reduce emergency room waiting times. However, while the former sternly invoke accountability as the solution, the New Democrats favour a kinder and gentler approach, speaking of “working closely with hospitals to address the underlying causes of backlogs and long wait times.” (Both descriptions are sufficiently general to be meaningless.)

More practically, the platform recognizes that more medical care upfront means fewer visits to the ER, and promises to invest in home care for seniors and 50 more family clinics. Specific types of support for the elderly would include chores like shovelling the walk, doing grocery shopping, and cooking meals (tasks presumably not performed by the NDP MPs themselves.) A New Democrat government would also work to spread medical expertise around more equitably by forgiving student loans for doctors willing to work in under-served communities.

Like the Liberals, the NDP propose programs to combat childhood obesity.

The NDP dislike the LHINs and would scrap them, speaking as one with their colleagues on the blue side of the House in railing against the organizations as “unelected, unaccountable bodies.”

Both Tories and NDP want to cut the fat, the case of an eHealth consultant who spent $7,800 on a trip to Japan being an example that everyone finds particularly offensive. The NDP, however, give a shout-out to their socialist roots by promising to cap hospital CEO salaries at twice what the premier makes.

Finally, the New Democrat platform is of the mind that all things health care–related should be free (to the user) and says they’ll work to eliminate fees, starting with ambulances. Next, they’d turn their efforts to increasing coverage for health care and health care–like costs such as eye exams, prescriptions, and chiropractic services.

Overall, the NDP propose about $221 million in new spending on health care.

Green Party
The Greens are on-side with some of the key ideas that everyone agrees with, notably promoting healthy living and illness prevention through exercise and diet and improving seniors’ access to home care when needed. They don’t directly call for junking the LHINs but hint at it with a call to “put communities back in charge of local health care decisions.”

More Green-specifically, they would look to create a healthier society by “paying landowners for producing healthy environmental goods and services” and “support(ing) the development of healthy, liveable, recreation-friendly communities.” (They would have their work cut out for them here, given projections that another 2 million people will cram themselves into the GTA in the next decade and a half).

Taking an easy slap at the Liberal’s eHealth woes, and proving themselves not hippie Luddites, the Greens also commit to finally deliver on electronic health records by using best practices from other places” (those places presumably do not include Japan).

Plan specifics are not costed, but their overall budgeting is similar to the other parties’.

The Upshot
Unfortunately, no party has summoned the moral courage to talk about That Which Must Not Be Named, which is to say “two-tier health care.” We’re already spending half our budget on health care; given an aging population, rising medical costs, and the fact that the economic demand for not being dead is unlimited, this is a conversation we should be having now rather than after things go off the rails.

In general, the Grits stand by their record and want to keep doing more of it, with some help for the young (lose weight! don’t smoke!) and some relief for the old (you get to live in your house instead of a crowded, spiritually toxic hospital ward!).

The Tories and NDP have much in common, except that the former use the language of the disgruntled capitalist, while the latter adopt the rhetoric of the indignant socialist. Both propose big gains from trimming waste, including LHINs, and both line up with the Liberals on senior home-care. The NDP however, are very up front about supporting the Facebook model of medical care (“It’s free, and always will be”), while the Tories—although they haven’t talked about it since 2007—may be open to a more libertarian approach.