The N.D. P. Platform critique

The N.D.P. have always had great ideas.  But when you ask how much it would cost... that's when it falls apart. This platform is no exception. They have the most realistic approach to the HST; they'd scrap it on home heating oils, and gas for cars- two places where it would save people the most.  But the revenue has to be replaced somewhere.

Setting weekly gas prices is in theory a good idea.  Nobody else has even tried to solve this problem, and it seems the instant there's an increase on the markets, within hours there's an increase at our local gas stations.  There has to be something we can do.  But the question I have here is: how do you manage the market increases?

Becoming equal partners in transit development with municipalities is a good idea as well.  It is pretty much our collective faults for not developing our transit as we built our roads- this kind of spreads the burden of solving the problem.  Where the weakness with their transit plan is in the freeze on fares for four years.  Again- a good idea; who doesn't want to pay less for something? The problem is what happens when/ if you take the freeze off? After four years the increase could be a huge deciding factor in whether some people continue to use transit.  A better idea might be to somehow tie the increase to the rate of inflation maybe.

The education plank is fairly non-existent.  The N.D.P. is looking at tuition freezes, and forgiving the interest on student loans.  Both good ideas, but it fails to address the system as a whole.  The P.C.'s and Liberals both have grand plans of funding 60 thousand post-secondary spots.


Buying Ontario may be a great soundbite but in practical terms won't work.  The provinces are too interdependent on each other.  And Ontario is still a powerful part of the overall Canadian economy- Ontarians start buying exclusively Ontario, and the rest of Canada might fail.

Scrapping the LHIN's (Local Health Integrated Network), is something the N.D.P. and their P.C. counterparts agree on.  The money saved here (I think around $200 million) would probably offset some of the fees on medical exams, and ambulance fees they plan on getting rid of.

These are some decent ideas there, but is it enough to form a government on? It might be.  The N.D.P. have so far been fairly clear on what they will do if elected, and the clarity might be enough to break through the clatter of the other two fighting it out on the negative end of things.