How Will It end?

I'm not going to make a prediction- instead I'm going to make a best guess.  We will wake up Friday morning to a Progressive Conservative (P.C.) minority government.  I started the campaign with this opinion, and nothing has happened to change it much.

The P.C.'s and Liberal platforms are fairly equal.  On the Liberal side, if you scratch below the surface- and take a good look at what the ideas are, you'll find them wanting. on the P.C. side there is some more substance.  Both are vague in different areas; the Liberals on how they plan to pay for new hospitals, and the P.C.'s on how their platform would benefit cities.

The two parties are matched with mistakes. McGuinty made one with an ill-timed jobs platform and Hudak in the way he responded to it.  McGuinty made another one, when he cancelled the power plant in Mississauga; something that is clearly politically motivated.  Hudak made one when he released the sex-ed pamphlet with homophobic content.  Everyone hates the HST, and nobody will do anything to if not get rid of it outright or at the very least trim the provincial portion.  Nobody has taken McGuinty on about Caledonia.

  In the end, a government of any stripe has to stand on its record.  As unfair as it may seem for McGuinty this means the full eight years. And for all his successes in health care and education; his attempts to get Ontario to buy into Green energy, it's the scandals and broken promises people will remember.  In two previous elections he said he wouldn't raise taxes- we now have the health premium and the HST- which even though it could be good for business; sucks for the consumer.  Nobody likes paying more.

Hudak isn't perfect. He's hasn't run the best election campaign. He's spent a more time telling us what the NDP, and Liberals won't do for us and not enough telling what a P.C. government would do for us.  Even after one year of campaigning, we really don't know him that well; and that's why Ontario voters will only give him a minority. 


Andrea Horwath will end up the kingmaker, and I suspect do very well with that role.  Her party has run a campaign based on clearly expressed ideas.  They've stuck with the positive message of voting for hope, and not fear; and that will ring true with some voters.  Bob Rae casts a long shadow over his former party; and there will be those who will remember what it was like when Ontario last had an N.D.P. Premier. That could be enough to keep her from the Premier's chair.

Eight years is a long time for a government to last in power.  It's time for change; Hudak is the best placed to deliver that change.  Let's give Hudak a chance.