Fiscally Conservative With a Strong Social Conscience

What a fascinating election. Once again, we witnessed the opposition party selecting a candidate who could not win, no matter what the electorate thought of the incumbent. Only in this case, the electorate didn’t wipe out the party as they did with the Federal Liberals, rather, they just took them down to another defeat. However, to be fair, this is only the first bad choice in leaders the Ontario Progressive Conservatives have selected. In the case of the Federal Liberals, there was Dion followed by another unelectable, Ignatieff. Nevertheless, did you notice that I predicted the election almost exactly correct (except for 3 seats). I called the 17 NDP winners, but only thought the Liberals would obtain 50 seats, not 53. Still, I am pleased with my formula for predicting winners based on changes in popularity from the previous election.

Let me tell you why I say Hudak can’t win in Ontario unless something changes. Ontario is, and probably always will be “fiscally conservative with a strong social conscience”, as restated for the umpteenth time by former Premier Ernie Eves on one of the TV stations on election night. That’s Hudak’s problem, he does not appear to have a strong enough social conscience for the majority of the voters. I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder than words, and, that’s where Hudak’s exposed. He is a two time cabinet minister under Premier Mike Harris, my 3^rd least favourite leader of all time after Nixon, and Bush ‘W’. And, he is proud of it. He’s proud of the fact that Mike Harris chased our doctors south, and chased our nurses away to find new careers. And, his campaign speeches were loaded with the fact that McGuinty was too soft on the teachers. Yikes, when Harris was premier, we were burdened with teacher strike after teacher strike. And of course, our kids suffered from too little time in the classroom. McGuinty has managed to get along with the teachers and bring back the nurses. Now that’s been pleasant.

If the PC’s want to stick with Hudak as their leader, they must spend this minority session of government rebuilding Tim Hudak’s social conscience and continuing to distance themselves from the Mike Harris wars on teachers and nurses. Looking at the new Ontario map, they already own the rural vote, now, they must try and show the city folk their kinder and gentler side.

Personally, I don’t think they can do it. But, I’ve been wrong before, but, not of course, in terms of predicting the election results on Thursday (that’s two pats on my own back in the same blog).