BobbyS

Shocker. Blind PC supporter didn't know his numbers.

But it's totally okay for corporations to donate money to the PCs which they use on advertising, right? All Political Ads should be banned. Period.

This is exactly how myself and so many other people I know feel. I would love to see some changes with the way government spends money and would love more accountability...but Hudak and his tea-party style is not for me. This election has been crap - has almost inspired me to the point of wanting to run for MPP in the future.

Speaks volumes about the choices, doesn't it? And I normally vote PC.

Pretty bold pick. As someone who held my nose and voted Liberal...I'd be absolutely shocked if they got a majority. That is not something I want. If they got a minority and were held in check on spending that'd be fine. Then I'd hope for Hudak ousted and a sensible PC leader. Can we have Tory back? I'd vote for him right now in a heartbeat.

Right now you get a 10% rebate on Hydro. Tim Hudak will remove that.

I guess Teaparty Tim is banking on retirees having to work part time jobs to say afloat

My point is that Hudak is not going to create 1 Million Jobs like he said. Do you know anything about reading?

Things like the GTA transit that Hudak is promising....such as a downtown relief line are not going to come without increasing taxes. It's simply not possible. He either won't build or he will have to raise taxes. Either way he will lie. Hard to believe someone who voted to bury the Eglinton line once already

I agree with you. For me it is a matter of trust. Can't believe Hudak's hot air. Last week it was 1 Million Jobs...now half of those are just going to be created out of thin air by doing nothing according to his plan.

+1 Not voting Hudak here. Absolutely out of the question. We need someone to balance the books which none of them are going to do right now it seems, but I am certainly not going to support someone who wants to give more money away to multi-billion dollar corporations for nothing.

CPCFTW is clearly delusional.....he thinks jobs will magically be created by adding to corporations hoards of money they are just sitting on. Flaherty himself (a conservative) said this was the case.

I'm not sure you do know how to read. It clearly states that corporations have been urged to increase investments in the economy and they woudl prefer to sit on billions of dollars and not reinvest them to create jobs. I'm not telling you who to vote for, it is just sad how ill-informed some people are.

I guess you know better than the former Governor of the Bank of Canad or the late Jim Flaherty "To hear Mark Carney tell it, company directors are sitting on piles of “dead money” when they should be giving some of it back to shareholders or putting it to work." "Cash reserves held by non-financial companies totalled more than $550-billion in the first quarter of this year. That’s up from $370-billion in mid-2009, when the country was emerging from the recession." "In the past few years, Carney and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have both urged corporations to increase investments to boost the economy and improve Canada’s long-term manufacturing efficiency. They have said this is particularly important at a time when consumers are maxed out and governments are reducing spending to curb budget deficits."

But we both know it would have been a nice dividend increase for Rogers Shareholders.

It has already been proven MANY MANY times that corporate tax cuts without any conditions do not result in job creation. You really didn't know this by now?

Argus, I get your point, but I stand firm on my position that a blanket approach to chopping jobs that he supports will decimate Ontario's economy. Also by destroying unionization in Ontario, he will create lower wages for everyone by lowering the bar. Here is an example: There are hospitals in Ontario that have unions and there are hospitals that do not have unions. My cousin happens to work in a non-unionized hospital. In order to keep the union out of the hospital, they offer a pay and benefits package very similar to a nearby hospital that IS unionized. This way, the nurses that she works with enjoy equal pay and benefits and the hospital is happy that they are not unionized. If the union is destroyed from the other hospital, the bar will be lowered for everyone....nurses in both hospitals will be forced to accept less and less money and benefits and the race to the bottom begins. It will all come down to who is willing to work for the least amount of money. In a number of other positions - such as mid level finance positions, the government positions are also setting a bar for the private sector to compare to - if the bar is lowered, everyone except the owners/shareholders will end up losing. When the average middle class worker has their wages significantly lowered, the ripple effect across the economy is extraordinary. People have less money to travel, buy new homes, renovate, spend on groceries, go out to restaurants, etc. We will all feel it. Personally I'd like to see us aspire to improve the standard of living for the majority of people, not just for the top tier of society. Just my opinion. Debt is a problem but it needs to be handled and reduced in a responsible manner. We also need someone to be honest about the costs of improving GTA transit and that it is going to cost money and we need to bite the bullet at some point in time. By constantly putting it off we end up spending just as much if not more in fuel costs by idling on highways and in lost time.

You suspect wrong. I actually voted PC when Tory was running and I also voted for Harper (twice), which I may reconsider in the future if I'm given an option other than JT. I did not say we should not cut any government jobs. I said making a blanket promise to immediately eliminate 100,000 people would have drastic consequences. This is much, much different from taking a balanced approach and saying that you think there are too many layers of bureaucracy in government and that we need fewer middle managers and supervisors who do very little actual work. Had Hudak said that he wanted to cut the bureaucracy and perform a thorough review of government services to make them more efficient, I would support that. Making promises to pink slip 100,000 people is something that either A) Hot air to try again reaffirm support from the hard right or Incredibly reckless and damaging to the economy if it happens like that. He would be much better off to review positions and identify those that can be eliminated and forms of government that can be downsized as people retire rather than putting people on EI. Regarding Wynne, my point stands that she was not in power. What we do know is that all three parties were in favour of the plant cancellations. All three parties need to give their head a shake. Like I said I hope for a minority government so that the PCs will reinvent themselves and give me someone a bit more moderate to get behind. My gut says Hudak cannot be trusted and is only out to benefit his Walmart type corporate friends. If he does get elected and starts with the cuts I hope he leads by example and takes a pay cut himself, puts a pay cut on all politicians, and that when the teachers get a roll back I hope he applies it to the pensions that his parents are collecting as well, otherwise he would just be a hypocrite.

Long time reader and first time poster here. Since we have a decent discussion going on about the provincial election, I figured I would offer my point of view as something to consider. I've long been a conservative supporter and I've generally found that my values fall a little bit more to the right of centre than anywhere else. Unfortunately this time around I am unhappy with all of the choices that we have been left with. With NDP Andrea Horwath I really can't tell what she stands for since she voted down a budget that I surely thought she would be in favour of. With Kathleen Wynne I think she is getting a bit of a bad rap for the errors made by McGuinty, but focusing specifically on her, I am not a fan of the Ontario Pension Plan as I think CPP reform would be more beneficial. That being said it doesn't look like Stephen Harper has any intention to improve CPP to provide for a more secure retirement for Canadians. Then we have Tim Hudak. He is supposed to be my guy. Unfortunately he is just too far to the right for my taste. First it was his push for Right to Work legislation. For anyone who knows anything about RTW laws they will see that all of the states with RTW have lower average wages, poorer working conditions for employees and a lower standard of living. Look at a map of the USA and ask yourself which states you would want to live in if you had to choose one. California maybe? New York? You will notice a trend that these are not Right to Work states like Alabama for example. The initial impact of Right to Work definitely shows a slight increase in the employment rate, but it is not really helping society if more people are working and making a fraction of their previous wages. While Hudak has thankfully publicly backed away from this policy, he still maintains many documents on his website touting Right to Work as the way to go. I think that this strategy of pitting workers and workers in the public/private sector is nothing more than a strategy to collectively drive all wages and benefits down, eventually make all pensions both public and private a thing of the past and see health benefits disappear. Despite the presence of these documents on Hudak's website I was still willing to give him a chance until last week. When he made the announcements that A) He plans to layoff 100,000 people and He plans to give a 30% tax break to corporations, that was the last straw for me for a number of reasons. We have already been told by the former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney that corporations are sitting on billions of dollars right now that they are not investing. Giving them 30% less in taxes with no conditions to create jobs and pass those savings on to new employees is not going the situation. Having 100,000 former middle class families turning to the unemployment line is going to put an increased burden on EI in the immediate term and the bigger impacts will be felt by all of us in both the public and private labour markets. Having 100,000 more people desperately looking for work plays into the hands of large corporate employers and nobody else. It is simply supply and demand - create an excess supply of labour and there will be huge pressure on the wages and benefits of everyone who is employed. Wanted that raise? Were expecting that bonus? I know I and many others can expect to lose out on these things only to be told by our Manager that "Looks at how bad things are out there for people right now, you should just be happy that you have a job". I cannot get on board with this culture of creating fear for all employees in both the public/private sector to the point that we should just be happy with the status quo and never strive to see things collectively become improved for society. As someone with a Masters in economics, I figured Hudak would also be aware that by laying off so many middle class income earners, there will be a huge ripple effect on the economy. Do renovations? Painting? Building Decks? Well I know that all of the clients who are teachers or government workers of any sort are not going to have the money to hire you to do work any more. Less new cars will be purchased, less money to put kids in sports for many families bringing up the costs for those of us who can still afford it. The list goes on and on. Ripple effect will be absolutely devastating. Something tells me that Tim is well aware of this and that it is exactly what his corporate friends would like. I also find it extremely hypocritical that his wife seems to have bee on the Sunshine list for several years taking in excess of $200,000 in some years. All that said I really am sickened by the lack of good choices. I am disgusted by the Gas Plants and E-Health, etc.....but I don't know how fair it is to lay that all on Wynne when she was not in power at the time. Andrea is just giving me nothing to get excited about at all and Tim well....you've read what I wrote above by now. I think one of the big problems is that none of the leaders are focusing on the fact that manufacturing leaving the province of Ontario is not a partisan issue or problem, it is the effect of globalization and corporations choosing higher profits by moving plants to places like Bangladesh, Laos and Thailand rather than have products made in Canada. Reality is that regardless of which party is in power we need to collectively reinvent ourselves as a province and nation and find a new way to innovate our economy. On that note.....this whole situation sucks. I hate all three options. That being said I feel that Tim Hudak is actually the worst of the three so I will vote for the non conservative candidate in my riding who historically gets the highest percentage of the votes. My hope is that this will result in a very slim minority government that requires the parties to reinvent themselves and hopefully the next time around the PCs will elect a leader with a vision that I can get behind. -B