Ontario Budget 2014 -- Election

[Boges]

It's one data point, so it's meaningless unless there's a trend. Hudak needs Toronto suburbs, like you (I believe said). Those 100000 public servants getting fires is not going to sit well with the Queen 's Park suburbs. That's where the public servants live. It seems people don't believe his million jobs plan. He picked a number too big. People think it sounds like BS. Despite all the scandal with the power plant, Wynne's plans are more believable at this point. But the thing is, these numbers could be the result of random sampling. We will have to wait for more polls to see if others are getting similar results.

What does Queen's Park suburb's mean? You mean the 905? It's where Harper made his breakthrough.

Wynne's plan isn't believable. She'll increase spending and taxes and add to the deficit and hope revenues increase without doing anything to control spending.

[cybercoma]

It's totally irrelevant what you and I think. I'm just giving ideas for the possible reasons we're seeing a swing in the polls.

[cybercoma]

Here's the post from 308 on it.

http://www.threehundredeight.com/2014/05/and-pendulum-swings-back-again.html?spref=tw

Again, as Eric mentions in that post, as soon as a new poll comes out the previous one's weight is reduced by 75%. So it's still anybody's game.

[cybercoma]

Anybody but Horwath that is.

[Topaz]

If one looks at the province some regions are still hurting and have double-digital unemployment from London to Windsor, while TO is not that bad off....yet. As far as the wind farms go, I sure they have completed all their contracts signed, knowing full well how the PC felt about them, so Hudak saying no more wind farm contracts is nothing. He also going to reduce corp. taxes and then turn around and not give anymore corp welfare... so what will the small businesses and farmers do???

[Icebound]

...

Wynne's plan isn't believable. She'll increase spending and taxes and add to the deficit and hope revenues increase without doing anything to control spending.

Yes, but unfortunately, private industry is NOT spending, and thus is NOT creating jobs. And that has not been changing when taxes get cut.

So WHOSE spending is going to create jobs?

Well,it turns out that jobs are created when the small guy is flush with money and buying. Right now the small guy is up to his ears in debt, and private industry keeps squeezing his paycheck.

What you are getting is capital accumulation, and not job creation.

Fire 100,000 more and put them into the "non-buyers" category....and see what kind of job-creation you get?

...

...

[Boges]

Fire 100,000 more and put them into the "non-buyers" category....and see what kind of job-creation you get?

Back to this theory that public sector jobs are sacrosanct. Once they're created, even if they are no longer providing any benefit to the public the job must be maintained to keep people off of unemployment.

Plenty of these removed positions will be contracted out, meaning they'll be replaced by private sector jobs.

[Icebound]

Back to this theory that public sector jobs are sacrosanct. Once they're created, even if they are no longer providing any benefit to the public the job must be maintained to keep people off of unemployment.

Plenty of these removed positions will be contracted out, meaning they'll be replaced by private sector jobs.

No, public sector jobs are not sacrosanct, and like any activity, efficiency is necessary and cost-control is necessary.. yada yada...

BUT.... converting one public sector job into one private sector job does not "create" a job, does it?. In the grand scheme of things, it usually DECREASES the number of jobs.

But for the moment, let us assume that there is the SAME number of jobs, but that there are supposed efficiencies.... These "efficiencies" are usually brought about by lower wages...which, once again... reduces the buying power of the small guy.

We can tweak all we want, but as long as the small guy has no buying power, there will be no big job-creation.... just the same kind of noise we get now.... up one month, down the next....

...

Edited May 14, 2014 by Icebound

[cybercoma]

Giving businesses money from the government doesn't spurn on job creation and expansion. Businesses need to know what consumers want to create jobs and expand. Consumers can't tell them what they want if they have no money to buy from them. This is the fundamental flaw in supply-side economics. It completely ignores the true engine of the economy: consumer demand.

[Boges]

No, public sector jobs are not sacrosanct, and like any activity, efficiency is necessary and cost-control is necessary.. yada yada...

BUT.... converting one public sector job into one private sector job does not "create" a job, does it?. In the grand scheme of things, it usually DECREASES the number of jobs.

But for the moment, let us assume that there is the SAME number of jobs, but that there are supposed efficiencies.... These "efficiencies" are usually brought about by lower wages...which, once again... reduces the buying power of the small guy.

We can tweak all we want, but as long as the small guy has no buying power, there will be no big job-creation.... just the same kind of noise we get now.... up one month, down the next....

...

But the problem with Public Sector jobs is that they don't reflect market conditions. Those good wages are built upon the taxpayer. And right now, in Ontario, the government is buried in debt.

Here's some idea of the kind of waste the Ontario government.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/05/12/lots-of-fat-to-cut-in-ontarios-civil-service

Hudak says the public sector has grown by 300,000 over the past decade — just as the manufacturing sector has shrunk by that amount.

Where to start?

The bloated energy sector is a good place.

Remember the old Ontario Hydro?

In 1995, it operated power plants, transmission lines — and operated the system.

That was broken down into Hydro One, which operates the wires and Ontario Power Generation — the entity charged with looking after generating plants. The Independent Electricity System Operator runs the system.

The Liberal government then spawned an alphabet soup of energy-related organizations, including the Ontario Power Authority and the Ontario Energy Board.

They said this was in order to put energy planning at arm’s length from politicians.

Then they scrapped two gas-fired power plants for purely political purposes.

You could scrap the OPA tomorrow with no noticeable effect.

And OPG?

This government has created so much waste that something has to be done.

[Argus]

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.

Yes, I disagree with the across the board tax cuts. If you want to spend that money a better idea is to put it into skills training.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Argus

[Argus]

+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.

It's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Hudak is more likely to balance the books than the other two. Does he have expensive ideas I don't like? Sure. Do the Liberals and NDP have expensive ideas I don't like? Certainly.

[overthere]

If these people can't find jobs, then its welfare, unless of course, Hudak gets rid of that too,

Good idea.

In the early 90s, when Alberta was in pretty dire economic straits, Klein trimmed the civil service pretty dramatically and nobody outside the accountant who counted up union dues noticed.

Klein also made one major reform to welfare eligilbility: if you are employable and do not have dependents, you get nothing. If you were not employavle because you have no skills, the province paid for training. If you had dependents, you got support. If you were not employable because of disability, you went on a different support programs.

It cut the welfare rolls in half. The people who left took jobs they disdained before that.

[Wayward Son]

I have looked over Hudak's million jobs math, and it seems a little flawed to me.

Hudak says that he is going to create 1030688 jobs over the next 8 years. More then half of those jobs are just estimated baseline growth based on numbers from the last decade.

"According to a technical backgrounder released by the Conservatives, baseline growth, based on the previous decade’s average, would be 523,200 jobs over eight years."

Ok. But at the same time Hudak complains that 300000 public sector jobs have been created over the same decade, which taking the average of 30000 per year would mean that 240000 of those 523200 jobs were public sector jobs (and 283200 were private sector - he factors in future increases in private sector jobs from tax cuts later, so they can't be added here as that would be duplication). Hudak doesn't want more public sectors, he wants 100000 fewer.

That factoring out of public sector job growth from the baseline growth, and factoring in of future public job cuts reduces the number to 690688 jobs over the next 8 years.

As jobs are not in isolation, but have a multiplier effect we could realistically multiply those lost public sector jobs (240000 in previous growth removed from the baseline growth equation and 100000 in future cuts) by 1.6 and get 544000. That would reduce Hudak's million jobs to 486688 which is less than the jobs created in the last eight years.

I may be missing something, and job numbers based on predictions into the future are unreliable to say the least, but even some of the other parts of the plan seem pretty unrealistic.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Wayward Son

[PIK]

+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.

Then they can move to new york state that is offering 10yrs tax free to set up shop. Hudak is the only one willing to do anything. The liberals and NDP are the same, nothing will change. The only people complaining about hudak are probably one of the 1.3 million collecting a pay check from a government. Maybe it is time for the non union workers to get a break instead of constant pay raised for the unions. Remember how california is broke and bankrupt, well look at thier numbers and then ONT numbers. We are screwed if the liberals or NDP get in. And how can anyone reward the liberals with what they have done to this province.If you actually took the time, hudak is the only one with plan. And if this pension thing goes thru, say goodbye to every little business out there, every dam one of them. Main street businesses have slowly clawed their way back after the walmart invasion and the pension plan will empty the streets in one yr.

[Michael Hardner]

http://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-liberals-leap-over-pcs-in-latest-forum-poll-1.1820862

The Ontario Liberals could be on track for a majority government, according to a new poll released by Forum Research Inc. Wednesday.

The poll suggests that close to four in 10, or 38 per cent of Ontarians, would vote Liberal compared to 35 per cent who would vote PC.

Those numbers, the poll projects, ultimately mean the Liberals would have enough seats in the Legislature to take a majority.

The poll, which randomly sampled 996 Ontario voters, is a clear shift from a recent poll conducted at the beginning of the campaign, which showed a PC lead.

Read more: http://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-liberals-leap-over-pcs-in-latest-forum-poll-1.1820862#ixzz31iRbt7Kn

Has this been posted yet ? Liberal majority ?

[Boges]

OK I'm going back to my claim that Polling is crap and actually damaging to the democratic process.

Forum Poll comes out saying Tories are in the lead but the Liberals will win anyway.

Ipsos Reid comes out saying the Tories will win a majority. (Ipsos if far more respected than Forum)

Now another Forum poll comes out (sampling about half of what the first Forum poll did) saying the Liberals are going to win. And that's what everyone is reporting as if it's the gospel truth.

AS-SOL-UTE BS!

I'd love to hear the wording Forum used to describe Hudak's plan to pare back the public service.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Boges

[Wayward Son]

I'd love to hear the wording Forum used to describe Hudak's plan to pare back the public service.

I doubt it had much to do with the wording. 308 has a post about the problems with the Forum poll. No poll is perfect, some far more then others, but I also happen to believe that the previous Ipsos poll was more accurate (however, I base that solely on their polling result for my region being in line with all the local polling and past election trends, and the Forum being completely out of whack for the same region ie the party that should comfortably be in first in my region is a distant third according to Forum). Not that polls this early in a campaign mean much anyways.

[BobbyS]

It's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Hudak is more likely to balance the books than the other two. Does he have expensive ideas I don't like? Sure. Do the Liberals and NDP have expensive ideas I don't like? Certainly.

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.

[cybercoma]

OK I'm going back to my claim that Polling is crap and actually damaging to the democratic process.

Just follow 308. Eric explains the issues with the Forum poll and aggregates all of the polls, using an algorithm that reduces their weight the further away from the election date they are and adjusting their weight based on their historical accuracy. 308 has the Liberals and the Tories in a dead heat based on an aggregate of all the polls.

But seriously, I've been saying it all along: Canadians decide during the campaign. Hudak is once again shooting himself in the foot. He had a comfortable lead 2 weeks out last time and blew it.

Edited May 14, 2014 by cybercoma

[cybercoma]

Michael Laxer's Twitter post a few minutes ago was pretty amusing.

https://twitter.com/MichaelLaxer/status/466679557027020801

[Argus]

http://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-liberals-leap-over-pcs-in-latest-forum-poll-1.1820862

Has this been posted yet ? Liberal majority ?

Isn't this the same site?

http://www.cp24.com/news/2014-ontario-provincial-election/poll-tories-build-on-lead-make-inroads-in-toronto-1.1822099

[Argus]

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.

I don't trust any politician. Remember this one? "Hi, I'm Dalton McGutiny. I won't raise your taxes, but I won't lower them either."

For me, it boils down to who is going to balance the books. And if you know any way to cut $12 billion from the budget without cutting jobs and without cutting any services people want I'd really like to hear it. I don't trust the Liberals or NDP to do any cutting. I don't think they have the intestinal fortitude to fight with the unions and make the necessary cuts. I think what they'd try is raising taxes -- again.

[BobbyS]

I don't trust any politician. Remember this one? "Hi, I'm Dalton McGutiny. I won't raise your taxes, but I won't lower them either."

For me, it boils down to who is going to balance the books. And if you know any way to cut $12 billion from the budget without cutting jobs and without cutting any services people want I'd really like to hear it. I don't trust the Liberals or NDP to do any cutting. I don't think they have the intestinal fortitude to fight with the unions and make the necessary cuts. I think what they'd try is raising taxes -- again.

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

[Argus]

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

Well, as much as I don't care about transit in Toronto, it seems to me the Liberals have done the same sort of thing. They've promised to help fund their transit plan by redirecting billions that was meant for other programs, but hasn't announced how she's going to find the billions then, to fund those other programs!

Edited May 14, 2014 by Argus