Lorrie Goldstein And The Way Ahead

Greg Staples points to an article by the Sun's Lorrie Goldstein, giving vent to the frustration building within the ranks of small "c" conservatives at a looming Liberal "majority" on October 10. Mr. Goldstein points out the central truth of the upcoming "victory" for the Liberals:

If the last 10 days of the Ontario election campaign go the same as the first three weeks, two groups of people are going to wake up the morning of Oct. 11 with an awful hangover.

The first will be the majority of voters, especially Conservatives, who, not having voted for the party that won -- the Liberals -- will be wondering how a minor promise by Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory to publicly fund a few more faith-based schools, became the elephant in the room that obliterated everything else. (emphasis mine)

The second will be Liberals, who will be wondering how, in victory, they became the party of religious bigotry and ethnic bashing.

What is coming is another false majority, created by a minority of voters, swayed by the fear campaign of the Liberal Party. The real majority of voters will be left scratching their heads, wondering how a party that has broken so many promises could win a majority of seats by using fear of Muslims as its main weapon. But if they take a moment to think about it, the answer to their confusion is right in front of them. It is our broken electoral system.

The upcoming election, like all of our elections using FPTP, will create a legislature based on a lie. That lie is the presumption that somehow the results are based on the will of the majority of voters in this province. As Goldstein points out, this is just not so. The majority of the voters will cast their ballots against the winning party in this election just as they usually do. Will this reality stop the Liberals from behaving like they have a true majority mandate, when in fact they do not? Our history show us that it will not. The Liberals will trumpet their "majority" as a sign that they have the absolute right to move this province in any way they see fit and the majority will just have to live with it.

This outcome seems to be inevitable. But even if it isn't -- even if John Tory were to make an amazing comeback and swing seven or eight percent of the voters his way, the outcome would still be based on the lie of FPTP. The lie would benefit a different winner, and that's all.

However, though the outcome of this election is going to result in a sham majority, we needn't bang our heads against a wall. Sure, the majority of voters will get the shaft once again. Nothing new there. It will sting like hell. But, we can ensure that this is the last election we ever have to suffer the realization that the majority of voters have been trumped by the minority. We have it in our hands to pass MMP and make sure that in all subsequent elections, the will of the majority will be reflected in the creation of the Legislature. It will be the end of false majority rule in Ontario. The real majority may "lose" this election, but passing MMP will ease our pain. Vote MMP.

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Futurama Understands McGuintoryism

I tried to find this on Youtube, but the video has been taken down (thanks Twentieth Century Fox!). I did however, find this transcript from the episode "A Head in the Polls". It illustrates beautifully politics under McGuintoryism:

Johnson: [on TV] It's time someone had the courage to stand up and say: "I'm against those things that everybody hates".

[The other candidate is John Jackson.]

Jackson: [on TV] Now I respect my opponent. I think he's a good man but, quite frankly, I agree with everything he just said!

Fry: These are the candidates? They sound like clones. [He looks a little harder.] Wait a minute. They are clones!

Leela: Don't let their identical DNA fool you. They differ on some key issues.

Johnson: [on TV] I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far.

Jackson: [on TV] And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough!

Two clone parties fighting for power, agreeing on virtually all issues except who should be in control. Is this the best we can do in Ontario? Shake up this clonefest. Vote MMP.

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Kitchener Waterloo All Candidates Meeting

So, I went to the all candidates meeting last night. The room was packed, with people of all ages (but let's face it mostly middle aged and up). It was a pretty tame affair overall, in a question and answer format. There was no debate as such. I will give you my impressions as dispassionately as I am able.

Liz Witmer (PC), the incumbent, is an old pro at these things. She is the most polished performer and most accomplished at sounding positive, but saying little. She had little trouble with the format and she had a good rapport with the audience. It is easy to see why she is successful. She is a good retail politician. Ms. Witmer, also did not have to defend government policy (although she did have to defend funding religious schools), which was the Liberal candidate's problem.

Judy Greenwood-Spears (Green), is a character. She is tough as nails and would be a formidable MMP. She made a bit of a connection with the crowd as the in-your-face, straight-talking, anti-politician. She had a little trouble keeping her answers to the time alloted.

Catherine Fife (NDP) is young, articulate and knows the issues. She presented herself as the "change" candidate. She is very, very charismatic in a situation like the one last night and I would say the audience liked her the best (whether they would vote for her is another question) at a gut level.

Louise Ervin (Liberal) is another old political pro. She, like Liz Witmer, has spent years in local school board politics. Unlike Witmer, she seemed ill at ease with the format. I suspect it was partly because she had to defend Dalton McGuinty most of the evening (an unenviable task). I would say, of the four, Ervin made the least connection with the room.

I won't go into too much detail about the questions, as they were your standard audience questions about the coal-fired electrical plant closure, taxes, abortion, and deadbeat parents. I do want to talk about how the candidates dealt with electoral reform and the election itself.

The question of the referendum came up a couple of times. One of the media representatives (who were there during the first hour), ask how each candidate was going to vote. Not surprisingly, Catherine Fife and Judy Greenwood-Spears were the most supportive of the MMP side.

Louise Ervin gave what could only be described as a train wreck of an answer. She started by saying she had educated herself on the issue and then proceeded to tell the audience that MMP would reduce the number of MPP's who are responsible to the people and increase the number of MPP's "appointed" by parties. She also claimed that MMP would hurt rural areas and the North. In other words, it looks to me like her "education" was limited to visiting the NOMMP website. Sadly, with this format, she went unchallenged, as there was no way to rebut her nonsense. This answer would however come back to haunt her later in the evening.

Liz Witmer gave a most interesting answer to the question. She said that the question of the referendum was coming up all over the riding as she knocked on doors. She then sidestepped how she was going to vote on the question herself. Her tone suggested to me however, that she had the feeling that MMP was popular and she did not want to alienate voters by condemning it. Her non-answer gave me some hope.

The issue of voting came up a couple of more times. Once, Louise Ervin flat out said that a vote for the NDP was a vote for "funding religious schools", i.e. a vote for Liz Witmer. Then, a Liberal plant got up and again, quite brazenly, asked the Green and NDP candidates why anyone would vote for them as they would be "wasting their vote" if they wanted to get rid of Liz Witmer. He then went on to describe the glories of strategic voting (the life's blood of the Liberal Party). Judy Greenwood-Spears gave him a poisonous look and said something to the effect that her goal was to get every vote in the riding and win. In other words, she was no protest candidate. Louise Ervin, to her credit, did not take the bait and advocate strategic voting. Even she could see that that message wasn't going to fly in this room.

Finally, a gentleman from Fair Vote Ontario made an opening remark about how we had three candidates who think the referendum is a good thing and one (Ervin) who didn't know anything about how list candidates were elected. That got a laugh from the audience (you had to be there, this guy was good). He then asked the candidates why the education campaign around the referendum has been so terrible. The opposition candidates agreed it was awful (and it is) and Louise Ervin gave a rambling answer about personal responsibility when it comes to referendum education.

That's it really. It was an interesting evening and from a partisan point of view (since I intend to vote NDP in this election), I would say that Catherine Fife did very, very well. Does she have a chance against Liz Witmer? Wow, that is going to be a pretty tall order. Witmer is an institution in this riding. However, the religious schools question, mixed with a desire for change, could give Fife an opportunity (since Ervin is most definitely not a "change" candidate). It is a long shot, but I wouldn't say it is impossible.

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MMP And The Philospher King Right

MMP has the authoritarians in Ontario worried. I am seeing, as we get closer to referendum day, things like the following showing up in comments and on other blogs.

lrc, a regular contributer to comments over at Political Staples, wrote this in response to Greg's support for MMP:

Majorities have no inherent moral virtue. Bad legislation passed by members representing 50% or more of the party preference of the general population will be no better than if it is passed by a legislative majority of individually-elected representatives whose broad party vote is some lesser number.

This is quite a revealing statement and I think it shares a similar origin to this one on Fuschi's Canadian Forum:

But, although democracy is far better than any of the alternatives, its intrinsic flaw is that it is subject to the skewing effects of lemming-like activity. As one of the Greek sages put it; ten fools can hold sway over nine wisemen. One dimensional thinkers can cause consequences to all, well beyond their scope of vision. Those whose attention span is torn between the future of our democratic progress, and the next episode of “American Idol”, can easily outnumber our wisemen.

Both writers harken back to Plato, who distrusted democracy and instead recommended strong rule by philosopher kings. Both lrc and Fuschi would rather have a strong ruler or a miniority group of "politically correct" rulers, than to trust the wisdom of the people as a whole. That may have been fine for 4th century BC Greece, but I trust the people of 21st century Ontario to make wise choices when they create a legislature. Trying to game the system to thwart the will of the people, as our current system does, just won't cut it.

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Mr. Coyne Speaks

I was in Toronto yesterday, visiting a distinguished professor from the University of Alberta. It was a great time Ace and thanks for saying I look the same as I did 23 years ago.

Anyway, I missed Andrew Coyne's latest on the stupidity of FPTP. This should be required reading by every voter in Ontario. H/T to Greg Staples.

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Harper And Climate Change

I can't be bothered to get too excited by anything Harper does on climate change. I get it already. He really doesn't think it is a big deal. Meanwhile in Ontario, it is September 25 and it is going to be over 30 degrees today. In other news, the drought continues, the Great Lakes are shrinking, the Arctic is melting and the voters are getting worried. Harper is as useless as a Liberal on this file. If people want a change in direction in this area, they are going to have to vote for parties other than the Conservatives and Liberals in the upcoming election.

Update: Again, no big surprise. Harper's main goal is to sell intensity targets as a way out, for governments that want to look like they are combating global warming, while not doing anything at all. We should all be very proud, as a nation, to have produced such a leader at this time of global crisis.

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Congratulations Greg Staples. Attention Kady O'Malley

For being mentioned by Kady O'Malley on Don Newman's Show. Kady, if you are reading this, please be advised that there are blogs out here not affiliated with either the Liberals or Conservatives (you only mentioned what Liberal and Conservative blogs wrote about). Thank you.

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