Ontario Election Prediction

[Jason]

"I bet the provincial Liberals are going be in support of changing the voting system again after being virtually annihilated."

Doubtful. Easier to get back into power with the present system. And Liberals learned their lesson when they investigated it at the federal level and learned how absolutely complex it is as a voting system.

I voted a person today, not a party.  Dividing everything into parties is not always a good idea, especially when platforms presented are so tentative, or maybe not even produced.

(I am expecting a very long reply to this Jason. But not with enthusiasm.  )

Too bad, you're not going to get one :-) But I don't really understand your reply. You seem to be suggesting that with a PR system, you would only be voting by party. I've explained to you several times that this isn't the case.

There are many different ways to do proportional representation - that one is the purest but takes away having a local member chosen directly by the electorate. That's not the one we would use anywhere in Canada. I do wish you would stop misrepresenting PR as only being this way.

The one usually suggested for Ontario and the one that the citizens committee recommended was mixed-member proportional or MMP. That would mean that every voter in Ontario would have had two votes, one for a party, and one for an individual. There is nothing complex about this. Every riding will still choose a party candidate, but those who are elected this way will also be topped up with candidates from the proportional party vote. I'm surprised a former mathematics teacher finds this complex. Maybe you need to educate yourself more on this. Here's a video for you or anybody else that buys the line that the system is too complex:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

[Jason]

Yeah, would have been happy to have lost this one but it was all to obvious how it was going to turn out, well, the final result anyway.

And I have to agree with Paul, here, good grief William! Do you really believe that or are you just trolling?

And none of the rest of the things you said (other than party probably being more important than individual) is true. The NDP doesn't view taxpayers as evil and tax recipients as great, and so on. Oh, and btw, we *all* pay taxes. My wife and I are on low incomes and though we don't make enough to pay income tax, we pay the HST on pretty much everything. So you can't separate it into taxpayers and tax recipients anyway.

I think you worship the US and capitalism like a god and think the free market will solve everything. You just need to look at the US to see that's not true. Sure, if you're well-off, things are great for you. Not so for a huge group of people. I love the free market but with a heavy dose of government to level the playing field and let everyone have a chance to join the middle class.

[Jason]

Btw, looks like Polly's prediction was as close as mine. Interesting. Any my prediction was better than the CBC poll tracker's prediction.

[Paul Kneeland]

I'm sure Jason would have been happy to lose this one.

In Peterborough, the vote was close, about 10% difference between the PC and NDP candidates. And, interesting when you look at the results broken down by precinct. In urban Peterborough, Sean Conway (NDP) won hugely over Dave Smith (PC), but outside of the city, the vote was strongly PC.

I was happy to see Jeff Leal go down. I've never forgiven him for not doing anything to save our downtown high school (PCVS).

Looks like Peterborough remains THE Bellwether riding in Ontario.

The Rural/Urban divide seems stronger than ever. Maybe it should be called the Rural+Suburban/Urban divide. The 905 really screwed us City Slickers.

BTW, I live in Doug Ford's riding. They said it was going to be a close race, but it wasn't close at all.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4168792/ontario-election-2018-etobicoke-north-riding/

[fox]

Looks like Peterborough remains THE Bellwether riding in Ontario.

The Rural/Urban divide seems stronger than ever. Maybe it should be called the Rural+Suburban/Urban divide. The 905 really screwed us City Slickers.

I wonder how true this was in suburban areas in other Ontario cities? Ottawa? Hamilton? London? Windsor?

[William Park]

And none of the rest of the things you said (other than party probably being more important than individual) is true. The NDP doesn't view taxpayers as evil and tax recipients as great, and so on. Oh, and btw, we *all* pay taxes. My wife and I are on low incomes and though we don't make enough to pay income tax, we pay the HST on pretty much everything. So you can't separate it into taxpayers and tax recipients anyway.

Maybe it's my ears.  When I listen to left wing guys, all I hear is arrogance and contempt for me.  Only they seem to know how to spend my money.  To me, they are regurgitating the failed policy of communist countries, and don't bother to mention that those countries have abandon them.

I think your worship the US and capitalism like a god and think the free market will solve everything. You just need to look at the US to see that's not true. Sure, if you're well-off, things are great for you. Not so for a huge group of people. I love the free market but with a heavy dose of government to level the playing field and let everyone have a chance to join the middle class.

What prevents them from "joining the meddle class"?  Doesn't everyone already have same opportunity?

Regarding America, US can do what they do, because they have more "recoverable oil/gas" than Russia, China, Middle East, and Latin combined.  This is, in fact, number one problem for Canada.  And, commies want solar and wind.  Nuts!

[buster]

Jason wrote: 'You seem to be suggesting that with a PR system, you would only be voting by party. I've explained to you several times that this isn't the case.'

I am quite aware of the different Proportional Representation systems Jason. But there are obstacles.And there are quite a few.

First a dismissal of pure PR has to take place to please most people. And then complications occur during the negotiations for ratio of numbers between 'party' members and 'locally elected members', size of new ridings to accommodate the changes, and number of seats in the house.

And then there are the different interests of the parties who would presumably vote for this change to PR. Liberals and Conservatives would maybe not be interested because they have both managed with this system to gain power for extended periods of time historically. A PR system may never let them do this again. Politicians are seldom altruistic when it comes to getting elected.

I'm not suggesting that the system we have is 'fair', whatever that means nowadays, but it does make throwing out parties fairly easy. It also has a long, long history of functioning.

And it has one sterling virtue for all people, whether the are math challenged or even mentally slow or just old- it's simple and adheres to the kiss principle.

[Jason]

I am quite aware of the different Proportional Representation systems Jason. But there are obstacles.And there are quite a few.

But you mentioned that you wouldn't want vote by party; you'd want vote for a local candidate, which implied you can't have both. And that's not true. That's exactly what MMP does.

First a dismissal of pure PR has to take place to please most people.

Huh? Nobody that is advocated changing to PR advocates making it a pure PR system in Canada. Fair Vote Canada, the most well known of the electoral reform people, have recommended MMP. So did the Law Commission of Upper Canada in a recommendation to the government at least a decade ago. So did the Citizens Committee which was made up of citizens from every riding in Ontario.

The other arguments I've heard before, from you, even. They're the same arguments everyone uses against PR but basically boil down to "it's too hard" and "it's not stable or tried and true".

It's simply not hard. Having two votes, one for party, one for candidate, is not difficult. Everyone in Canada intuitively does this everytime they vote except that they have to somehow combine what are often two competing ideas - "I like my ABC candidate but I prefer XYZ party".

Do you really want the PCs to have 100% of the power for the next four years when we could have had an NDP-Liberal coalition?

As far as stability goes, do you seriously think our system is that stable? When we keep alternating between the Reds and the Blues, we keep having policy enacted and then repealed. Fairvote calls this 'policy lurch':

Countries with winner-take-all systems that tend to oscillate from left to right, are characterized by policy shifts largely unrelated to underlying voter preferences, and  cannot be said to satisfy the test of stability terribly well. Indeed, it is not unusual for one government to simply undo what the previous government has done, in a process of policy lurch in winner-take-all systems such as Australia, the US, the UK and Canada.

In Canada, we need look no further than the efforts by the Harper government to undo much of the Liberal government legacy that they inherited. And, the subsequent undoing of conservative policies by the Liberal government following the 2015 election.

After the Liberal Government came to power in 2015, they published a list of budget cuts enacted by the previous government, many of which were aimed at programs established by previous Liberal governments.

Source: https://www.fairvote.ca/2018/05/16/evidence/

If we had a PR system, parties would have to work together and they'd be more likely to create legislation that would actually last and not waste so much time creating and then later repealing legislation. And it works. We have 94 counties in the world with PR, and most industrialized countries use it have have been using it for over 75 years. How much more stability do you need? Do you think Canada, the UK and the US are the only stable countries in the world? And do you call the system in the US stable right now?

We keep having the same debates. Look at PR with an open mind and how much of a better system we can have.

[Jason]

Maybe it's my ears.  When I listen to left wing guys, all I hear is arrogance and contempt for me.  Only they seem to know how to spend my money.  To me, they are regurgitating the failed policy of communist countries, and don't bother to mention that those countries have abandon them.

I don't have contempt for you. Note how I didn't call the Conservative or PC party fascists, while you're happy to trash progressive parties as communist? I do have contempt for some of your views which, if enacted, would probably have my wife and I living on the street. The tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, all the time. My wife and I survive off her disability and without taxes, we wouldn't have survived. And I have contempt for you trashing everything that isn't the Conservative viewpoint.

I also think you're confusing communism with socialism or social democracy. I just finished saying I love the free market but it can't do everything. Most of the countries in Europe are socialist, William, notably the Nordic countries which do VERY well. The NDP, Liberals and Greens are left-wing parties, progressive, even socialist (the Liberals are only sometimes). Universal healthcare, pensions, employment insurance, maternity leave, disability, welfare and worker's compensation all came from socialism. These aren't communist things although they had them and more in communist countries. And communism failed but socialism has thrived.

What prevents them from "joining the meddle class"?  Doesn't everyone already have same opportunity?

No, they don't, not without government supports. If we had a pure free market economy, there would no tuition grants. And without those grants, those from low-incomes wouldn't be afford an education. If we had a pure free market economy, we wouldn't have universal healthcare. You'd have to pay for it and the poorest and sickest wouldn't have it. If you're sick, you can't work. The only pensions would be provided by businesses in a free market economy. So you get old and can't work, you starve unless you have family to support you or you work until you die. Even the US has social security. Btw, I'm not saying that those of the lower class can't join the middle class; I'm saying they wouldn't be able to if it wasn't for government intervention in the economy. We have a mixed economy and I'm proud of that.

These are things that are provided for because of the Liberal and NDP parties and even supported by the Conservatives (the Conservatives haven't argued for getting rid of these things). So if you think that's communism, than all the big parties in Canada are communist. In which case your definition for communist is meaningless.

[Jason]

I'm sure Jason would have been happy to lose this one.

In Peterborough, the vote was close, about 10% difference between the PC and NDP candidates. And, interesting when you look at the results broken down by precinct. In urban Peterborough, Sean Conway (NDP) won hugely over Dave Smith (PC), but outside of the city, the vote was strongly PC.

I was happy to see Jeff Leal go down. I've never forgiven him for not doing anything to save our downtown high school (PCVS).

Look closer at that chart. The central part of the City of Peterborough went NDP and Liberal. The north, west, south and part of eastern areas went PC. Basically, the subdivisions of Peterborough voted for the blues, areas I would argue which are primarily those of higher income. So it's not just a rural/city divide. You could argue it's a city vs. suburbs/rural divide. However, if you look closely at those polls around the central part of the city, the PCs won primarily because of vote splits between the Liberals and NDP. That even applies in some of the rural areas. If only there was more than one viable right-wing party to split their vote...

[fox]

I agree that it's a city vs suburbs/rural divide. But what do you think the 905 zone is? I don't agree though that it's income based. The area around downtown (old west end and a lot of East City) are reasonably well off; arguably as well off or more than much of the suburbs. Precincts like 42 and 43 are Town Ward areas and are arguably upper middle class. But they voted heavily NDP. To me, this isn't an economic divide, any more than it would be comparing Toronto Centre and surrounding inner 905 area.

[William Park]

No, they don't, not without government supports. If we had a pure free market economy, there would no tuition grants. And without those grants, those from low-incomes wouldn't be afford an education.

I worked through High School and University.  What's your point?

I need 2nd job.  We're looking for a home for my parents.  Applewood (PLUG meeting) charges $5000/month, it's $6000/month in GTA.  I may have to sell my house, hence my questions about housing situation in Peterborough.

So, I want economic growth.  Low tax to enable pay raise, low tax to get business to hire people, and low tax for people to keep the money they earned.  Why is low tax bad?

[Jason]

Forget it. I'm not going to have this conversation. I find it remarkable that I have to explain to you that tax cuts have to be paid for and will be paid for with cuts to social programs and services. You don't get something for nothing. But if you're happy with that, rejoice, because your guy got in. I hope it works out for you.

[Jason]

I agree that it's a city vs suburbs/rural divide. But what do you think the 905 zone is? I don't agree though that it's income based. The area around downtown (old west end and a lot of East City) are reasonably well off; arguably as well off or more than much of the suburbs. Precincts like 42 and 43 are Town Ward areas and are arguably upper middle class. But they voted heavily NDP. To me, this isn't an economic divide, any more than it would be comparing Toronto Centre and surrounding inner 905 area.

I know what the 905 zone is. I was comparing the 416/905 to the centre of Peterborough vs. the polls around it like city vs. suburbs/rural. You originally said the city went NDP and the rural areas went PC but only part of the city went NDP, the densest part, though. It might not be an income divide, down in my area, they voted PC, too, though to be honest, lower income people tend to have a smaller proportion voting.

[Paul Kneeland]

Hmm. Dangerous to talk about Politics around the Dinner Table.

Here's some interesting Maps:

https://globalnews.ca/news/4260146/ontario-election-poll-level-results-2/