The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Ontario NDP leader promises no income tax raises

Guess I just gave my last donation to the Ontario NDP while she’s leader.  If I want Tory policies, I’ll vote for the real thing.

Although I am looking forward to the next fundraising call.

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14 Comments

  1. wow, it is like there is some sort of Borg, the minute and populist party becomes viable at the national level, the Borg moves in.

  2. The Borg, in this particular case, is the desire not to scare the allegedly stillI-Rae-resenting Ontario 905 voter. Sigh, eh?

  3. StewartM

    When are these clowns going to realize that raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations *create* prosperity? They do this because of the following: high taxes on wealthy individuals cause people at the top to give themselves less (and that’s really what how they get their incomes in essence), so there’s more to go around for everyone else. Two, when corporations are highly taxed on profits, they spend the money beforehand that happens–from everything to pay increases to hiring more workers to investing in more capital.

    The current system rewards corporations handing money over to Wall Street and Wall Street tycoons then handing it to themselves. Low taxes on the wealthy actually drive wealth into unproductive uses, including the buying of politicians.

    -StewartM

  4. Did she offer some blather about “taxing job-creators”?

  5. Old Wolf

    The gap between the provincial and federal versions of most of the Canadian parties has been growing for quite a while. Theoretically, Manitoba’s NDP government is the most left wing government in N. America. That hasn’t prevented them from doing end runs around the Charter of Rights in the name of fighting crime.

    The Manitoba NDP government was headed by former premier Gary Doer for 10 years. That didn’t stop the most right wing prime minister in 50 years from appointing the head of that most left wing government as Canadian Ambassador to the US. The neo-liberal Doer now spends a good chunk of his time in that job shilling for the Tar Sands.

    The campaign is on for next month’s election in Manitoba and two of the big issues are fiscal management and fighting crime. Conservative leader Hugh MFadyen is essentially a Tea Partier who is trying his best to emulate Harper and sound sane and reasonable despite being neither. NDP premier Greg Selinger attended Jack Layton’s funeral but that’s about as close as he comes to Layton.

  6. When Canada’s leftist party acts like this, the implication I draw is that the craziness has spread just about everywhere.

  7. Farlap

    When Canada’s leftist party acts like this, the implication I draw is that the craziness has spread just about everywhere.

    The implication I draw is that responsible government has effectively ceased, real political power in the West is now almost entirely concentrated within the Pentagon-State Department-Security State nexus, and elections are now roughly as meaningful as they were in WWII-era Japan. It’s no secret, really–it’s even brag-worthy:

    The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

    “We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.

  8. Farlap

    The Borg, in this particular case, is the desire not to scare the allegedly stillI-Rae-resenting Ontario 905 voter. Sigh, eh?

    “Sigh” yourself. Ontario is already governed by the “lesser-evil party”, any hypothetical votes such a maneuver might grab are going to the Liberals. The “lesser-evil” scenario in this case demands that the provincial NDP tack hard left to grab any voters unwilling to “hold their nose” for McGuinty (who in practical terms is already at the very left edge of North American establishment politics.) As a vote-winning strategy it’s utterly unworkable, so I doubt that vote-getting is really the objective here.

  9. Bernard

    sounds just like the Democrats in America. the only difference between our parties is who can be “patriotic” and destroy freedom and liberty “faster”under the guise of being “strong/Republican”. how the weaker party here/Democrats/ have become card carrying Republican wanna bees. the State Uber Alles.

    i don’t know much about Canadian politics, but it sounds the same.

    the lesser of evils just got greater. what a sad time to live in the West. though, i’d still rather be Canadian or Swiss or Australian, than American. When we, America, returns to freedom and leaves the Kleptocracy/Military Industrial Congressional Complex/, then being American will mean more than just what the Ad men of Madison Ave. say we are.

  10. The “lesser-evil” scenario in this case demands that the provincial NDP tack hard left to grab any voters unwilling to “hold their nose” for McGuinty (who in practical terms is already at the very left edge of North American establishment politics.)

    It is a deep and abiding dream that a mainstream political party would (a) do this and (b) succeed doing it.

    After the last Canadian federal election, which pushed the Tories to a majority mostly on the 905 belt in Ontario, I’m not convinced.

    Obviously, I don’t agree with Horwath’s choice, because Canadian politics can accommodate a “real” left-wing third party, unlike US politics, and getting the ONDP into government is less important than that. I don’t have a deep desire to see a Premier Horwath. But I don’t think that the Progressive Electoral Dream is going to work in Ontario.

  11. Farlap

    Your invocation of the last federal election is rather odd, seeing as the Liberals followed your “safe” strategy and where all but obliterated, while the NDP, who followed the strategy you now cast as idle fantasy, had the best showing in their entire history.

    In any case, you simply dodged the point that the NDP is the third party, and the only strategy that could gain seats for the NDP is tacking to the left, since tacking to the right gives no one any particular reason to vote for them rather than for the incumbent Liberals. Lay it out for me, just where in Ontario does the NDP stand to win ridings by tacking right?

  12. Ian Welsh

    My reccomendation to the NDP was to promise a referendum on the HST, and in that referendum include revenue offsetting by increasing income tax on people who earn more than 200k. It would pass in a landslide. I agree with Farlap, their timidity is stupid.

    It’s not just about tacking left. Tack left and populist and you can win.

  13. Ian Welsh

    McGuinty is a liar, and should be called out on it repeatedly by the NDP as well as the Cons. I have voted Liberal in the past, but I will never vote for him again.

  14. Your invocation of the last federal election is rather odd, seeing as the Liberals followed your “safe” strategy and where all but obliterated, while the NDP, who followed the strategy you now cast as idle fantasy, had the best showing in their entire history.

    …and the Harper Tories were given a majority government by 905 belt voters who used to vote Liberal, but were frightened by the very thought of the NDP in opposition. The Liberals were already doomed by that point. It was only a matter of how much.

    Don’t get me wrong. I admire the federal NDP strategy. I think it was the right thing to do in the long run. Quebec was in play, which doesn’t have as many voters who are allergic to the left. I don’t agree with Horwath’s choice. The Ontario NDP is not going to form a government either way this time unless something really miraculous happens. But as for losing ridings, there’s lots of places in Ontario where the NDP is considered evil enough—is considered the evil for which voters much choose a lesser, no matter that they are the third party—to drive soft Liberals to vote for the Hudak Tories…which is exactly how Harper got his majority.

    Anyway, election prediction is for chumps 🙂 Things are pretty volatile now.

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