Vote Liberal Or Else
Well, Dalton McGuinty has been running around Ontario for the past couple of months, showering certain areas of the province where the Liberals hope to gain or hold onto seats with "gifts", paid for by the Ontario treasury. For the longest time, commentators and bloggers have been calling this everything from vote buying to blackmail, but the Liberals have scoffed at this, stating that they are just governing, even though it seems like they have done more "governing" the past couple of months than they have in the whole term to date.
But today, my current (and soon to be former MPP) Furious George Smitherman came out with a shocking thing, another funding announcement. But today was slightly different because of the obvious change in messaging. It turns out that the Liberals have reverted to their old, tired and worn strategy, which is basically threaten that armegedone will come if the people of Ontario dare to elect anyone other than a Liberal. I personally like to call it the "Vote Liberal or Else" strategy. George came out flying today with the follow quotable quote when speaking about the $700 million dollars of new funding that the Liberals were announcing for seniors care: "The only thing that puts it at risk is the election of John Tory,". Hmmm, that's interesting because when Smitherman made another seniors care announcement back in June about raising in funding for fresh food there we no words like "The only thing that puts this at risk is the election of John Tory". Wow. It's amazing what two months and dropping poll numbers can push a party to do.
So, with only weeks to go before this election, I doubt that this will be the last time that we hear these kinds of attempts at fear-mongering and scare tactics. Now, I agree that Mr. Tory is not the solution, but there are other options out there to this group of Fiberals, especially in Mr. Smitherman's own riding. But the Liberals know that they can only make so many more spending promises to buy votes and that they are obviously starting to run out of ideas, and seeing as how the voters have not flocked to the sirens song that they have been singing, they feel they must sink into the gutter to win. The Liberals obviously feel that it's better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, because they are starting to pull their usual tricks to hold onto power. If they weren't so hellbent on having power to themselves, you would hope they would be taking a much more conciliatory tone. But hey, none of this is new to us because we have seen this time and time again. Hopefully this latest bit of desperation by this government will just speed up the nosedive that the Liberals seem to be stuck in. It just makes you wonder what it will take for these Liberals to realize that no amount of vote buying or bullying will make their record of broken promises disapear. Well, just like in life, sometimes people need to learn the hard way. Looks like the Liberals are in for the lesson of a life time, to be delivered by the people of Ontario.Recommend this Post
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9 comments:
Hmm.. got any reason to believe George is going to lose in his riding, other then NDP bravado?
Actually, I do. From talking with people that i've been meeting in this riding, there are a lot of unhappy people. And I believe that his high profile, especially when he has a lot of this record directly attached to him, will not help him. I think that it will be more of a hinderance because he will not be able to detach himself from it. Many people i've met in the riding are also turned off by Smitherman's combative nature, which today's lovely quote showed nicely. I'm a creative man, but I'm not the one who came up with the "Furious George" name for him.
This riding is in play, and the first couple of weeks of the official campaign will go a long way to seeing where this one goes.
But the Liberals know that they can only make so many more spending promises to buy votes and that they are obviously starting to run out of ideas, and seeing as how the voters have not flocked to the sirens song that they have been singing, they feel they must sink into the gutter to win.
Cameron - people don't like to be played as fools and it pisses them off. Drop money bombs, fine, but don't act indignant when people/media question the motives.
And don't act indignant when school trustees are angry at this "Education premier" when he says he finally listened and gave money in mid August.
Where was he and Wynne when public school boards, in particular, were having to slash programs important to kids? Nothing but silence!
It was politics at its worse and he used children as pawns. Absolutely disgusting.
Cam
You linked to the "broken promises", with the obvious raising taxes controversy. I'm just curious, if, as the link suggests, everyone knew about the deficit prior, and during, the election, then why wasn't their a maelstorm directed towards the Tories for lying? I mean, doesn't it seem rational, that the NDP and Liberals would be all over the Tories for lying to voters? Could you provide some quotes from NDP MPP's addressing this serious lie? Everyone knew right?
If you look at the election platform, all expenditures were based on the Tory numbers. If, the Liberals knew, and the Tories were lying, do you really think the NDP wouldn't have SCREAMED BLOODY MURDER. Just asking.
Has McGuinty broken promises? Sure, the coal fired plants a good example. I'm a bit more tolerant of the taxcut, given the scenario.
Steve... fair questions, but I guess the simplest way for me to reply would be to say that yes, the Tories lied to and both the Liberals and the NDP are right to point that out. But just because the Tories lied to Ontarians, doesn't mean that the Liberals should not be held to account for their lies. Two wrongs don't make a right.
The Liberals want to run on their record, but ignore the broken promises. You can't have it both ways, because they are both a part of the same record.
I linked to the broken promises page because it's one of the best pages i've seen that wraps up all of the broken promises. If the taxes was the only broken promise, then I doubt that the Liberals would have this problem right now. But the fact is that there are dozens of broken promises, with the coal fired plants and taxes only being two of many. It points to a pattern of behaviour that cannot be put off as nothing.
If I were the Liberals, I would be saying that "Yes, we did break these promises" and just explain themselves. While people may not like the explanation that they get, I believe that they would have more respect for them for standing up and explaining it. Instead, Dalton has tried to avoid it. That's not addressing something that is a great concern to the voters. How can the voters trust a Premier that has broken so many promises??? It may not be nice, but because of past behaviours, it's fair game.
Cam
I would just prefer that the tax issue was left on the broken promises attack line, because there are circumstances. You could argue McGuinty would have been fiscally irresponsible not to have adjusted his stance, given the dire financial situation. I think the case against McGuinty is better served on issues that are real, as opposed to this muddled mess, that effectively lets Flaherty off the hook, in a deliberate attempt to lie to voters.
Steve... point taken on the circumstance, but at the same time, it's very hard to leave that alone when you look at the whole body of work.
If we are going to talk about circumstances, those seem to be forgotten when people talk about the Rae NDP years, when that government assumed a huge deficit and got nailed with a recession. That doesn't stop Liberals from attacking the NDP to this day about that. Two wrongs don't make a right, but they create ill will. Once again you can't have it both ways.
That broken promise list missed a biggie.
In 2003, the McGuinty liberals promised to fix the flawed funding formula for school boards.
They did not.
In fact, this election they promised to review the formula by 2010, and now say it is a work in progress.
Big broken promise for a leader who is running as the "Education Premier."
Cam
Just to be clear, I always thought Rae was a victim of circumstance. Rae had a few zingers, but the situation was so bad, no politican could have navigated that trainwreck. I choose to discount both wrongs :)
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