My province has a quirky relationship with the Liberal Party. Until very recently, we would regularly give them a sizable chunk of the vote federally, but rebuked the provincial party at every possible opportunity. As a matter of fact, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario governed uninterrupted from 1943 until 1985, which I believe is a record in a democracy.
Of course, the PCs started a nice little civil war that has consumed then ever since. Mike Harris won two elections against nobodies, but antagonized virtually everyone else during his years in power. With the exception of Harris, the right-center battles within the provincial Tories have killed the party's chances of forming a government. The Ontario Progressive Conservatives have basically become the federal Liberals; stupid, consumed with a thirst for fratricide and unelectable.
Then they elected Tim Hudak, perhaps the dumbest motherfucker ever, as leader. Just last fall he managed to blow a huge polling lead and, in the process, piss off every faction of the party. The only reason that he wasn't immediately shitcanned as leader is that McGuinty's Liberals had been reduced to a minority at Queen's Park and the party is broke, managing to get the party in deeper debt than the Grits and the NDP combined.
This proves that the entire party has a bad case of the stupids. If they sent Hudak directly into hell, the Tory caucus could have supported McGuinty without shame for a year or so until they could beg Christine Elliott or Frank Klees to be a real leader. After too many years and too many lies, there's no real possibility that McGuinty will rebound in popular esteem. It would have been a perfect shot at rebuilding and living to fight another day, so the PCs had no other choice but to fuck it up.
No sooner did the legislature resume than Hudak announced his intention to defeat the government at the easliest opportunity, thereby destroying himself and his party in an election that both are almost genetically incapable of winning. If an election were called tomorrow, within five weeks, the Tories would fall behind NAMBLA in the seat count.
So hungry was Hudak to be publicly humiliated for the second time in less than a year, he pissed a perfectly good opportunity to look like a serious adult, and maybe even further what passes for his agenda.
You see, Dalton McGuinty introduced a giant nothingburger of a budget a couple of weeks ago that looks like austerity if you squint really hard and punch yourself in the nose really hard, but actually only slows the rate of growth somewhat. Just like Stephen Harper's federal budget of the same week, it was make-believe fiscal responsibility.
Ontario voters (like voters everywhere) are self-interested, demented fuckheads who like the idea of reducing deficits more than they do its actuality. They love calling the tune, but head to the bathroom the minute the piper comes around to get paid. Balanced budgets, I'm told, are a top priority, so long as taxes aren't raised or program spending cut in any meaningful way. Roughly translated, that means that no one really cares about balancing the budget, except in theory.
That's why I despise the people a whole lot more than I do the politicians. The only exceptions to that are politicians like Toronto mayor Rob Ford, Dalton McGuinty, Stephen Harper and almost every Republican since 1992. They tell you that you can have it all without anyone getting hurt, which is a monstrous fucking lie. And because assholes like that get elected, we get the governments we deserve.
Tim Hudak's strategy was to go out there and say that McGuinty's imaginary (and pretty unpopular) cuts weren't deep enough, but also not too deep for the Tories to promise more tax cuts that would baloon the deficit before any possible growth could occur. This would compete with McGuinty's platform that his imaginary (and pretty unpopular) cuts were just right.
In a general election campaign, that would create a scenario where the pro-imaginary austerity vote is split two ways, allowing the only party that opposes austerity to benefit in highly unpredictable ways.
And that brings me to Andrea Horwath and the provincial NDP.
Horwath has turned out to be a much better politician than either McGuinty or Hudak. She listened to the government's presentation and basically said, "Nice minority government you have there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it." She then laid out demands for a 2% tax increase on individual incomes over $500,000 and selected increases in program spending. Otherwise, we'd all be going back to the polls again, just seven months after the last election.
All things being equal, I'm surprised that Howath bothered bargaining with McGuinty at all. Her proposals turned out to be shocking popular in a province that pretends that it wants balanced budgets, some of them edging over 70% approval, which is unheard of for platforms that dosen't include "free ice cream without getting fat!" She might not have won a majority government in such a campaign, but she might very well have won a minority. I'd bet that she would have taken a significant number of seats from both the Liberals and the Tories if an election were forced.
But there's no thirst for an election out there. These things have been known to backfire, you know. Instead, Horwath decided to negotiate.
It turns out that she won. The chronically evil McGuinty Liberals and their shithead spin doctors are going to pretend that they gave a little to get a little, which is true, until you consider that Andrea Horwath got about 85% of what she wanted and 100% of what she could have realistically could have expected. The Liberals basically decided to live to lose another day. And they will.
Dalton McGuinty isn't in the position that Paul Martin was with his minority. If nothing else, Martin had on his resume the elimination of a huge deficit and the creation of a surplus, which gave him the latitude to deal with deal with the Jack Layton's federal NDP. The McGuinty Liberals, like Stephen Harper, just spent a shitload of money for the sake of spending a shitload of money and have nothing to show for it.
There's almost no way that McGuinty's numbers rebound enough from their current child molestor levels for him to face the people on his own merits. That means that the NDP are going to drag him further and further to the left that there's no meaningful difference. And when there's no meaningful difference between the Liberals and the NDP, there's no reason to not replace a stale, decade old government headed by someone that everybody loathes.
From this day forward, McGuinty is premier in name only. Andrea Horwath is effectively calling the shots now. Every time a confidence motion comes up, she's gonna want more (and reversing corporate tax cuts is very popular right now.) And I guarantee you that the Liberals are going to give it to her for as long as McGuinty leads them.
In no time at all, Horwath is going to be led into the legislature by a naked and leashed Dalton McGuinty, the strap-on dildo with which she made him her pretty little bitch jutting proudly from her loins.
And because he's a pituitary retard who missed the opportunity to cut a deal that would have furthered his agenda, Tim Hudak is going to be left in shadows jacking off like the political peep-show pervert and fantasizing about what could have been if he was more of a man. But don't hate him for it. Hudak was, as Lady Gaga teaches is, born that way.
Her silly economic ideas aside, I'd like to congratulate Andrea Horwath on becoming the effective Premier of Ontario today. More impressively, she did it without making the rest of us do anything silly, like vote on it.
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