General Politics Discussion

[Pheidippides]

Can someone explain the scope of powers that a premier designate and government-in-waiting has? Google has failed to find me reliable information.

[panamaniac]

As far as I know, the answer would be "none" as far as legal authority is concerned. To note, the recent order to freeze hiring came from the head of Ontario's public service, not directly from Doug Ford. Whether Orsini could have refused DoFo's request, I do not know. It would certainly have been a career limiting move on his part.

[KevinL]

How about the end of the Green Ontario program? That seems to have been shut down a bit too rapidly.

[Rainrider22]

How about the end of the Green Ontario program? That seems to have been shut down a bit too rapidly.

That one is bothersome to me. I just got my windows changed in time. My buddy owns a window company and it has a profound effect on his industry. They had no warning at all

[panamaniac]

How about the end of the Green Ontario program? That seems to have been shut down a bit too rapidly.

It absolutely has been shut down too quickly from my perspective - I stand to be $2500 out of pocket!

[danbrotherston]

How about the end of the Green Ontario program? That seems to have been shut down a bit too rapidly.

It absolutely has been shut down too quickly from my perspective - I stand to be $2500 out of pocket!

Frankly it's a lawsuit waiting to happen.  If you started work under the belief you could get a rebate and can't at the end, well I'd certainly sue.  Thanks DoFo

[Viewfromthe42]

How about the end of the Green Ontario program? That seems to have been shut down a bit too rapidly.

That one is bothersome to me. I just got my windows changed in time. My buddy owns a window company and it has a profound effect on his industry. They had no warning at all

Everyone had Ford's entire candidacy as a warning. He promised time and again to cancel Cap and Trade AND the programs it funded. Green ON was one of them. I'm not going to give credit to consumers for not associating the two, but certainly if you are in the industry supplying these things and you don't know where they come from, that's more due diligence required.

[danbrotherston]

That one is bothersome to me. I just got my windows changed in time. My buddy owns a window company and it has a profound effect on his industry. They had no warning at all

Everyone had Ford's entire candidacy as a warning. He promised time and again to cancel Cap and Trade AND the programs it funded. Green ON was one of them. I'm not going to give credit to consumers for not associating the two, but certainly if you are in the industry supplying these things and you don't know where they come from, that's more due diligence required.

Did he promise to cancel those programs?  I don't recall hearing that.  Most of what I remember from his campaign was a lack of detail on how he would pay for the tax cuts he promised.

Certainly we assumed he would be cutting those programs, although every time I asked a Ford voter about them, they swore up and down the wall there wouldn't be cuts.

I'm not bitter.

[Rainrider22]

Everyone had Ford's entire candidacy as a warning. He promised time and again to cancel Cap and Trade AND the programs it funded. Green ON was one of them. I'm not going to give credit to consumers for not associating the two, but certainly if you are in the industry supplying these things and you don't know where they come from, that's more due diligence required.

Did he promise to cancel those programs?  I don't recall hearing that.  Most of what I remember from his campaign was a lack of detail on how he would pay for the tax cuts he promised.

Certainly we assumed he would be cutting those programs, although every time I asked a Ford voter about them, they swore up and down the wall there wouldn't be cuts.

I'm not bitter.

The program was going to end around Feb anyways so it isnt terrible he is ending it, it is the way it was delivered.  There should have been some warning to the industry so they could work towards a wind down of the program.  There are many orders in the factories that may not be manufactured in time to be installed by August 31.  So people who made financial decisions based on the program should still be covered.  It could cause some real financial problems for some families. No one wants to see that for people who are scraping by pay to pay....  I am fortunate that I can weather the hit, just means I wont be able to do other things for my family.

[jgsz]

Remember that Ford got only 40% of the vote.  And I am so sick and tired of majority governments that never seem to have more than 50% of the vote.  If we had proportional representation we would have an NDP/Liberal coalition government representing 53% of the voters.  As it stands today, we have a sham democracy!

[Viewfromthe42]

Remember that Ford got only 40% of the vote.  And I am so sick and tired of majority governments that never seem to have more than 50% of the vote.  If we had proportional representation we would have an NDP/Liberal coalition government representing 53% of the voters.  As it stands today, we have a sham democracy!

No system is perfect. I work with people from Germany and New Zealand, who both have proportional representation, and their experience is that you wind up with many different parties, none ever broad enough to get anything near a majority, none of their other large competition willing to work with them, and the minor parties able to crown the winner by extracting very extreme portions of their platform from whoever they crown. Often this can be extremely xenophobic in its result.

[Viewfromthe42]

Everyone had Ford's entire candidacy as a warning. He promised time and again to cancel Cap and Trade AND the programs it funded. Green ON was one of them. I'm not going to give credit to consumers for not associating the two, but certainly if you are in the industry supplying these things and you don't know where they come from, that's more due diligence required.

Did he promise to cancel those programs?  I don't recall hearing that.  Most of what I remember from his campaign was a lack of detail on how he would pay for the tax cuts he promised.

Certainly we assumed he would be cutting those programs, although every time I asked a Ford voter about them, they swore up and down the wall there wouldn't be cuts.

I'm not bitter.

I'm pretty sure I remember him making that promise. We definitely heard that when he would lower the price of gas (gas tax?) by 10 cents per litre, that the programs it funded would still receive the money they normally would, out of general revenue. Cap and Trade monies were VERY explicitly tied to only certain projects, including energy efficiencies, cycling infrastructure, and other things many on this forum seem to appreciate. Cut the program that funds them, and yes, you cut them, too.

[panamaniac]

I'd be all for a ranked ballot system (or run-off elections, which never seem to be talked about), but I hate the idea of proportional representation in Canada.  I don't find it a good fit with our Westminster Model (yes, I know some such models use PR).

[ijmorlan]

I'd be all for a ranked ballot system (or run-off elections, which never seem to be talked about), but I hate the idea of proportional representation in Canada.  I don't find it a good fit with our Westminster Model (yes, I know some such models use PR).

I think electoral reform should start with universal adoption of a ranked ballot to replace first-past-the-post, for all elections where we choose one or more people from a set of candidates to fill a position. This isn’t really a change in the political system as such, only in the details of how the ballots are processed. It would improve the results of votes on everything from class president to school board trustee to MP.

Once that’s done, we can have the more difficult discussion on whether other changes might be needed.

One weird thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people seem to think that the Liberals would clean up under a ranked ballot, supposedly because they are everybody’s second choice. To this I have two replies: First, that the other parties would have to become more like the liberals, not in terms of being identical but rather attempting to appeal to a broad cross-section of society. Surely this is what we want parties to do? Second, I don’t think it’s even true that they would clean up. I suspect that many of the Liberals’ current votes are really second-choice votes; under a ranked ballot other candidates would be the first and maybe second choices, while the Liberal candidate would get a 2 or 3.

I have a suspicion that this is a significant reason ranked balloting isn’t promoted more: it makes it a lot easier for new parties and independent candidates to make progress. Right now, how many people would like to vote Green but prefer to vote for somebody who might actually win? With a ranked ballot this wouldn’t be a problem — put a 1 next to the Green candidate and a 2 next to the candidate who would have been chosen under our present system. No change in results, until the Greens attract enough support, at which point they’re suddenly elected. Same observation applies to independent candidates. Conceivably, ranked balloting could lead to an end to the party system — each riding would just elect their favourite representative. Of course, I have no idea if this would actually happen but it’s at least conceivable.

I should add that in order to prevent the ballot becoming unwieldy, there should be significant effort required to get on the ballot. I’m thinking something like require 1% or 1‰ of the eligible electors to sign the nomination papers. This would not be a barrier to anybody who actually has a chance of winning but would clear out all the joke and no-hope candidates. I wouldn’t even necessarily charge a filing fee. Certainly in Florida in 2000 there would have about 3 presidential choices on the ballot, and no need for that problematic “butterfly” ballot.

[plam]

Multi-member ridings are probably also necessary.