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At Issue

With Philip Shaw

The Players Jockey for a Spring Provincial Election

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Poor old Ernie Eves. A couple of weeks ago, he had to fire his Tourism Minister, Cam Jackson, for spending too much in the steak houses of the greater Toronto area. Then came last week when he had to recoil while the press documented and photographed how Mississauga West MPP, John Snobelen, spends a lot of time on his Oklahoma cattle ranch, instead of the legislature. To top the week off, he introduced former Premier Mike Harris to the Tory policy convention, only to find out he wasn't there. It has not been a couple of good weeks for Premier Eves.
But the world does not revolve around the machinations of provincial politicians. Most of us have too much to do in our daily lives to worry about how many "little doggies" John Snobelen is roping on the Oklahoma plains. Yes, we can understand expensive steak dinners in Toronto, but even that we can forgive. Until there is an election wind blowing, most Ontarians have checked out of provincial politics.
That might be a good thing for Premier Eves. A recent poll by Ipsos-Reid showed Ontarians are looking for a change. The poll showed the government would have the backing of 33 per cent of decided voters, while 45 per cent would support the Liberals, 14 per cent would choose the New Democratic Party and 6 per cent the Green Party. In other words, it would be syanora for Premier Eves and his Progressive Conservatives. Dalton McGuinty and his band of provincial Liberals would win the election in a walk.
I expect a provincial election in April or May, 2003. Elections are rare in Canadian winters. They are not so rare in Canadian Novembers. But I think with poll numbers like these, Eves and the Tories would never go to the electorate. The polls never lie. What they say, comes true. Governments know this and they do their own polling every day. You can bet Premier Eves's staff reads the polls every day. In his efforts to help Ontarians forget Mike Harris, Eves will be setting an agenda, based on all that overnight polling.
So, he's got some work ahead of him. So does McGuinty. He shouldn't get overblown on the latest polling results. He should remember the problems of former Liberal Lyn McLeod. She led the polls in a simliar way before McGuinty, only to be trounced in the 1995 provincial election. The electorate is fickle at the best of times. Poll numbers, especially at the provincial level, tend to be fickle at the best of times.
Lurking in the background is the NDP's Howard Hampton. He's a very talented lawyer who hasn't yet caught fire for the NDP. But give him time and he might have what it takes to raise the NDP profile and make some noise in the next provincial election. Hampton is making "hydro" his issue. Folks understand the threat of high hydro rates and Hampton is flogging the issue. If he can catch fire and raise the NDP poll numbers into the 30
something percentile, he'll have a chance to be a kingmaker or even Premier. It can happen. Former NDP Premier Bob Rae captured a majority of the seats in 1990 with only 37% of the vote.
The fight for provincial dominance will surely be fought on the issues. Education and health care are always huge. Hydro One and the provincial role in Kyoto could also be big. And as always, personality, perceptions, optics and even sex appeal will be factors in whoever gets themselves elected.
Digging deeper, the Ontario electorate are a very interesting bunch. Federally, Ontario has 99 Liberals in the House of Commons. So it only stands to reason on a provincial level these same folks split their votes with the three major parties. In other words, the Ontario PC's have to appeal to federal Liberal voters. If they didn't, they wouldn't get elected. Ditto for the provincial Liberals.
Ontario is full of "centrists". To get elected nobody can afford to get caught out on a limb. Mike Harris's common sense revolution aside, Ontarians don't like extremes. That's one reason why Ernie Eves and his PC's have always held the federal Canadian Alliance party at arm's length.
In political time, next April or May is an eternity. Prime Minister Paul Martin will be in Ottawa changing the political paradigm once again. That just might create enough problems for Ernie Eves to look back on the events of October 2002 as "the good old days." If not, there surely will be a lot of drama in between



Philip Shaw, farms 830 acres near Dresden, Ontario. He holds a Masters of Agricultural Economics and Business Degree from the University of Guelph and is a well-known commentator on agricultural issues in print, on radio and over satellite in Canada and the United States. In the Chatham-Kent Times, Phil will use his frank and forthright writing style to address political and economic issues from the local to the international stage. He is a keen observer of political life at all levels, reads widely and has travelled the world to gather fodder for his column. See what's At Issue this week.