Thursday, May 31, 2018
Doug Ford's Scandalous Campaign Platform
For most of the Ontario election campaign Doug Ford has acted as only a Con clown, or a snake oil salesman could.
Attacking his opponent's economic platforms, without having one of his own. And making all kinds of wild promises.
He said he'd tell us how much all of those promises would cost, soon, later, before the election.
But now with only seven days to go before that election, and many people having already cast their votes, Ford and his Team Harper puppeteers have put a price tag on those promises, called it their "platform."
And gone from Con clowns to full blown Con artists.
For their "platform" couldn't be more fraudulent.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives have released a list of their spending promises but won’t be delivering a fully costed platform or a plan to eliminate the deficit before voters head to the poll on June 7.
They won't tell voters how they plan to pay for all those wild promises.
Or how they plan to dig themselves out of an estimated $40 billion debt hole, without raising taxes, and without laying off a single government employee.
As the oily Ford has promised...
There will not be a costed platform before Election Day. Just this glossy website.
And if you don't like it, too bad.
“We’ve been talking about our plan every day and it’s all there in one spot,” said Melissa Lantsman, a PC Party spokeswoman. She said no more financial information from the party was forthcoming.
And I must admit I can't decide whether to shake my head in stunned disbelief, or die laughing.
Those Cons would take us for fools, and actually have us believe that we are dumber than Dougie...
Which would indeed be hilarious, were it not for the fact that this dumbed down strategy might be working.
With just more than a week to go in Ontario’s election campaign, a new poll shows the NDP and Progressive Conservatives in a dead heat, but gives the advantage to the Orange team.
Released Wednesday, the poll by the Angus Reid Institute shows the two parties in a statistical tie. Among decided and leaning voters the NDP are at 39 per cent and the Progressive Conservatives at 37 per cent.
And although the NDP still has the wind in its sails, and other polls show it surging ahead.
It's clearly too close for comfort.
For let's be clear. A Ford victory would be a disaster for this province and this country.
It would devastate its economy, almost certainly trigger a recession in the rest of Canada. It would set back social progress by at least fifty years.
It would mark the beginning of the Trump invasion of Canada, and the beginning of the end of medicare.
So needless to say it must be resisted by whatever means necessary.
And in that regard, I can't imagine a better weapon than this question:
What is Doug Ford hiding?
Why won't he tell us how many nurses and teachers he's going to fire? Why won't he tell us how many hospitals he's going to close?
Fight him, resist him..
Don't let this monster win...
Simon, you say this:
ReplyDelete"For most of the Ontario election campaign Doug Ford has acted as only a Con clown, or a snake oil salesman could.
Attacking his opponent's economic platforms, without having one of his own. And making all kinds of wild promises."
And yet still more than a third of Ontario's population are willing to support him.
WTF is wrong with people?
If I were to go to a venture capitalist as a small business looking for support, I'd have to have a COMPLETE business plan. It seems like the 'most right' of right-wingers push that aside, thinking they're impermeable to any issues with calculations and projections.
Please people: give your head a shake if you're on the fence with Ford. He will ruin Ontario and, as a result, drag Canada down with him.
Business plans, debt repayments and deficits only matter to Conservatives when the NDP and Liberals are elected.
Deletehi anon@11:41 AM...I share your frustration, I have no idea why so many people in Ontario are still so determined to vote for a low beast like Doug Ford. I can understand and respect their desire for change. But change of what kind? And what kind of tainted change would they get from a man like Ford? We just have to do what we can, vote smartly, and send out the message "Beware of Doug..."
DeleteHi Frank...you're absolutely right, they're against deficits when they're in the opposition. But as soon as they get to power, they lurch towards the trough as soon as they can, and use OUR money to try to brainwash us or by our votes....
DeleteI absolutely agree with you on this one, its putrageous that the PCs think they deserve to be elected without a costed platform. And their promises don't add up. Still there are far too many tories who'd vote for a wet fart of it promised lower taxes so we will see who wins. I still think at the last minute a good chunk of Liberal voters will go NDP to stop Ford, once they realize Wynne's good debate preformance wasn't enough to save the Liberals.
ReplyDeleteAccordimg the Frank, the guy behind Ekos, if 2% of the vote went NDP he said the NDP would win instead of the Tories getting a majority. That is how close this will be. FPTP really, really sucks.
Hi Gyor...I think this is the first time we've agreed on anything for years, so I'm marking it on my calendar, and will try yo buy a lotto ticket. ;)
DeleteBut seriously this Con scam is both outrageous and dangerous. Outrageous because it shows no respect for democracy, and dangerous because as I said in my post, if they can get away with it and they win, they'll be able to do whatever they want.
As for what might happen on Election Day, if the Liberals keep slipping I hope enough of them, as well as a few Cons, will jump on the NDP bandwagon and help destroy the Ford mob. If that's going to work NDPers like you will have to be nice to those Liberals or it won't work. And the Liberals should stop going after the NDP because there is only one real enemy and that's the Cons...
I heard something about the NDP wanting to make Ontario a sanctuary province. Way out there in left field. I'm fed up with the Liberals as well. I'm either going to grit my teeth and vote Ford or NDP, I'm really on the fence here...
ReplyDeleteFord is an idiot and a trainwreck backed by the zombie Harper machine. Where'd you hear that about "sanctuary provinces" anyhow? There's a lot of con disinfo going around, and what sounds like xenophobic scaremongering straight out of the Goebbels playbook. "Vote Ford or your families will be overrun by a mob of migrant hordes." See also "vote Brexit," "vote GOP/Trump," etc. etc. We know how that turned out.
DeleteStrategically vote like your life and your country depends on it, because it does. I'm from the U.S., and obviously we're living with our own jackbooted moron in part because the Sanderista brigade stayed home or threw away their votes on write-ins and unelectable third-party spoilers instead of being "stronger together" AGAINST the absolute worst-case scenario.
Don't let it happen to Canada. ANYBODY BUT FORD.
The NDP can't just open immigration up, first of all it's a federal matter. What it means is refugees who have no money can access services while they get on their feet. Ford voted in favor of it as a Councillor.
DeleteHi anon@2:27 PM No that's just a Rebel or alt right meme, the federal government controls immigration. AS for sitting on the fence, Rob Ford can offer you nothing. He is in there like Trump to make money for his rich friends and the millionaires. So if that's your choice, don't hesitate a second and vote NDP...
DeleteThis election is now a farce. I am almost seventy and I have never heard of situation where the leading candidate refuses to say how much his or her promises will cost. As you ask, what is Ford hiding.?
ReplyDeleteCuts, deep cuts. And asset sell offs and privatization. He knows he can't come out and say it like Hudak. So he has to lie.
Deletehi anon@3:37 PM...once again Frank is right. He is hiding the fact that he can't fill in a more than $20 billion dollar hole with hot air and "efficiencies." And he almost certainly can't do it without raising taxes, and making massive cuts to social services and hospitals...
DeleteHe promised he would release a fully costed platform, and only idiots would accept what Trump is offering. His promises add up to more than twenty billion dollars, and he says he’s going to cut taxes and won’t layoff a single person? If the media had done a better job of exposing Ford and his gang, this farce would have been over long ago.
ReplyDeleteHi anon@6:42 PM...I notice you confused Ford with Trump, but don't worry I've done that before, and the two oafs are so similar. But yes, our shabby Con media has been giving Trump...I mean Ford...a free ride. In any other country a candidate with so many scandals swirling around him, and no costed platform, would have been forced to resign long ago.
DeleteBut our Con media would rather spend its time trying to convince us that Ford is not Trump. No wonder you and I are confused... ;)
That graphic of Ford pulling that evil looking rabbit out of a hat is a classic. That’s exactly what the Cons are trying to do, fool us in to believing that they know what they are doing. If they campaigned this way, can you imagine how they might govern.
ReplyDeletehi anon@6:52 PM...I'm glad you liked my photo shop of Ford as a magician, pulling a phony platform out of a hat. But what do you mean that "evil looking rabbit?" That my fluffy pet rabbit, and he only bites people he doesn't know. ;)
DeleteBut yes you're right, if the Ford Cons campaigned this way imagine how they might govern, and that should terrify every decent person in Ontario....
BTW: Off-topic, but... re: "Ontario is open for business" and plans with no "there" there that seem to be going nowhere.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/05/31/trudeau-says-nafta-talks-broke-down-after-pence-made-ultimatum/
We apologize that our president is an idiot. He knows nothing about trade wars, other than the junior Skywalker is a "good lookin' guy." Please to do the right thing and reelect the junior Skywalker and others like him who have a strong presence in the Force, lest some other clone trooper like Dougie the Hutt, Kylo Kenney, Darth Scheerius, or Emperor Steev Palpatine sell off your country to the Dark Side.
A backbone of Canadian steel, the young Padawan has. He is a Jedi, like his father before him.
I like JT a lot. He is very Canadian and has a broad reach of experience that few people in the world can match. Certainly traveling the world while Andrew was licking envelops makes me more cosmopolitan.
DeleteCanada is now not a white nation, we are a mosaic of cultures that mostly work together. Justin and the liberals and the NDP want to promote that. The Cons want to divide us and gather enough votes to rule.
So you like pipe lines paid with tax payers’s money and empty promises on electoral reform?
DeleteHi Jackie...yes I saw that, and I have included it in my latest post. A trade war is a horrible thing, and I feel for all he families on both sides of the border who must be wondering what they are going to happen next, and whether they are going to lose their jobs, because the orange oaf lost his marbles. Again. But I was very pleased by the way Justin Trudeau told Trump to take a hike, and I think his father would have been proud of him...
DeleteHi Steve...I like Justin Trudeau because he is a decent person, and he reflects my Canadian values better than any other politician ever has. He also encourages diversity and tolerance, unlike Scheer and his alt-right extremists who are always seeking to divide and conquer...
DeleteEvery politician to some extent is a Wylie E Coyote. Standing defying gravity for some time before the fall. The Liberals had a 15 year run and the rot set in. Dougie has not even been elected and he is way out over the canyon wall telling platitudes and half truths in an attempt to be buoyant, and dammit about 30% of a supposed intelligent Ontario is keeping him at equilibrium. Or the MSM is cooking the Doogie books, making the stuff on the slaughterhouse floor into designer sausage that everybody wants in their kitchen.
ReplyDeleteThese are desperate times. All three leaders are milktoast. They are all promising some version of the past they will make a more beautiful future.
If Universal Medicine is so great, why not universal dental care and drugs?
Its logical. If we get free education, why not free daycare at the same school the kids will go to. In Europe they have made this work in the North, in the south corruption is the rule and the system has failed.
Hi Steve...They are not themes stellar candidates I have ever seen, but the NDP and the Liberals are offering some good new programs. And we should never stop asking for things like universal dental care, and free drugs, as well as free education and free or affordable daycare. We would have to raise our taxes, but it would be worth it, and the only reason the Cons are opposed to that is because they would like to shrink government until they can drown it in a bath tub, and turn our society into a jungle...
Deletedougie was never big on facts and neither are some voters. People don't vary that much and if they buy the cool aid in one country, they'll buy it another.
ReplyDeletePeople think dougie is just like them, a good ole boy. They fail to realize he is a multi millionaire who inherited his wealth, just like dump. He isn't going to share. He isn't going to make their lives better. All he is going to do is privitize as much as he can ensuring his financial supporters buy it at bargain basement prices, toss seniors out of the facilities they are in and have developers build condos for over sea's sales. If people think things are seriously wrong for seniors in Ontario now, wait until dougie is finished with them. If you're getting old, remember how seniors are treated in the U.S.A. dougie is going to do the same for you.
Most of the seniors residences are private. when dougie cuts the amount of money they receive to care for seniors, the staff will be laid off, food will get even worse and medical assistance will become non existent. given the demographics, aging baby boomers take note, a vote for dougie is a vote for a very unhappy time for yourself.
Simon sometimes I need your strength to carry on. I blog but as you know it is a real burden. Post like this make me persist.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve...I didn't know that blogging was for you a real burden. If it is you should take your foot off the accelerator and take a break now and then. I write small notes on my mobile and then put them together at night, which makes blogging for me a lot easier, and consumes less energy, for I am pretty lazy.
DeleteI write songs that look a lot like your poems, maybe I should publish a couple, or come to think about it, maybe not... ;)