Kingston and the Islands

http://www.hilltimes.com/page/view/miliken-07-05-2010

The Hill Times profiles Kingston and the Islands post-Miliken, and takes a look at potential nomination candidates for the Liberals:

-Kingston Mayor Harvey Rosen, who isn't running for re-election

-Dean of Queen's law school Bill Flanagan

-Bittu George, a former city councillor

- Ted Hsu, the executive director of Switch, an environmental NGO, and the only candidate who has officially declared an intention to seek the nomination: http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2650770

From the left and the right, praise for the HST

These comments coming on the eve of the HST:

“The HST is going to make us [Ontario] even better for manufacturing, more attractive for manufactures to invest here” (Buzz Hargrove, former National President of the Canadian Auto Workers – AM 640 Toronto)


“And what this will do is will bring all of that together and we’ll eventually save money for the consumer.” (Len Crispino, President & CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce – CBC Radio Windsor)


“We do believe ultimately that this will be better for the economy…” (Catherine Swift, Canadian Federation of Independent Business – AM 640 Toronto)


“The single best thing you could do to build back up the Ontario economy which was faltering then was to harmonize these taxes and reform them so that they were better for business who might want to invest and creating new jobs, buying new equipment and so on.” (John Tory – NewsTalk 1010)


“The economic theory is that (the HST) will provide important benefits to larger and especially manufacturing businesses and that's probably a good thing.” (Kevin Gaudet, Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation – Canadian Press)


“In a nutshell, the HST is about ensuring that Ontario has a competitive business environment. But it will reduce costs for business, it should help business to succeed, grow, attract investment, expand, translating into jobs.” (Anne Golden, President and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada – CBC Ontario Morning)

HST webinar tonight

http://strongmedicine.forontario.ca/

Just a reminder for all you out there to follow along at the Strong Medicine site for the HST webinar starting in just a few minutes. Hope to see you all tweeting along!

PC's want to increase democracy...as long as you agree with them

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/828171--coyle-channelling-the-worst-of-harris-era

Shameful behaviour by one of Tim Hudak's MPP's here, personally intimidating a constituent for daring to publicly voice an opinion that Murdoch disagreed with. Here's what Murdoch said to Ed King after he wrote a letter to the editor criticizing the decision of Mike Harris receiving an honourary degree from Nippissing University:

“I read your article that you put into the Toronto Star. My advice to you now would be not to run for council in Hanover. I’ve had at least 10 calls this morning criticizing you. I want to tell you, if Mike Harris ran today, he would win! And now you’ve dumped on him, you have just killed your prospects of winning in Hanover. Remember, Hanover is a Conservative town and always will be and now that you’ve shown your colours, you’ve sort of ruined your chances to run for council. So my advice is, don’t spend the money on it now. Sorry. I thought you might have done something. But you spoke out of turn when you went against Mike Harris in the Toronto Star.”


With Hudak saying he wants to look at democratic reform in this province, a good place to start would be to examine how he as leader can condone one of his frontbench critics personally intimidating and threatening a constituent for the high crime of criticism of a former public figure. This is what we can expect from Tim Hudak, a return to the bad old days.

Strong medicine for Ontario, strong medicine for the UK

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/andrew-steele/hst-critics-take-note-strong-medicine-for-britain/article1615325/

Good article by Andrew Steele here. The government of the UK is being proactive in realize the challenges the new economy faces, and how government can best respond to fiscal crisis and global economic restructuring, a tax reforms are a very big part of that. The Ontario Liberals have a tax reform plan, Tim Hudak has, to quote Andrew Coyne, demagoguery and hopes that the people are too stupid to understand the reforms. We need to ensure that Ontario's economy can move forward so we can maintain the high standard of public services Ontario families deserve.

Moving Ontario's economy forward

The Ontario Liberals have a plan, the Hudak PC's have Tea Party rhetoric.

On July 1st, it will be easier for every business in Ontario to do what they do best; innovate, create jobs, and help move Ontario's economy forward. The word progressive gets tossed around a lot, basically at this point being just another word for "centre-left" without any actual meaning. But if you look at the real meaning of the word, which is to look forward, to change things, to challenge the status quo, the HST is the most progressive policy a government could do right now, and I am proud the McGuinty Liberals are moving forward with it.

Coming out of a recession, Ontarians know that the economy will not be the same as it was before. We cannot, to quote Andrea Horwath, "refuse to adapt." With a new economy, we need a new tax structure. The Ontario Liberals are moving forward with a tax reform plan that in addition to income tax cuts for 93% of the province, transitional cheques to ensure everyday Ontario families can benefit from the economic recovery, and the HST, will help ensure that we have the strong economy we want, generating the jobs and revenue we need, to provide for the world class public services the people of Ontario deserve.

Hudak's HST flip-flop as popular with voters as faith based funding

The last poll numbers to come out from Ipsos-Reid:

Ontario PC's: 32%

Results of the 2007 Ontario provincial election:

Ontario PC's: 31.6%

So far Hudak's record is going 0-3 in unheld seats (and actually losing votes in the Toronto Centre by-election) and all his HST flip-flop and cheap politics has bought him is 0.4% in the polls.

BCer in Toronto has more here:
http://bcinto.blogspot.com/2010/06/ontario-numbers-that-will-make-gordon.html