the Walnut Diary

As the clock ticks down to the June 7th provincial election in Ontario, almost half of the voters are undecided. Global News and Angus Reid regularly publish polls showing Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the lead. Mainstreet, MacLean’s, the Sun chain, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star run stories about the rising momentum of the NDP under leader Andrea Horwath.

The consensus holds that the election is far too close to call due to the percentage of voters (up to 43% in one report) who will make up their minds in the booth. I guess that’s an invitation for some pollsters to whip up a bandwagon effect with their surveys, if they think it will work.

The Toronto Star editorial board commented in an interview with Liberal leader Kathleen Wynn this week that the recent round of complimentary articles from columnists traditionally opposed to her “must give you the feel of a political obituary.”

Wynn cracked back, “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”

An editor did quote one sharp-tongued critic with a particularly conciliatory remark: “Kathleen Wynn has been a better premier than we deserve.”

If the desire for change is the overwhelming ballot box issue in this election, then Wynn’s Liberals are toast. Andrea Horwath seems the beneficiary of the PC’s turmoil prior to the election, and then their bone-headed choice of Doug Ford as leader. Ford has yet to come up with a platform and fills his speeches with muttered bromides, but I guess if you want to believe a leader’s promises enough, objectivity has nothing to do with one’s choice.

For ten years Andrea Horwath has been a cipher as leader of the Ontario NDP. Now she has been presented by circumstance as the least repugnant of the leading candidates.

Personally I would prefer to see an NDP minority so that an NDP/Liberal coalition would offer some guidance to the naive Horwath and her motley crew of MPPs. Anybody but Ford, in any case. From my perspective as an educator, success as a middle-level high-school drug dealer and the legacy of drug abuse and ruined lives in his family make Doug Ford the worst possible choice for premier of Ontario.

Last provincial election I voted NDP because the local guy impressed me far more than the other three candidates whom I also sat down in my living room for interviews. This time I haven’t spoken to any of them. PC Steve Clark can mail this one in and still return to Queen’s Park, but I’ll vote Liberal out of respect for Wynn.