The Ontario Election Is Thoroughly Depressing

The bleak sight of uninspiring democracy. Photo via Flickr user MGifford.
There is a palpable lack of inspiration surrounding the bleak race for Ontario premier. This election is so completely drenched in lameness, that a movement is circulating online for people to “decline” their ballot. This would require a voter to actually show up at a polling station, wait in line, receive their ballot, then hand the ballot back to the voting officer while declaring that they are not interested in voting whatsoever. This will officially result in a “none of the above” vote.

Canadian democracy is so exciting these days.

In case you haven’t really been keeping up with the non-stop snoozefest that is the 2014 provincial election in Ontario, your options are sad at best. First we have the incumbent Liberal party who royally fucked us all out of a billion dollars because they decided the construction of two major gas plants would hurt their party politically—so they canceled said plants—and apparently tried to destroy the evidence by deleting emails and other relevant documents. While this all went down under the watchful, twitchy eye of Dalton McGuinty, his successor Kathleen Wynne was around during this whole debacle—though she is not being accused of any specific wrongdoing in connection to the scandal.

Now, the Ontario Provincial Police is stepping up their investigation into how and why the proof behind the gas plant cancellation was destroyed, and they have already interviewed Dalton about this at least once. So to summarize, if you vote Liberal you are implying that you’re okay with a party that’s currently involved in a provincial police investigation—a party that also appears to have lost the province a billion dollars, simply because they stupidly tried to maintain political power by canceling some unpopular gas plants. It’s astounding, really.

But just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, there’s the Conservative party. In their defence, they really don’t have anything as overwhelmingly negative hanging over their heads as the gas plant scandal, though that just may be because the Conservatives haven’t been in charge of the province since 2003. The last guy they had in power, Mike Harris, Tim Hudak’s BFF, helped oversee the amalgamation of Toronto—which created a clusterfuck of a city map that has allowed Rob Ford to run both downtown Toronto and the suburbs. Mike is also the same classy gentleman who proclaimed he wanted “the fucking Indians out of my park” during the Ipperwash Crisis that resulted in the death of Dudley George.

Their new guy, Tim Hudak, is running on a campaign of small government. He says he’s going to cut 100,000 jobs out of the Ontario government, which he claims is part of a larger plan to create one million other jobs over the next eight years. While economists seem to disagree on whether or not this cut of 100,000 jobs could create an economic catastrophe (Wynne has gone as far as saying it would result in a recession), a professor from the Ivey School of Business told the Toronto Star this hack-and-slash plan could lead to “significant slowdown—but not technically a recession.”

Ultimately, it seems as if one million jobs over the next eight years really isn’t all that impressive. In the 1990s, a million jobs in eight years was standard, which can arguably be credited to a strong global economy. Right now, the most recent figure to go by in Ontario is 500,000 jobs over eight years. There isn’t strong evidence to suggest cutting public jobs will help that number along whatsoever. And if we’re counting on a healthier economy in the first place, the PCs may have very little to do with getting more Ontarians into the workforce.

Plus, Hudak backed down on his plan to dismantle the LCBO and Beer Store monopoly over Ontario's liquor sales. Bummer.

This is not to mention that Hudak’s attack on the public sector is gaining him some very powerful enemies: namely, the police. The OPP’s union released an attack ad against Hudak that has opened up big questions about the amount of politicking police can do during an election. This campaign, mixed with their investigation into the Liberals, would indicate the provincial cops are none too stoked over the 2014 provincial race either.

Which leads us to the NDP.

Andrea Horwath is team captain this time, and so far she’s been about as exciting as an orange peel. That could have been a good thing—considering the Liberals have been a bit too exciting this year—but given that she’s part of the new cohort of NDP politicians living in Jack Layton’s technicolour shadow, you would hope that she would be bringing a bit of liveliness to an otherwise dismal election. Horwath has said she is motivated by “anger,"which isn’t a great look. Plus, her anger has apparently not fueled the production of anything resembling a coherent campaign.

In fact, 34 members of the NDP wrote Horwath an open letter explaining that they feel “deeply distressed” by her sloppy leadership, and openly threatened to not even vote for her this time around. Howarth was the one who forced this miserable election in the first place by not supporting the Liberal budget, which has been described by the NDP’s own members as the “most progressive budget in recent Ontario history.” They argue that Horwarth’s dismissal of the Liberal plan has opened up the door for the Conservatives to crush the sketchy-looking Liberals and take over the province.

So, who to vote for?

The Toronto Star, despite all of the Liberal financial fuck-ups over the past 11 years, have endorsed Wynne. Their editorial board wrote that Wynne has “earned a fresh mandate,” arguing that even though Wynne is dragging the baggage of McGuinty behind her, she’s done a good job of forging a fresh vision for the future during her 16 months in power—adding that the opportunity to come out looking like the clear opposition choice has been squandered by both Hudak and Horwath.

The National Post has thrown their weight behind Tim Hudak, citing a well-reported catalog of fuck-ups by the Liberals as the clear reasoning behind their choice. It’s hard to argue with their endorsement given the Liberals’ repeated and costly scandals, but it may be even more difficult to swallow the pill of Progressive Conservatism given the party’s not-so-distant past in Ontario as awful governors.

Then there’s the Toronto Sun, who are probably supporting Hudak, but are more noticeably embroiled in an unpleasant controversy after they published a political cartoon showing a bloodied and broken pair of Wynne’s trademark glasses, laying beside a few broken teeth. This has opened up the Sun to a justifiable backlash, accusing them of making light of violence against women. Stay classy, Sun Media!

Obviously, no one is supporting Andrea Horwath, unless you count the front-page ad the NDP bought on the cover of Toronto’s Metro commuter paper advertising her imaginary lead the morning after a leadership debate. It’s a shame, given the obvious opportunity for an opposition party to breathe fresh air into this lifeless race. But, there we have it.

FInally, the Globe and Mail’s editorial board is supporting a Conservative minority, which is a bit of a cop-out. Obviously they want to scold the Liberals for their ongoing crappiness, but not so much that the Conservatives should be allowed to completely take the reigns. I didn’t realize that editorial endorsements could be issued a la carte…

So, in that case, if you want a recommendation from us here at VICE Canada, here it is: the Liberals run the office Monday-Friday, but the Conservatives get every other Tuesday. And the NDP can come by on Thursdays to facilitate pizza lunch.

If you don’t like that, just vote for none of the above.

@patrickmcguire