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<\/a>The Legislative Assembly of Ontario, in Toronto. Photo: Andrijko Z., via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n In case you missed the news, Ontario is in the midst of a late spring election.<\/span> Here’s the setup. The incumbent premier,\u00a0<\/span>Kathleen Wynne<\/a>,<\/span> headed a Liberal minority government. As the name implies, minority governments don’t have enough votes to pass measures without support from at least one other party. In the parliamentary system a government will “fall” (head back to the polls) if it loses a confidence measure. Budgets are always confidence measures – they have<\/em> to pass, or a new election is triggered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So, when the New Democratic Party’s Leader, <\/span>Andrea Horwath<\/a>, announced the NDP would not support the Liberal’s proposed budget, Wynne bowed to the inevitable. In early May she asked for, and was granted,<\/span> a provincial election – set for June 12th<\/a>. Now her party will face the NDP and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (the Conservatives). The incumbent: Liberal Kathleen Wynne. Photo: Canadian Film Centre, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n The remaining main player in what amounts to a three-party race is Tim Hudak<\/a>, leader of the Conservatives. He heads the official opposition party, which holds the second largest number of legislative seats. While polling suggests the race is between the Liberals and the Conservatives, the NDP is a key factor too, especially if the other parties fail to win a majority.<\/p>\n Does anyone care? Elections do matter, especially to the politicians. But to the public at large, maybe not so much<\/a>. Not thus far, at least.<\/p>\n Here I’ll add a few random side notes: Wynne is pronounced “Win”. She didn’t arrive at Ontario’s top spot through a general election, she replaced three-time Premier Dalton McGuinty in a party election, after he stepped down ahead of political and potential legal difficulties. Wynne has launched a $2 million lawsuit<\/a> against Hudack, the Conservative Party and Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod over statements they made alleging that Wynne \u201coversaw and possibly ordered the criminal destruction of documents to cover up the gas plants scandal.\u201d\u00a0Wynne is also Canada’s first openly gay premier, which appears to have no particular impact on her reelection bid. At one point last year, Canada had a record number of females<\/a> leading at the provincial level: six. That has since fallen to the current tally<\/a> of two.<\/p>\n Wynne’s main challenger Conservative Opposition Leader Tim Hudak. Photo: Tim Hudak\/Andrew C., via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n Getting back to the current campaign, there are a number of issues Ontario voters could get excited about, including the so-called gas plant scandal<\/a>\u00a0and a lackluster economy in the province typically considered the engine of the nation.<\/p>\n Some say the election is, or ought to be, about the record of the Liberal Party’s recent governments, as outlined in a commentary by Kelly McParland<\/a> in the National Post:<\/p>\n Who\u2019s going to remember? Dalton McGuinty promised no new taxes in 2003, then immediately raised taxes and was re-elected twice. Mr. McGuinty\u2019s long list of broken promises, in fact, were once a big issue with critics of the Liberals, until their many scandals came along and pushed the broken pledges down the complaint list. In today\u2019s news cycle, issues last just long enough to be denounced on Twitter before everyone moves on to something else. Mr. McGuinty has only been out of office a year or so, and Kathleen Wynne, his successor, already insists nothing he did during 10 years in office has any relevance to her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That excerpt touches on widespread voter apathy, which many consider a serious problem here. How and why Canadians have reached this state of alienation from political theatrics is discussed in this HuffPost Canada essay by Glenn Pearson<\/a> (a former MP):<\/p>\n Though not a universal sentiment, disillusionment in modern politics is likely the lowest it has ever been.<\/p>\n And don’t count NDP Leader Andrea Horwath out – her party is in the race too. Photo: Ontario NDP, Creative Commons<\/a>, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n It’s not hard to comprehend why the democratic spirit is so low. There have been enough scandals at various levels of government that average Canadians can be forgiven for wondering what has become of the political order. It’s increasingly apparent that the old\u00a0partisan wars<\/em>\u00a0no longer create the kind of political energies that they used to. One tweet from a citizen from my home city of London pretty well summed it up: “Hey, if you’re going to keep partisan bashing the other parties, don’t count on my vote.” Then there’s the\u00a0negative advertising<\/em>\u00a0that consistently drives down voter turnout. Or as the\u00a0Toronto Star\u00a0<\/em>put it<\/a>\u00a0this week, “Negative ads destroys voter trust in all politicians.” Rounding it all out is the repeated claim that it doesn’t matter who gets elected, our problems never seem to get solved.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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