National Post – Sept. 18, 2010
‘Premier Dad’ doesn’t know best: Despite Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty increasing spending by $46-billion a year, seven in 10 Ontarians polled don’t think he is doing a good job.
By John Ivison
Dalton McGuinty must be exasperated with Ontario’s voters, like a long-suffering father who spoils his constantly malcontented kids. As pater familias, he has lavished cash on his province -spending has risen from $70-billion to $116-billion a year on his watch -a splurge that has contributed to rising student test scores and graduation rates, labour peace and improved health access.
Yet an ungrateful electorate seems to have decided that he is pater too familias. A poll released by Ipsos Reid ranked Mr. McGuinty’s Liberal party and Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives in a virtual dead-heat. The underlying numbers must have made for distressing reading for the Premier: two-thirds of respondents believe it’s time for another party to take over; seven in 10 don’t think Mr. McGuinty is doing a good job; and, only one-third of voters think the province is on the right track (down from 60% on election day in 2007). The conclusion is inescapable – the man the Opposition has labelled “Premier Dad” is dragging his party down to defeat in an election that is just a year away.
The Premier’s cause has hardly been aided by what might be called the Three Graces of the McGuinty government-express regret, retract and run away. On a host of issues, the Liberals made a decision, quickly realized they were offside with the public mood and then made a virtue of complete capitulation. Eco-fees were abolished, a decision to introduce sex education to six-year-olds was overturned and Mixed Martial Arts were welcomed, after initially being banned. Just this week, the Premier hinted at another potential flip-flop when he said the government would take another look at off-peak electricity pricing.
In an interview in his spacious Queen’s Park office, when I asked Mr. McGuinty whether he intended to subsidize power prices, he was ambiguous. “We have to keep a close eye on the balance we strike between helping people in an extraordinary economic period and amassing a deficit we’re about to bequeath to the younger generation,” he said. Realizing he had mis-spoken, he reversed himself. “Let me retract what I just said. We’ll manage our deficit -we’re not going to leave a deficit to the younger generation. We have a plan to deal with it in a fixed period.”