Is an NDP Led by Rob Ashton the Worst Nightmare for Both Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney?
A few thoughts on the disruptive potential of the emergence of class politics in Canada
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Short answer no.
Long answer Mike Harris was so bad for Ontario that they won’t vote NDP no matter who it is. Adding in massive right wing immigration (because people in left wing societies have no reason to leave) we are unlikely to see this change anytime soon.
What does Harris have to do with the NDP? Wasn't he a conservative?
Yes but they blame all the bad he did on Bob Rae for putting the world into the recession that was going on when the NDP took office.
Never seen NDP blamed for anything Harris did. The hate anyone remembers seems to start and end with Rae Days. I think they were mainly castigated for not fixing Mulroney's problems (yes, Ontarian voters just can't seem to figure out why their premier can't fix federal politics) and providing that one particularly unpopular policy. Harris was actually popular enough to have Ontarians eager to double down on him. Again, Ontario voters were impressed enough with Chretien and Martin righting the ship to give credit to the provincial PCs.
Selling 407? Had to do it because Rae bankrupted the province.
Actually they campaigned on selling public assets to fix it.
That may justify it to some right leaners who don't seem to care about privatisation anyway, but I don't think any potential NDP voter doesn't just see that as his transparent way of feathering his retirement by ingratiating himself to wealthy businessmen. Rae Days legit pissed off all the unionized government workers who weren't going to risk a pay cut again. I know because I am one of them. That's all you are going to hear if you bring up the NDP with the older crowd. It's Pavlovian at this point. They are smart enough to lay the 407 blame at Harris' feet and have no love for the PCs either, largely because Harris had a personal hatred for government workers. But Rae turning against union workers was something they similarly can't forgive.
The NDP fights with PCs for votes anyway because workers tend to be right wing anyway.
It’s a mark of not being educated, just like those unionized government workers would rather lose their job than take unpaid days off (wait until you tell them about covid)
Government job cuts aren't exactly random, and people know when they are in a safe job versus one of the more volatile positions. Rae bucked the trend of how the public service normally handles expansion and contraction and it pissed off the large core of safe workers to protect volatile jobs that would likely be cut in the short to mid term anyway. I imagine it particularly pissed off those retiring soon who had their highest earning years averaged down under Rae, making for smaller pensions. While the actual effect would likely have been small, it did have an outsized psychological effect on government workers. I'm not surprised the public at large never understood it. Rae didn't either though, and the NDP has never been able to restore their labour party rep since.
Conservatives will scream shit like “pick your poison” and then CHUG the worst poison. They’re fully stupid or they know their option sucks and are trying to justify but are also incredibly stupid. I mean, Ontario elected Doug Ford TWICE because “those Liberals are corrupt, ya know” like brother if you’re against corruption I have some terrible news for you.
The point of this is to say that Ontario is dumb as rocks. ~45% turnout and a lot of complaining after electing a cartoon villain to power.
Mike Harris was a conservative... Did you mean Bob Rae?