Shut Up And Listen 132

The Race To Queen’s Park Week Four: The Leadership Debate
Dalton McGuinty takes Ernie Eves to school and then Howard Hampton takes both of them to school. I love politics.
	Watching the Ontario leadership debate on-and-off between commercials and every time I check it out, I see one of the following sights: Ernie Eves talking about tax cuts, Dalton McGuinty bashing Eves and somehow turning that into a way to promote his plan while Eves looks very foolish, or Hampton bashing the fuck out of both of them while both McGuinty and Eves look foolish and guilty for getting schooled so easily. Actually, it seems to go in that order. Eves talks, McGuinty bashes and then talks, Eves retorts, McGuinty replies and then Hampton reminds both of them that what they say now is contrary to what they said earlier. For example, Ernie Eves currently wants to ban teacher strikes, but said he thought that was a bad idea while trying to become leader of the Tories; while McGuinty said he wanted to ban teacher strikes before, but now says he’s against it. 
	In the paper the following day, they mention that Hampton stole the show and that was pretty much everything they said about him. He was the standout candidate who performed the best and somehow wasn’t worthy of any actual coverage. Just reinforces the idea that the media have a huge influence on politics. Are the NDP third because they’re them or because of the lack of media exposure? I mean, they even admit Hampton outperformed the other two and yet spent 99% of the time talking about them. I’ve never seen a sports article ignore the team that won the Super Bowl in favour of discussing the teams that didn’t. 
	But who knows, the NDP may gain ground based on this anyways.

The Race To Queen’s Park Week Four: The Progressive Conservatives
Reasons why you shouldn’t vote PC:

1) They want to make Ontario just like the US. Now, to me, this is a bad thing. Not because there’s necessarily anything wrong with America, but because if I wanted to live in America, I would. I want to live in Ontario because it’s Ontario. That means, yes, public services are to be found. Healthcare and education should be publicly funded, not sold off to the private sectors. And yes, that means our taxes will be higher. Duh. But taxes aren’t bad in and of themselves. Taxes can be put to fantastic use, but just because the Tories haven’t been doing that yet, doesn’t mean they can’t be.

2) Education and healthcare cuts are bad. Tell me how cutting them are good. Seriously, explain to me why cutting the budgets for education and healthcare at any point can be helpful. I’m waiting. I am waiting for someone to explain to me how cutting education and healthcare will somehow make them better. Anyone? How about you, Mister Harris? Or you, Mister Eves? What, no explanation?

3) The elimination of OAC by the PC government. Again, how is eliminating a year of free education helpful to students? How does it make the system better? So far, it hasn’t. It has just caused problem after problem. Things like students having difficulty because all of a sudden, programs that were planned for five years of high school courses were compressed to four. Challenging students is good. Raising the bar so far that the majority of grade nine students are getting horrid grades is not. I had OAC and it was great. The structure of the high school education system in Ontario was good with an option of a fifth year to prepare for the more academic university (as university and college are different).

4) The whole hydro fiasco. I told them so. I said privatizing hydro would just cause problems and it did. People had far larger hydro bills and then the government had to give out rebates to make up the difference. So essentially, they fucked up and then had to pay when leaving it the way it was would have saved a lot of time, effort and trouble.

5) Seriously, how are cuts to education and healthcare good? Someone tell me!

I could come up with many, many more reasons why not to vote for the Tories, but honestly, those are the main ones. While in power, they’ve essentially just shat on education and healthcare in favour of tax breaks and helping out their buddies in the private sector. And now they complain that there aren’t enough doctors or teachers and that both systems are adequate enough. Gee, I wonder the fuck why. Morons.
	Why should you vote for the Tories? Damned if I know. Go ask one of them. I never claimed to be objective. I can’t think of one good reason to vote for them. Not one. I’ve lived in Ontario under them for eight years and yeah, things weren’t hell, but they weren’t good in a lot of ways. They seriously have had almost nothing but problems with the way they want to do things and they need to be removed from power. The election is this Thursday and they damn well better be removed or else . . . well, fuck, we’re just buggered, okay?