By Frank Dabbs
Hudak Nation, the new force in Ontario politics, will determine the result of the election June 12, as progressives withhold their votes to protest their own leaders' peccadillos.
New polling suggests Tim Hudak and his Progressive Conservative party are positioned to win between 50 (a minority government) and 56 seats and a slender majority in Ontario's 107-seat legislature.
A definitive analysis is impossible because "there is no reliable polling data," says Mike Marzolini, chairman and chief public opinion analyst of Pollara Strategic Insights. "The polls that have been released have been done with cheap and flawed methodologies," he said.
By Andre Den Tandt
Tuesday night's televised leaders' debate convinced me that we need a new word in the dictionary: innumeracy, that is the inability to grasp the meaning of numbers, especially large numbers; the lack of skill in applying large numbers to situations that are difficult to quantify.
It's not just large numbers either. Take former premier Dalton McGuinty, who famously said upon resigning that, at least, they (the Ontario Liberals) "got the big things right." Really?
By Michael Den Tandt
Judging from the performances at Thursday evening's all-candidates forum at the Woodford Community Center, incumbent Conservative Bill Walker has little to fear in the June 12 provincial election. Although he asserted, in a brief conversation before the event, that he is "taking nothing for granted."
In a session sponsored by Meaford's Chamber of Commerce, which was more discussion than debate, Walker, New Democrat Karen Gventer, Liberal Ellen Andersen and Green Jenny Parsons each were invited by moderator Geoff Solomon to answer questions about job creation, soaring electricity prices, deficits and debt, health care and infrastructure. They spoke to a curious crowd that had Woodford's small community center about two-thirds full.
By Andre Den Tandt
Just this past week a brand-new facility opened in Harriston - a multi-million dollar
state-of-the-art high-tech operation, using flywheels to store energy ready for release onto
the electricity grid. Good news, even great news, right?
Well, no, except perhaps for the few jobs in Harriston while it was being built. It will
be run from elsewhere, quite literally. There was no reference in the news item to its
capacity over time, to the cost, to who is paying for it (you and me), or to the real nature of the service it renders. Missing also was any reference to its cost-effectiveness, that is, the price paid for that service.
By Aly Boltman
April 1st, I became the Executive Director of the Community Foundation Grey Bruce. But before I left The Roxy, I submitted a proposal for SPARC, the Symposium for Performing Arts in Rural Communities. And to my delight, Philly Markowitz and I were asked to speak to people from all over North America about community cultural collaborations. Last April, we wound our way through the back roads to Haliburton, past the high rivers, ogling gigantic Osprey nests precariously perched on lights at the side of the highway.
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