Ontario Election 2007

Liberal Victory in Ontario, Mixed Results in Hamilton

By RTH Staff
Published October 11, 2007

This is an open thread to discuss yesterday's election.

The Liberals easily won a majority, the first back-to-back Liberal majority in 70 years.

Here in Hamilton, Liberals Ted McMeekin and newcomer Sophia Aggelonitis took Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale and Hamilton Mountain, respectively.

New Democrat Andrea Horwath won Hamilton Centre as expected, and New Democrat Paul Miller beat Liberal Nerene Virgin in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek.

The Green Party failed to win any seats in the province, but had stronger support than in 2003, winning about 8% of the popular vote.

The big losers in this election, though, are the Conservatives, whose hopes for a possible minority government were demolished by John Tory's ill-advised proposal to extend funding to private religious schools.

6 Comments

View Comments: Nested | Flat

Read Comments

[ - ]

By rusty (registered) - website | Posted October 11, 2007 at 09:49:42

Elections are depressing...!

Wasn't it Kim Campbell who said that an election is no time to discuss the issues?

The Lib platform was all fluff and no commitments... I feel like we haven't moved forward at all. Party's are adept at using the media to fan flames and aggravate voters away from ome party or towards theirs. But this tactic seems to be based more on eliciting an emotion rather than informing us about the issues and policies.

McGuinty fueled the concerns around faith based school funding and kept the story alive. This scared many folks away from the PC's. But he did this at the expense of promoting any real policies.

I wish political parties would use the media to promote discussion rather than trying to get us all riled up.

In the end an election is just like a talk radio segment on the 407. The host get's everybody worked up, people call in and complain, nobody really learns anything and nothing changes.

I guess, in the end, it's our own fault.

As for MMP it seems to me that the 30 or so % that voted for it were possibly more informed than those who didn't. My wife voted against it because she said she knew nothing about it. I'm sure, if the education campaign had have been more successful they yes number would have come up.

Permalink | Context

[ - ]

By Frank (registered) | Posted October 11, 2007 at 10:45:17

Speak it Rusty!! One question though...why didn't your wife ask you about MMP? :P

Permalink | Context

[ - ]

By rusty (registered) - website | Posted October 11, 2007 at 11:30:58

I did! She just wasn't interested! :)

I could prattle on at this point about Canadian's political apathy. In fact, I think I will!

In the UK there is much more debate and interest in politics. The agenda for debate is similar to N America where the media dictates what we talk about but still, there is at least some effort to tie what we read in the paper to what is at the forefront of people's minds.

In many cases, the media will 'create' stories by undertaking investigative journalism or sensationalising an issue which would not otherwise be newsworthy (I mean come on - we talk about poverty being an issue but what's newsworthy about it? Where's the story?). In this way the public get to respond to what they see in the media and start discussing issues which actually matter.

I find Canadian media, with the exception of the CBC to some extent (still a pale comparison of the BBC) to be very very lazy. When is the last time they uncovered a story? Journalism is very 2 dimensional in Canada. Editors just sit around and wait for politicians to screw things up and then send in the hounds. It's no wonder the Liberals played it safe. As a strategy - waiting for your opponent to screw things up and then keeping the spotlight on their mistake when they do - it's pretty effective.

OK, rant over!

Permalink | Context

[ - ]

By jason (registered) | Posted October 11, 2007 at 12:26:12

canadian (and american) media are interested in one thing: money. They don't want to waste money 'uncovering stories' or actually investigating anything....give us britany spears, plane crashes and bin laden videos....put scary music in the background with flashy intro's and there you have it. people watch and sadly believe what they hear. that's a very large reason why canada is so apathetic to these things. i'm sure in the UK folks learn about politics and the world sitting around in pubs and in their town squares/cafes chatting with people. Here we "learn" about poltics and the world by flipping back and forth between a news channel and american idol.

Permalink | Context

[ - ]

By Frank (registered) | Posted October 12, 2007 at 10:27:16

Hey Jay... exactly. But it could be CSI to. I think our society is much to lazy. On another forum about MMP people are blaming the fact that people didn't know enough about MMP on the government. I think that as a democratic nation we have the responsibility to educate ourselves and not just take the word of the various media outlets.

If you look I bet that you'll find people working for newsrooms sit around in an office reading blogs and posts from other news outlets hoping to be the first station in the area to break a "breaking" story. My google homepage has two news feeds and it's quite funny to watch them echo each other depending on who writes the article first. Invariably at first, there are one or two people writing about an issue then all of a sudden the number jumps to something like 220.

Permalink | Context

[ - ]

By Frank (registered) | Posted October 12, 2007 at 15:05:51

Did anyone catch the comments from Stephane Dion? Apparently his first promise is to lower the corporate tax rate... How's that for worthwhile.... He definately gets a rotten tomato from me.

Permalink | Context

View Comments: Nested | Flat

Post a Comment

You must be logged in to comment.

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds