Numbers game dominates Ontario politics, with budget and polling results.
from Inside Queen's Park Vol 26 No 9
Liberal-NDP bargaining erodes budget secrecy
Ontario’s feeble conventions governing budgetary secrecy have gone the way of the Norwegian Blue parrot in the Monty Python sketch. The notion that the key components of the provincial budget should not be divulged to the public until the Finance minister rises to deliver his budget speech is now completely inoperative, thanks in large measure to how much of the fiscal framework of Budget 2013 has already been revealed in the course of the horse-trading between Premier Kathleen Wynne and NDP leader Andrea Horwath over survival of the LIBs’ minority government.
The two women party leaders have discussed the action required to reduce auto insurance, between themselves and in media scrums. These interactions have been termed “conversations” by Wynne but of late Horwath has been markedly less cordial about their exchanges. And other particulars which the NDP has advanced — in what we are inclined to call budget bargaining — include speedier delivery of home care and funding of youth employment schemes. These two areas will clearly be included in the Budget. Action on the "revenue stream" to sustain transit investments is another measure the premier seems keen to advance in the Budget without waiting upon the Metrolinx timetable. Horwath’s response to this has been quite grumpy.
Polling numbers put party preferences too close too call
Relatively few polls were published on Ontario provincial politics early in calendar 2013. (This reflected the inroads of the Ontario and federal LIB leadership races and Thomas Mulcair’s efforts to establish his party as the opposition in the HoC.) But there has been more polling action as the government could fall on the Budget confidence vote.
The following table adds two more polls to the three summarized in IQP on March 6:
Innovative Research
LIB 24
NDP 20
PC 23
Vector Poll
LIB 25
NDP 32
PC 36
Forum Research
LIB 32
NDP 29
PC 32
EKOS
LIB 31
NDP 25
PC 32
Ipsos-Reid
LIB 28
NDP 29
PC 37
Average party percentage
LIB 28
NDP 27
PC 32
The table shows that the three parties represented at Queen’s Park remain very close – which is a very strong argument, in this department’s opinion, for cautioning against the rush to the hustings which is heard from people impressed by the NDP dropping to 25 percent, the Liberals getting over 30 precent or the PCs drawing ahead by eight points – take your pick. Another way to assess polls is to consider the range of party support. On average, the range is modest, from the NDP at 27 percent through the Liberals at 28 percent to the PCs at 32 percent.
