[TOareaFan]

I'm not sure that saying that the Liberals haven't released enough information to assess the budget one way or another is anywhere close to a deliberate attempt by Hudak to deceive the people of Ontario about hist one million job plan. The Liberal plan is costed in far more detail than either the PC or NDP plans to balance the budget one year earlier.

I was partly kidding but it depends on perspective.......I think voters rank issues (whether they realize it or not) and if I use me as an example.......I rank fiscal balance #1 and transit #2........I think the Liberals transit plan (with flaws as all plans do) is the best of the 3 major parties.....but niggling in my head is the fear that we will never balance the budget....as I have said a few times on these threads I had been looking for a reason to vote Liberal to access that transit plan and hoped that their "we will balance the budget one year later" had some weight/credibility behind it....now the same economists that are critical of the Tory job plan express serious doubt that there is truth behind the Liberal balance budget plan....so I feel misled by them and will likely just revert to issue #1.

In other words, given their history with budgets I view the Liberal "we will get to balance" promise as an indication that they recognize that balancing the budget is important to some Ontarians and their promise to do it (without a realistic plan to do it) is an attempt to mislead those Ontarians to look past the increasing deficit at their other issues.

People who don't view balanced budgets as important will view it as a less major transgression. To those people I will simply point out that this year's budgeted deficit for Ontario is larger than all other 9 provinces and the federal government - COMBINED! We are digging a massive fiscal hole and increasing, significantly, the amount of our provincial income that simply services the accumulated debt.....we are not too too far from those Hudak cuts that Wynne is telling us to fear becoming less of a philisophical/optional call and more of a mandatory situation.

 

[rbt]

I was partly kidding but it depends on perspective.......I think voters rank issues (whether they realize it or not) and if I use me as an example.......I rank fiscal balance #1 and transit #2........I think the Liberals transit plan (with flaws as all plans do) is the best of the 3 major parties.....but niggling in my head is the fear that we will never balance the budget....as I have said a few times on these threads I had been looking for a reason to vote Liberal to access that transit plan and hoped that their "we will balance the budget one year later" had some weight/credibility behind it....now the same economists that are critical of the Tory job plan express serious doubt that there is truth behind the Liberal balance budget plan....so I feel misled by them and will likely just revert to issue #1.

None of the 3 parties intend to balance the extended budget; they all grow the backlog of capital maintenance. Reducing the value of your assets to balance the fiscal budget is a temporary measure at best. It results in a massive bill eventually.

Some parties do better in the fiscal or capital categories but none of them intend to tackle both effectively.


Also, capital expansion is important to keep the economy going. That $6B in economic loss due to congestion results in a $1B lower provincial revenue number.

Obviously $11B deficit is higher than $1B revenue but there needs to be a balance between taxation, capital expansion, capital maintenance, and operating expenses. The fiscal budget only directly considers 2 of those 4 items.


I'd vote in a heartbeat for the party which proposed putting capital maintenance deficit as a line-item in Ontario budgets (provincial and municipal) by law. Abandoning a piece of infrastructure would be an active decision and not caused by lack of oversight. Balancing the budget would also include maintaining infrastructure we rely on. We kinda do this for Water and Electricity (rates must cover all costs) but that's it.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

rbt:

Or they'd come up with a one time asset sale just before the election year and claim the budget is balanced for the stated year.

AoD

 

[TOareaFan]

rbt:

Or they'd come up with a one time asset sale just before the election year and claim the budget is balanced for the stated year.

AoD

If that is a reference to the 407 sale by the Conservative government of the day and intended as a "shot" at conservative governments/parties....one needs to look at the few details given in the Liberal balance budget "plan" because it appears asset sales are a pretty major part of that http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...k-to-raise-money-from-public-assets-1.2607464 (unless of course, the time between April 11 2014 and, say, yesterday carries more weight with you because it now appears we are back in the market buying real estate on MaRS or something ).

If I have read too much into your comment.....I apologize.

 

[TOareaFan]

of course, the great irony of the Liberal criticism of the "math" in the PC's "Million Job Plans" is that the 2009 Ontario budget actually defined 1 job as = 1 person years of employment.....you and I may agree that this is "silly math" (and we may be correct) but the Liberal party mocking it should, really, be seen as self-mocking.

 

[JasonParis]

According to ThreeHudredEight today, the PC's are in a very good position to attain Minority (if not Majority) government. It seems a bit inexplicable to me as I can't see how it has been a good week for the PC campaign. Regardless, unless the debate changes the map a bit, I think the "anyone but Hudak" vote will probably move some to the Liberals in certain ridings where it may make a difference.

 

[kEiThZ]

Just a point of order to the mods. If this thread is about everything to do with election politics, should it be in the transport section?

 

[innsertnamehere]

its supposed to be about Hudak's transportation plans from my understanding, but the election (given its extreme saturation in the media and otherwise people's daily lives) has been leaking into tons of threads. Its not really reasonable to stick it to a singular thread, especially considering the "main" thread is hidden away in a rarely used portion of the forum.

 

[drum118]

Mississauga Council stated tonight, all development along Hurontario and the so call downtown will be put on hold until funding of the LRT is approve.

Since nut case wants to kill the LRT, wonder what he going to do to override city decision related to development and transit? Need transit to support development...................Oh!! he want cities road & highway gridlock 7/24 for those cars he loves and development

 

[pstogios]

While I appreciate your contributions to this board in general and this topic in particular, I have no idea what you just said. It's difficult to read your messages.

Mississauga Council stated tonight, all development along Hurontario and the so call downtown will be put on hold until funding of the LRT is approve.

Since nut case wants to kill the LRT, wonder what he going to do to override city decision related to development and transit? Need transit to support development...................Oh!! he want cities road & highway gridlock 7/24 for those cars he loves and development

 

[innsertnamehere]

Mississauga will ban new development along Hurontario until the LRT gets funding.

Drum then goes on to discuss how boneheaded an idea it is for Hudak to want to cancel the LRT.

 

[TOareaFan]

While I appreciate your contributions to this board in general and this topic in particular, I have no idea what you just said. It's difficult to read your messages.

Drum said" "I do not favour Mr. Hudak in this election".

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Mississauga Council stated tonight, all development along Hurontario and the so call downtown will be put on hold until funding of the LRT is approve.

Since nut case wants to kill the LRT, wonder what he going to do to override city decision related to development and transit? Need transit to support development...................Oh!! he want cities road & highway gridlock 7/24 for those cars he loves and development

Mississauga will ban new development along Hurontario until the LRT gets funding.

Drum then goes on to discuss how boneheaded an idea it is for Hudak to want to cancel the LRT.

Drum said" "I do not favour Mr. Hudak in this election".

We sit here talking about DRL this LRT that, but do you think Hudak will actually commit to the GO expansion? Anyone?

 

[TOareaFan]

We sit here talking about DRL this LRT that, but do you think Hudak will actually commit to the GO expansion? Anyone?

I think he has promised and committed to GO expansion. I doubt it would be anywhere near the 15 minutes on every line expansion that Murray/Wynne have promised but, lets face it, until Murray's (two weeks) pre-budget announcement there was no one (not even here) calling for that level of expansion within the next 10 years (as Murray has promised). If any party had come out and said that their goal was to have hourly off-peak on all lines within 8 - 10 years most (even here) would have said "geez, considering where we are coming from, that's pretty good".

(note: I am not saying that is what Hudak will do, he has simply said "more GO trains on all lines", but I am saying that his - or Horwath's plan need not match Murray's/Wynne's to constitute GO expansion).

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I think he has promised and committed to GO expansion. I doubt it would be anywhere near the 15 minutes on every line expansion that Murray/Wynne have promised but, lets face it, until Murray's (two weeks) pre-budget announcement there was no one (not even here) calling for that level of expansion within the next 10 years (as Murray has promised). If any party had come out and said that their goal was to have hourly off-peak on all lines within 8 - 10 years most (even here) would have said "geez, considering where we are coming from, that's pretty good".

(note: I am not saying that is what Hudak will do, he has simply said "more GO trains on all lines", but I am saying that his - or Horwath's plan need not match Murray's/Wynne's to constitute GO expansion).

That's vague. Hudak needs to come out with specifics. And hourly service is not good enough for you, robmausser, canarob, corsuganti and everyone else. It should be half hour considering the Liberals have promised 15 minutes.