Ontario NDP calls for 15% cut in car insurance rates

By The Canadian Press - Monday, February 4, 2013 at 2:25 PM - 0 Comments

TORONTO – Car insurance companies in Ontario should be forced to cut premiums by 15 per cent, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Monday as she added to her growing list of demands for premier-designate Kathleen Wynne.

Major changes to Ontario’s auto insurance regulations in 2010 “dramatically” reduced benefits for drivers and cut the value of statutory accident payouts in half, turning the new rules into a huge “bonus” for companies, said Horwath.

“In 2011, the value of statutory accident payouts fell by just under $2 billion, an astonishing 50 per cent reduction from 2010, but that same year Ontario’s auto insurance rates still increased by five per cent,” she told reporters.

“Fifteen per cent is reasonable when you consider that their payouts were reduced by 50 per cent.” Continue…

Ontario: coalition dreaming

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 10:40 PM - 0 Comments

It’s not clear what Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath expects from the province’s next Liberal premier, whom the party will select on Jan. 26. She’s “open to working to get results for the people of this province,” in contrast to Conservative opposition leader Tim Hudak, who likes his chances in an election and will likely withhold confidence as early as possible to try to get one.

Does that mean Horwath wants a Liberal-NDP coalition? Continue…

McGuintygeddon: Countdown to an Ontario election, or not

By Paul Wells - Friday, June 15, 2012 at 12:27 PM - 0 Comments

Dalton McGuinty was the very picture of grim determination this morning at Queen’s Park as the Ontario premier explained why an election right now would be a disaster for Ontario.

“An election right now,” he said, “would threaten our economic recovery.”

“If we receive a downgrade because we’re plunged into an election less than a year after the last one,” he warned, interest rates will go up and vital programs will become more expensive and harder to finance.

An election, he said in a half-dozen ways, would be just an awful thing. But he may call one next week.

This is going to be a tricky sell. Continue…

The popularity of taxing the rich

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 20, 2012 at 2:06 PM - 0 Comments

Further to this post last week, a new poll in Ontario finds massive support for a proposal of the province’s NDP.

Ontarians overwhelmingly favour NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s proposal to raise taxes on people who earn more than $500,000 a year, a new poll suggests. Horwath has put forward the wealth surtax as one of her party’s conditions for supporting Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty’s budget, which will be voted on next Tuesday.

More than three-quarters of people surveyed — 78 per cent — like her idea with only 17 per cent opposed and 5 per cent unsure, according to the Forum Research poll. “It’s hugely popular. You never see that — that’s huge,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said Wednesday.

Ms. Horwath would tax those earning more than $500,000 at a provincial rate of 13.16% (up from 11.6%).

There are no such proposals presently on offer at the federal level. During the NDP leadership race, Brian Topp proposed a tax rate of 35% for those earning over $250,000 and Nathan Cullen suggested a rate in the “low 30s” for anyone earning over $300,000 per year. Thomas Mulcair questioned the wisdom of those proposals.

Three years ago, the Bloc Quebecois suggested taxing those earning more than $150,000 an additional 1%.

Dalton McGuinty: Partial Comeback Kid

By Paul Wells - Friday, October 7, 2011 at 12:14 AM - 58 Comments

“Admit it,” a Liberal campaign guy said to me at the Château Laurier while those last few seats were see-sawing back and forth, “If I had told you six months ago that we’d be on the cusp of a majority tonight, would you have believed me?”

Nope. Six months ago I’d have said Dalton McGuinty was toast with a stake through his heart. Or whatever your preferred mixed doom metaphor is. The Liberal has run a doughy, amorphous government, strong on primary schooling in my opinion, but lackluster with the occasional big mess elsewhere. Most Ontarians couldn’t pick Conservative Tim Hudak or New Democrat Andrea Horwath out of a police lineup but they figured surely anybody had to be better than this boyo.

That changed. McGuinty took a licking but he keeps on ticking. His party lost 18 seats. Eleven go to the Progressive Conservatives, seven to the NDP. Reporters get super-excited when it’s unclear whether a government will hold a majority of seats, but even if he falls one short, at 53, McGuinty is close enough and the affinities between his rivals so few that he’ll be able to govern comfortably for quite a while. He’s already outlasted Mike Harris and David Peterson; he’ll have had the job for about a decade before he has to decide whether he wants to try a fourth time. No, I don’t expect him to. But he’s already proved surprising. Continue…

Dalton McGuinty wins again

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 7, 2011 at 12:00 AM - 7 Comments

Twelve years ago, after an underwhelming first provincial campaign as Liberal leader, Dalton McGuinty’s future was in some doubt. The columnist in McGuinty’s hometown paper, the Ottawa Citizen, duly wondered if he was a lost cause.

“Should the Liberals keep Dalton McGuinty as leader? Now that the dust is starting to settle on his mediocre election campaign, it’s a question they are going to have to ask. The quick and easy answer is that there’s no one better on the horizon so Dalton’s the man. One can imagine the positive reception this idea receives among Tories. They’d like to see McGuinty keep the job until mandatory retirement age of 65. What better way to assure another 50-year Tory reign?”

Continue…

Premier club for women

By Charlie Gillis - Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 10:28 AM - 6 Comments

Darryl Dyck/Cp

The defining moment of Christy Clark’s recent campaign was neither a barn-burning speech nor a howling gaffe, but an offhand remark made during her first televised debate—just a week before B.C. Liberals were to choose a new leader. Fellow contender Kevin Falcon had been pressing Clark, a former talk radio host, on whether she would run in the next election if she failed to win the leadership. And Clark, to general astonishment, spoke her mind. “I have to make sure that I am able to make a paycheque,” she shrugged. “I am not running in this so I can be just another politician doing the same old thing.”

Candour is not generally considered a virtue in politics, but it worked for Clark. Up against three male candidates perceived to represent “the same old thing,” the 45-year-old from Burnaby swept to victory and, in doing so, became the next premier of British Columbia. Her paycheque remark gave ammunition to opponents, who questioned her commitment to the party. But Liberal members who actually voted seemed to appreciate her unabashed ambition. If she didn’t want more for herself than four years warming a seat in Victoria, they reasoned, what kind of leader would she be?

With her unapologetic appetite for power, Clark represents a new generation of women carving space these days in the upper echelons of provincial politics. No less than 14 women are running for, or already hold, the reins of provincial and territorial parties, including two who are sitting premiers (Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Eva Aariak of Nunavut). Clark is to be sworn in as premier in mid-March, and the female contingent at the first ministers’ table might well grow before the year is out. Alberta’s next provincial election could conceivably feature three female leaders—Alison Redford, a leadership candidate for the Progressive Conservatives; Laurie Blakeman, a candidate for the Liberal helm; and Danielle Smith, who leads the upstart Wildrose Alliance.

Continue…

Protests continue over G20 drama, plus what Belinda Stronach did before the G20

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, July 16, 2010 at 12:56 PM - 0 Comments

Large protests over civil rights violations at the G20 continue to happen in Toronto. Last week,  people “took back” the intersection of Queen and Spadina where riot police famously held people for hours in the rain. On July 17^th, Canadians Advocating Political Participation (CAPP) have rallies planned in three cities – Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Continue…

Long way to go

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 9, 2009 at 11:39 AM - 52 Comments

Belinda Stronach on women in politics.

We are of course long past the time when a woman entering politics prompted men to gasp at the audacity of it all. But we haven’t achieved equality of numbers. In fact, we’re not even close.

While women represent 52 per cent of the Canadian population, only 22 per cent of federal Members of Parliament are women; this ranks Canada 46th out of 189 countries in this indicator, behind countries like Rwanda, Iraq and Afghanistan.

We haven’t achieved the kind of progress that so many Canadian women seek in advancing social justice and improving the tone of political discourse in the House of Commons and beyond.

It’s possibly even worse than that. Continue…