Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

After two weeks, I guess we've had enough time to chew over the results of the provincial election.

The thoughts I'm about to express here make use of that most valuable tool, namely 20-20 hindsight.

For at least three years, I was convinced that Dalton Mcguinty didn't have a hope of winning re-election, yet I'm not a bit surprised that he managed it.

Such is the will of the electorate.

For what it's worth, I voted Liberal in 2003 for a number of reasons, mostly stemming from the fact I was angry with Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, and I believed their party needed to be taught an lesson.

I was intrigued with McGuinty's promise to neither raise or cut taxes, but the fact is I probably would have voted for him if he had promised to impose a health care premium. As I have often stated, I have no problem with paying taxes, as long as they are responsible, and I also understand that health care doesn't come cheap. We also have an aging population that's going to be putting more demands on the health care system in the years to come.

But as the last couple of years have gone by, I have grown more and more convinced that McGuinty knew his promise was going to be impossible to keep when he made it. He's had more than three years to review or adjust the premium, and to keep the spirit of the promise he made, which people accepted in good faith, and he's done nothing.

Like I've stated previously, I don't mind paying taxes, but I do resent being played for a sucker.

So naturally, I figured most voters would agree with me and throw their support behind some aspiring premier who was likely to keep his promises, like John Tory.

Not!

I do believe the election was Tory's to win, had he kept his promises to a minimum and hammered at McGuinty for his failure to keep his. But he had to promise the funding for faith-based schools, and that sunk him. I have heard of life-long Conservatives who refused to vote for the party because of that very issue. I know of one Liberal who had expressed doubt about voting for McGuinty because of the broken promises, but jumped back on side because of Tory and the schools.

The Harris Conservatives had proposed tax breaks for parents who sent their kids to private schools, including schools that had no religious affiliation. That was one of the main reasons why the Grits got my vote four years ago. I thought anyone who could afford to send their kids to a school outside the public system didn't need a tax break, especially when there are lots of other parents who did. I still don't support the idea for private schools. If you want to send your kid to Ridley College, go right ahead. Just keep your paws out of my wallet.

But I've had a couple of years to think about the religious schools, and the calls to have them funded. The argument has been made that Catholics already get their schools funded, so why shouldn't other faiths get the same backing?

There's a lot of merit to that, and the way things tend to go in our society, I expect I will live to see the day when a court orders this kind of funding.

But it's clear the voters didn't see it that way, and with hindsight, we should have seen that coming.

Some 23 years ago, Bill Davis brought in the idea of full funding for Catholic high schools, and that prompted a lot of anger, especially in the non- Catholic community. In the next election, Davis's successor Frank Miller was returned with a very slim minority, and David Peterson and Bob Rae ganged up to boot him out shortly after that. Was it the school funding initiative that helped topple the Conservatives? I doubt it helped them.

Then Harris and Eves came up with their idea on tax breaks before the '03 election, and we saw what happened to them. Again, I think there were a lot of other factors apart from tax breaks according to which school your kids attend that worked against them, but I don't think it helped them much either.

And give McGuinty credit. He was sharp enough to keep it on the front burner, thus putting Tory on the defensive. That was pretty good for a guy who was vulnerable because of his inability to keep promises.

Locally, I don't think anyone was too surprised at what happened. I knew Julia Munro was going to be returned in York - Simcoe. I wasn't quite as sure that Dr. Helena Jaczek was going to be elected in Oak Ridges - Markham, but I wasn't surprised either, considering the way the province-wide trends were going.

As for the referendum, I wrote about it in this spot a couple of weeks ago, confessing I hadn't made up my mind.

I heard a number of people complaining that McGuinty did little to promote the referendum. I guess he didn't, but who wanted him to? Had he taken some sort of position on the question, then the referendum would have degenerated into an endorsement or rejection of McGuinty himself. We were already having an election on that issue.

I think the problem was there really wasn't any organized proponency or opponency on the question. Many of us knew it was out there, although I've heard there were lot of people who didn't know anything about it. That's not as surprising as you might think. After more than 23 years in the media, I am well aware that no matter how much you promote something, there are many people who are going to miss it.

There was also a certain amount of misinformation spread around about this issue (like, what else is new?)

I contacted all the candidates in the two ridings in King, asking them how they were planning to vote on the referendum. The first candidate I put the question to told me Elections Ontario had told them they couldn't comment.

That made no sense to me - a candidate in a general election was not allowed to answer a fair and legitimate question about their position on a topical issue! I called Elections Ontario, talked to someone in their communications section, and was assured candidates could comment. The restrictions had more to do with parties putting positions on the question in their platforms.

The point is, there was a lack of information on the question, and apart from media coverage, attempts to educate people on the issue were half-hearted, at best.

In the end, I voted in favour of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) model that had been proposed, in what was probably the first attempt I have ever made at strategic voting. I knew the proposal didn't have a hope of passing, and I wasn't particularly keen on seeing it implemented. But as I stated a couple of weeks ago, I believe we need some kind of electoral reform, and a respectable vote for MMP, I thought, would keep the issue on the table.

Alas, almost two-thirds of voters turned thumbsdown to the idea. I guess that means there will be no more talk about electoral reform for quite a number of years.

And we're stuck with McGuinty and company for the next four years.

And as for the federal election . . .