Tag: tim hudak

The whoppers in Tim Hudak's "Truth" ad

This is the latest ad from the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. They call it “Truth”. But in fact, it features their leader saying at least one thing that is demonstrably and unequivocally untrue and one other statement that is unlikely to be true. Let’s break it down by looking at two key claims Hudak makes early in this ad. (I’m assuming by now, you’ve watched the ad)

“The truth is that a million people in our province woke up this morning in our province without a job.”

Nope. Sorry. That’s not the truth. Continue reading The whoppers in Tim Hudak's "Truth" ad

The Liberal record on job creation by industrial sector

Today on the Ontario campaign trail, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak was indicting the Liberal governments of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne for letting 300,000 manufacturing jobs disappear on their watch. Now, while I was critical of Hudak and the PCs earlier this week for vastly overstating the number of “out of work” Ontarians, Hudak is pretty much spot-on with this latest number. Since October, 2003, when McGuinty took the reigns for the first time, Ontario has, in fact, seen 314,500 manufacturing jobs disappear. That’s what Statistics Canada says.

I was curious which industrial sectors fared worst or better during the Liberal reign and so I crunched the numbers from Statscan for three time periods: Since the McGuinty liberals first won office in October 2003; since the last Ontario election in Oct 2011 (the McGuinty/Wynne years) and the last 12 months. The most recent month for which data is available is April 2014. Continue reading The Liberal record on job creation by industrial sector

The wonky math in Tim Hudak's new "I Want To Work" ad

This is the latest ad from the Ontario PC Party, which has built its campaign around what it calls its “Million Jobs Plan”. In short, Hudak believes that if Ontarians can leave the PCs in charge in government for the next eight years, the province will end up with 1 million more net new jobs. Western University economist Mike Moffatt has put that promise in context and, in his judgement, believes that that is an “ambitious — but not impossible — target.”

But in this new ad, Hudak is not talking about the million jobs he will create in 8 years. In this ad, he is standing in the legislature at Queen’s Park and and says: “There are 1 million people out of work.” Now I’m assuming that, as this is being released in the midst of an Ontario general election and he made that comment in the Ontario legislature, we ought to interpret what he said as there are 1 million Ontarians out of work. But that’s just not true. Continue reading The wonky math in Tim Hudak's new "I Want To Work" ad

Ontario campaign ad wars: Mike Harris versus Barack Obama vs "The Kid"

In this new ad released Saturday, the Ontario Liberals try to scare the bejesus out of any soft leftie who might be thinking of voting for Andrea Horwath that Kathleen Wynne is the only who can save us from Mike Harris, er, Tim Hudak!

Meanwhile, Continue reading Ontario campaign ad wars: Mike Harris versus Barack Obama vs "The Kid"

The "budget leaking plan" of the Ontario Liberals

Budget Rollout Calendar 2014-04-01


The document above, obtained by the Ontario Progressive Conservatives and provided to the media on April 1, 2014, is an alleged Ontario Ministry of Finance document.
The PCs claim:

“The Budget Leaking Team’s “Pre-Doc Communications Rollout” plan is 11-pages long covering 39 announcements over 27 days leading up to the Thursday, May 1, 2014 budget date.
•There is $5.7 billion in explicit new spending. This will widen the hole that already exists in the Liberals’ deficit projections.”

Dear Andrea: Why won't you get in Kathleen's grill? Signed, your friend, Tim.

KDN_NORTHERNLEADERSDEBATE_23-09-2011T182237
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, Northern Ontario Municipal Association p president Ron Nelson, and Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak at a debate in Thunder Bay, ON on Sept. 23, 2011 (IAN THOMPSON/SPECIAL TO QMI AGENCY)

Open letter from Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak to Ontario NDP Andrea Horwath:

October 27, 2013

Andrea Horwath, MPP
NDP Leader
Room 113, Main Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario, M7A 1A2

Dear Ms. Horwath,
I write to you today in hopes that you will agree that it is time to put Ontario on the right track and restore Ontario’s faith in their elected leaders. I concluded some time ago that, given the Liberals’ pattern of self-interest-only decisions, we need to change the team that leads this province.

I remain somewhat astounded, though, that you and your party don’t grasp that continuing to prop up the Wynne government by being at its beck and call is doing Ontario no favours.

Continue reading Dear Andrea: Why won't you get in Kathleen's grill? Signed, your friend, Tim.

In Ontario, do Horwath's NDP have the this fall's spring in their step?

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne seems to be threatening an election — threatening, in fact, to do what Prime Minister Stephen Harper did in 2008 and break a fixed-date election law — which could see Ontario voters having to choose between Wynne, PC Leader Tim Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath in a fall vote.

Pollster Abacus Data was in the field recently and found that the three parties are basically tied with around 30% support of committed votes. But, as Abacus CEO David Coletto writes:

… the results suggest thatt the Ontario NDP and its leader Andrea Horwath have the greatest opportunity to expand its support since Horwath is the most popular provincial leader and its potential pool of support is equivalent to the Liberals 45% would consider voting NDP and Liberal and higher than the PC Party 42% would consider voting PC.

Find the polling data and methodology here:  Ontario Politics: Tories lead by 3; Ontario Liberals and NDP tied at 30% | Abacus Insider.

We’ll have more on this tonight on my television program Battleground on Sun News Network at 6 PM ET and 8 PM Pacific with Abacus CEO David Coletto and Sun Media National Affairs Columnist Anthony Furey.

And don’t forget to read my colleague Antonella Artuso’s take on this latest poll.

Biggest winner in Ontario politics this summer? Andrea Horwath. Biggest loser? Tim Hudak

Andrea Horwath and the Ontario are going to finish the summer with a caucus that has grown by 2 MPPs and with some decent political momentum. Horwath was on my program Battleground on Sun News Network Monday night and I asked her for her interpretations of the summer’s byelections and about her political objectives for the fall:

Continue reading Biggest winner in Ontario politics this summer? Andrea Horwath. Biggest loser? Tim Hudak

Job one for the next Liberal leader: Call back the legislature, says Hudak

The last time the Ontario legislature was in session,the Leader of the Official Opposition sat across the aisle from Dalton McGuinty. But when opposition leader Tim Hudak next takes his seat at Queen’s Park, his sparring partner could be Sandra Pupatello or Kathleen Wynne or Gerard Kennedy (the best bets according to this look at the how delegate selection might be stacking up) Continue reading Job one for the next Liberal leader: Call back the legislature, says Hudak