Policy by polling, budget by blackmail

Is Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne HOT — or not? Depending on whether she does or doesn’t include High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes in her spring budget, Ontarians could be heading to the polls this summer for the second time in less than two years.

Nixing the toll lanes is the latest demand issued by Ontario Finance Minister … whoops, NDP leader Andrea Horwath, who — despite having had her wish list not only met but exceeded in this budget — continues to press for more concessions in exchange for keeping Wynne’s minority Liberal government in power.

Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath aim to transform politics

The throbbing beat of rock star Pink’s Raise Your Glass wafts across the cavernous hall as Kathleen Wynne makes her grand entrance amidst a sea of power suits.

Most of the 2,000 people at this $1,200-a-plate Liberal fundraiser seem oblivious to the tune’s risqué lyrics. But Ontario’s new premier marches to a different drummer.

In previous years, the steep ticket price bought a preview of the latest partisan lines being road-tested for the campaign trail. When Wynne ascends the podium, her own words are far more measured than her predecessor’s — or Pink’s.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath wants 15% cut to auto insurance premiums

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s call to slash auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent by year end was met with scorn by the Ontario insurance industry.

“The NDP’s math has always been wonky to begin with,” Pete Karageorgos, manager of consumer and industry relations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada (Ontario), told the Star.

He said a hit of 15 per cent could means layoffs in an industry that employs about 77,000 in Ontario.

Spotlight on NDP difference

When provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath extracted progressive concessions from Ontario’s Liberal premier, Dalton McGuinty, as the price of preserving his government this week, she not only avoided an election but also underlined the very real differences between the two parties.

Horwath has boldly secured a tax on the super-rich, soft-pedalled by the Libs as a surtax, a seemingly radical move supported by the vast majority of Canadians, though only reluctantly by McGuinty.

She’s managed to put the notion of reasonable taxation back in discussion at a time when the Liberals provincially are trying to position themselves as Slash-and-Burn Lite while in fact cutting like the Conservatives federally – except where restrained by the NDP. As Harper’s Conservatives come under fire for outrageously over-budget spending on unnecessary fighter planes, the Liberals simply call for open bids.

The NDP says forget the weapons of mass budget destruction altogether and use the money for social programs, hospitals and education. Two vastly different approaches for parties too quickly lumped together by progressives.

Ontario NDP’s fresh face masks a real threat

Andrea Horwath doesn’t look like the most dangerous woman in Ontario. The blonde single mother slips a sweetener in her cappucino and laughs easily as she talks about the first week in the campaign. But it is the very fact that she is a fresh face in the provincial race — a likeable alternative to the two middle-aged males leading the other parties — that makes her such a threat.

Even at current polling levels, Ms. Horwath may hold the balance of power in a minority government. And that’s before the leaders’ debate, in which she stands a very good chance of picking up more support, particularly among women, who are likely to respond well to her brand of warm fuzziness.

That would be a very bad thing for the province. The NDP platform envisages reversing the Liberals’ corporate tax cut regime to take the provincial component back to 14% from the current 11.5% (the Grits plan to reduce it further to 10% to give the province a combined federal-provincial rate of 25%).