The news media went bonkers. And why not? The Liberals, who of late appear to be Ontario’s natural governing party, officially launched their platform yesterday. This was the final platform release by Ontario’s major political parties, so it marked the midpoint of the pseudo-biblical temptation of the voter.
Sure, the campaign isn’t exactly 40 days (although for some of us it feels like we’ve been subject to a campaign for the last two years), but the context is essentially the same. We the voters, generally good people who want the best for our province, are thrown into a desert of despair, and must fight temptation as each of the party leaders, the devils, dangle little treats in front of our noses. Unlike in the Bible, it is not sacrilegious for a voter to succumb to temptation. No, in our case it’s just plain stupid. Anyone with half a brain knows that 90% of what party leaders promise during the temptation of the voter is a complete lie.
Imagine…1 million jobs! A Minister of Accountability! These things sound nice. But that’s just the PC and NDP offers. What about the Liberals?
$29 billion for transportation networks? $1 billion for the Ring of Fire? Wow, no wonder these guys won the last three elections…their numbers are all an order of magnitude bigger than the opposition!
“On va faire d’Ontario, un pays!…er, balanced budget”
Frank Gunn
But does this predict another victory for the Ontario Liberals? Not necessarily. Need proof? There’s a reason that they’re called the Fiberals and the Lie-berals these days, and it isn’t because Kathleen Wynne wants to distance herself from the party’s past. No, it’s because voters eventually realize that they’ve walked through this desert several times, and that it’s always exactly the same. The lies sound good at first, but then the voter realizes that nothing’s changed, and all of a sudden things start to make sense. Fool me once, majority. Fool me twice, majority. Fool me three times, minority. Fool me four times, and why are we still keeping track? Sure, the Liberals released their platform, but Ontarians have every right to demand a safety inspection before they try to stand on it. The same goes for every party platform. We as voters owe it to ourselves to remember that this is a walk through the desert, and that, come election day, we don’t want to put ourselves right back where we started.