Ontario Leaders Await Voters Verdict

The leaders of Ontario's three major parties took long rides home yesterday to await the verdict of the province's voters after 29 frenetic days of policy pronouncements, insults, gaffes and photo opportunities.

Thursday, one of the three will return to Toronto as the man picked to be premier.

And while the election is fated to be remembered for attack ads and a "reptilian kitten-eater" comment, the three leaders fought to the last minute to impress its importance on voters.

Yesterday was their last chance to bid for the support that they need if they are to succeed in their grasp for power.

Progressive Conservative Leader Ernie Eves, striving desperately to return as premier, took his campaign bus through endangered Tory strongholds in Toronto, Mississauga, Milton and Thornhill, then on to his home outside Orangeville.

He urged his supporters not to give up until the last vote is cast. "Tomorrow is a very, very, very important day," he said beside an apple orchard in Milton.

Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty took his bus along Highway 401, then up to his home in Ottawa.

He started at 7:30 a.m. on a Toronto radio station, then hit Tory ridings targeted by the Liberals in Whitby, Belleville, and Brockville before attending a rally at his Ottawa South constituency headquarters.

Mr. McGuinty explained why he and his campaign have been more effective than in their unsuccessful bid for power in 1999: "I told myself that, at the end of this evening, I want to be in a position to say I ran the kind of campaign that I wanted to run."

New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton took a campaign plane across Northern Ontario.

He started by trying to shore up his party's support in Sault Ste. Marie, then campaigned in Thunder Bay before returning to his riding of Rainy River with stops in Kenora and his home of Fort Frances.

"I can tell you that on . . . the night of Oct. 2, there are going to be an awful lot of people across Ontario who are pleasantly surprised by the results, at how well we do," he said in Sault Ste. Marie.

Polls open today at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Residents of Ontario who are Canadian citizens but who are not on the voters' registry can vote if they arrive at their polling stations with proper identification.

Elections Ontario will provide more details at 1-888-ONT-VOTE (1-888-668-8683), which is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., or at its Web site www.electionsontario.on.ca. Advertisements on the locations and telephone numbers for returning offices were contained in newspapers yesterday.

Greatly oversimplified, the choices for voters among the three major parties are: •The incumbent Conservatives, who would continue with tax cuts that they argue boost the economy; •The Liberals, who argue that now is not the time for more tax cuts and who would spend more on public services; •And the New Democrats, who contend that only they would keep essential services such as health care and the electricity system in public hands.

Voters are anxious to express their opinions, according to turnout at the advance polls.

An unofficial estimate by Elections Ontario puts the number of advance ballots cast at 344,564. Normal turnout in Ontario elections has been about 60 per cent recently, which would point to about 4.8 million people casting ballots this time around.

In other words, 7 per cent of those who intend to vote showed up at advance polls, an exceptionally high turnout, according to veteran political observer Brian O'Riordan, vice-president of G.P. Murray Research Ltd.

"That smacks of the type of thing voters do when they want to turf somebody out," he said.

MPPs have noted the heavier-than-usual turnout and have speculated that it could come from improved efforts by Elections Ontario to boost voter participation.

On the eve of the election, few wanted to tempt fate by interpreting the turnout. "It does feel like something is going on," was all that one Liberal would risk.

The Conservatives had their views. They suggested a heavy turnout would prove that Mr. Eves had been correct when he said that polls predicting his party's demise had not factored in "the silent majority" who would come out to endorse the Tories.

One veteran Conservative saw the high turnout as a positive sign. "Our statistics indicate that we were very effective in turning out our vote for the advance polls."

As the campaign ended, Mr. Eves apologized for his remarks on Wednesday in which he described Mr. McGuinty as having a "little, sharp pointy head."

"The remark I made about Mr. McGuinty yesterday was quite frankly inappropriate," Mr. Eves told reporters after a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade. "It was probably out of frustration. I'm trying to get this message through to people that if you go down this road [of more spending], I just want you to understand exactly what it is that you're voting for."

"I've known Mr. Eves for 13 years and that's not the Ernie Eves that I've come to know, it's just not," he said. "He must be very tired."

Negative comments have dogged Mr. Eves since his party launched attack ads on Mr. McGuinty and followed up with a message to reporters calling the Liberal leader "an evil, reptilian kitten-eater from another planet."

While Tory officials dismissed the comment as an errant attempt at humour, the Liberals capitalized on it.

Every meeting attended by Mr. McGuinty saw legions of supporters wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan "I'm an evil, reptilian kitten-eater because I support change." With reports from Gloria Galloway and Graeme Smith

Aww man! Enough of the fundraiser posts!!!

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The 3 parties mentioned are all Jackoffs...especially the NDP..look what they did to the residents of BC with the Fast Cat ferries BS...Paid around $500 Mega Bucks US for 3 boats and sold them for $18 Mega Bucks US to a company in Washington State...

I think the main reason that the Canadian Guberment is registering all firearms is because they are scared that the people will one day take their rifles to Parliament and do something about the politicians...

McGuinty is going to win, unfortunately. Eves hasn't been all that great himself, but I suppose the province needs to spend the next few years in the gutter so that they can realize how good they had it and then put the conservatives back in.

Two of the parties are socialist, one is conservative.

Progressive Conservative.

They are all socialists. Or, really, cynical opportunists, which is synonymous at this level ;-)

All, that is, except for Freedom Party of Ontario

Eves hasn't been all that great himself, but I suppose the province needs to spend the next few years in the gutter

That's pretty much what's happening . Eves , who may not survive in his own riding , will be replaced by Clement or someone like him. McGuinty can't deliver on his promises and like the Peterson Liberals of the late 80's will resort to lying their way through their mandate. The NDP are a non issue, surviving mostly in heavily unionized ridings . We've had two consecutive Conservative governments, it's time for one step back, then two ahead.

Well yes, and it only makes sense. Look what happened after the Rae government. The NDP crashed and burned and never came back. After a term of Dalton, the pendulum will (hopefully) swing back, and maybe, just maybe, the Tories will have a strong leader by then.

The fatal error was the 2002 budget that hiked taxes and boosted spending- the party abandoned its core vote without a hope of winning over anyone who supported the opposition. They will lose today not because the Liberals have gained support, but because Harris supporters are sitting this one out. The day after the 2002 budget was released I emailed Jim Flaherty to let him know that I would support him for leadership after the party loses the next election; apparently many others contacted him to express the same sentiment.

Yeah, I had heard that Flaherty was the most conservative of the candidates and Eves was the most liberal, and that electing Eves would work against them.

Well while I'm not watching baseball tonight, I'll check in and see the results. Probably won't like what I see, but I'll still take a peek.

Well Flaherty survived, as did Eves, but Clement didn't . NDP dropped to 7 seats losing official party status.

With a Liberal majority in power Ontario will be shutting down for business . McGuinty is already in trouble. Those special interest groups he courted will want gratification now and he can't deliver. He's got 70 new backbenchers all screaming for attention . His promise of limited class room sizes requires an estimated 5000 teachers and uncounted extra classrooms.
Promises of thousands of nurses to be hired and the elimination of private medical services. Not going to happen considering he also promised no increased taxes and no deficit.

Watch for him to try and harmonize the PST with the Feds GST. That means taxing a lot of things that are now provincially exempt . Taxing tax which is illegal but goes on anyway..

Like I said, One step back. In 4 years, Two ahead.

Well, the worst is yet to come- he's promised to eliminate coal-fired generating stations by 2007. That's nearly a third of our capacity and there are no plans to build that much generation in so short a time.

Eves was a faux-Conservative all along. He mouthed the words of conservative policies but it was easy to see he didn't believe in them. He'd be a perfect fit with the RINOs in Congress.

Eves blew it bigtime. He's what you call a Red Tory. The problem is, it's been so long since Ontario was Liberal, that the young people can't remember how bad it was. Oh well, I guess it's cost of living increases for welfare recipients all round. Too many recent immigrants here that don't realise the Libs will bankrupt us. They'll soon learn though...I give this guy one term, and then the Tories will be back in to clean the mess up. I guess the silver lining is that when the Provincial Liberals piss off all the residents of Ontario, it'll show in the Federal election.....

If we can just get Mike Harris to run Federally and end the bickering between the two conservative parties, we'll be able to elect a Federal conservative party again.

I agree.

And how is Dalton gonna pay for all those promises? I expect the Liberals after they look at the finances to say things were worse than they thought, we need to raise taxes. To the applause of the unions, the Toronto Star, and the loony left.

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