Your Home, Your Vote: Tuesday roundup

(Updated)

After a long stretch of minority government in Ontario — it appears that two traditional rivals are moving out of their comfort zones in a bid to move in to a majority at Queen’s Park. Both the Liberals and Tories are venturing into what might be perceived as hostile territory — hoping to win new votes.

Farm country is not generally fertile ground for Liberal politicians these days. But that didn’t furrow the brow of Kathleen Wynne. Red rubber boots at the ready — she announced a new 400-million dollar program to help farmers and food processors thrive in the huge agri-business industry: “This is a 34 billion dollar industry. There are thousands of farmers in Ontario — some of them large, some of them smaller — but every one of them is important to the economy of the province.

Be that as it may — Kathleen Wynne has a significant image problem, with rural voters: “Takes more than red rubber boots to be the agriculture minister.”

Be it the farms of southern Ontario — or resource rich northern Ontario — Wynne is seen as an outsider: “How do you expect that you’ll get people on side and stop being the downtown Toronto premier that you are now.”

It’s a criticism that the Tim Hudak and the Tories whole-heartedly embrace: “Basically, the Far North Ontario Act has this downtown Toronto viewpoint of Northern Ontario.”

Ironically, if anything, Hudak has the opposite problem to Wynne — finding it tough to woo urban voters. And so to date, most of his appearances have been in and around Toronto, like this one at a Mississauga custom cabinetry shop. Wynne for her part is dismissive of the ‘downtown Toronto’ label — saying her government represents the whole province: “That’s what our government is about. It’s about providing opportunity for every child in this province, and every family no matter where they live. That’s what One Ontario is.”

And as the Tories and Liberals seemingly try to steal votes from each other — the NDP readily rains, on both parades: “They don’t have to choose a party that was mired in waste and scandal, disrespectful of the tax dollar. Nor do they have to choose a party that are bringing solutions to the table that don’t really seem to make sense to anyone.”

So what about the issues on the trail today? Well, they are almost getting lost on voters who increasingly see campaign promises, as just more empty rhetoric from politicians who want to stay in power. For the record however, the Liberals were pitching help for farmers. The Conservatives were sticking to their million jobs plan. And the NDP were trying to roll out a four-point plan to reduce wait times in Ontario hospitals by hiring more nurse practitioners, adding 14-hundred long term care beds, and opening 50 new 24-hour family health clinics. They all sound like great ideas. The only problem is getting voters to believe in them.