In his over 30 years of public service Sen. Bob Runciman has never shied away from telling it the way it is.
After eight years of broken promises, higher taxes, record deficits, and a decline to have-not status, it was startling to many Ontarians to see two recent polls showing Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals still have a reasonable chance of re-election Oct. 6.
They’re trailing Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives, but not by much, according to both Nanos Research and Ipsos Reid.
But, it’s not so surprising when one considers the built-in advantage provided to McGuinty by his powerful friends in the union movement.
He’ll be able, in effect, to outspend the Tories and the NDP by a wide margin because of the involvement of the union-funded Liberal-friendly group, the Working Families Coalition, which will spend an estimated $5-7 million to demonize Hudak and the Tories.
And that’s aside from the $3 million the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association is raising from a special levy on its members to campaign against the Conservatives.
For Hudak’s Tories and Andrea Horwath’s NDP, trying to compete with that kind of money, when limited yourself by Elections Ontario spending rules, is like running a 100- yard dash where your competitor starts at the 50-yard line.
