Here’s a website I heard about on the CBC the other day. It is run by an Ontario Conservative MP and it keeps a list of all the campaign promises that the Liberals have broken so far, since they came into office a few months ago.
It’s a little over the top, but I’m happy to see someone keeping track of the numerous things the Liberals have already failed to deliver on. I did not vote for Mike Harris and the Conservatives in the previous two provincial elections, but I always pointed out how Mike did follow through on the majority of his promises. I had very little patience for people who did vote Conservative, then complained bitterly about cuts, when the Conservatives said as much that that was their plan right during the campaign! I was impressed that the Conservatives followed through on some unpopular choices in order to deliver on their campaign promises.
I’m quite disgusted at the track record of Dalton McGuinty so far (who I despise — he’s a shifty-eyed little troll). His broken promises so far include: to balance the budget this year; to cap Hydro rates; to stop development on the environmentally sensitive Oak Ridges Moraine; to reduce auto insurance rates by 20%; to provide 2 cents from every litre of gas sold for public transit improvements; and to extend medical benefits to autistic children beyond the age of 6. However, I can’t say I’m too surprised. During the campaign, it was clear to me that they were willing to say whatever to anyone to get a vote; they repeatedly failed to answer important questions on a) how they were going to pay for all their expensive promises while still balancing the budget and not raising taxes (another promise), and b) how they were going to resolve some apparently contradictory promises. I guess we now have our answer — they’d just break them, and hope the public would forget.
The sad thing is, I’m not sure the majority of voters in Ontario really care. It’s more than the fact that they just aren’t paying attention; it’s that people, I think, have a tendency to vote in a reactionary way. Instead of actually looking at the platforms and issues of each party at each election, they either vote for “keep things the same” or “change things around”. They’ll vote for their current representative if they’re happy, and they’ll vote for the other major party if they’re unhappy, and they don’t really listen to what the candidates are proposing. So most voters probably didn’t vote Liberal because they expected results on a specific issue; they just voted Liberal because they were mad at the Conservatives and voting Liberal is their next option.
Already I see this happening on a federal level, where the public seems to be getting pretty pissed off at the Liberals for scandals and favouritism. The thought of people voting Stephen Harper as the next Prime Minister — given his far-right views on some sensitive issues — just because they want to punish the Liberals is darn scary. I guess I just wish people paid more attention to what politicians say they are going to do when voting — and I wish people cared more about holding their reps responsible, maybe even in a legal way, when those key promises are broken.
Sigh.
TurtleHead 