News: Provincial election round-table

As results began to trickle in, we asked how you voted

From left: Mark Liotta, 20, Jamie Sturgeon (reporter), Mark Cumbo, 26, Mike Mitchell, 18, Garland Anthony, 21, foreground. photo/Drew de Souza

By Jamie Sturgeon, Humber Et Cetera
Oct. 11, 2007, 4:49 p.m.

Last night the Ontario Liberal Party won the provincial election by a convincing margin, taking 71 ridings out of possible 107, leaving the Progressive Conservatives with 26, New Democrats 10, and the Green Party once again shut out of Parliament.

As voting stations wound down the counting across the province, the Humber Et Cetera invited four Humber students to weigh in on how the did — or did not — vote.

Of the four that agreed to participate, three voted while one did not. Of those three, two voted Liberal and one NDP.

Marc Cumbo’s vote for the Liberals was more a vote against the PCs than in favour of the Liberals, he said.

“I voted primarily to keep the conservative candidate from winning in my riding,” the 26-year-old paralegal studies student and Humber Student Federation board member said last night.

Cumbo added that he expected Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals to “marginally improve things” this time around. “Which is better than destroying things.”

The other Liberal vote in the group went to Mike Mitchell, an 18-year-old business administration student.

“I thought the previous years before the conservatives came to power, [the Liberals] had done a pretty good job anyways,” he said, adding that in general he aligns himself more with a Liberal outlook than a conservative one.

The lone New Democrat vote belonged to Mark Liotta, a 20-year-old general arts and science student.

“I voted NDP because I’m sick of Dalton McGuinty and his broken promises,” he said.

Garland Anthony, 21, did not vote yesterday out of a reluctance to participate in the current system, he said.

“I didn’t vote because of my ideology,” said the third-year film student. “I consider voting now a compromise. I don’t agree with any of the policies the major parties have to offer, so why should I give them my vote and help them win?” Anthony said.

Anthony added that he had intentions of voting in the electoral referendum also taking place last night, but found out too late that it was being held on the same date.

“I would have voted in the referendum and I would have supported it.”

The referendum, where voters were asked to decided by between the current system called first-past-the-post and a alternative system called mixed-member-proportional would see parties receive seats in Parliament based on their percentage of the popular vote as well as electing winners from individual ridings.

It’s a fairer system according to Cumbo, and may have persuaded him to vote for a smaller party had it already been in use.

“If we had the extra [option] on the ballot this time, I may have voted NDP or even Green,” Cumbo said. “But voting for either of those parties currently would have been futile.”

Yet, he also said that voting in any system was an important thing to do.

“You have to vote,” Cumbo said.

“Elections affect you. Even if you vote against somebody and not for someone else, like I did, you’re still affecting the way the province will be run.”

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Editorial: Tory's instincts are right, his solution is not

The Ontario PC leader has dug his own grave by attempting to answer a difficult question on education with the wrong answer

By James Sturgeon, Op-Ed Editor, Humber Et Cetera

Progressive Conservative leader John Tory certainly painted himself into a tight corner over the past few months after pledging to publicly fund an assortment of faith-based private schools a cornerstone of his campaign.

His pledge to inject $400-million of public funds into private Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Islamic and Jewish schools alongside the annual ante for Ontario’s public and Catholic school systems has become his Achilles heel in recent weeks, creating a comfortable 10-point margin between his PCs and the leading Liberals.

His pledge has been denounced as divisive and politically motivated by both the NDP and Liberals.

Even members of his own party have broken rank to oppose to it.

It is little wonder than, that Tory backed off the promise on Monday, saying that, if elected premier, he would allow a free vote in Queen’s Park determine the outcome.

He shouldn’t have to worry about that.

The overwhelming opinion of political pundits across the province is unanimous; the damage caused by the issue has doomed him, even with Monday’s abrupt about-face.

Yet the promise did serve to expose a colossal flaw in Ontario's education system.

At the heart of Tory’s proposal was a purported allegiance to “fairness.” Fairness to the 53,000 private religious school students who must pay for the entirety of their education, while the 625,000 Catholic school students ride for free.

Yet what of fairness for the 2.1 million public school students in Ontario who’s families would be on the hook for an enlarged separate system? Is it fair to fund a system that fosters exclusivity yet makes demands on all Ontarians?

“We still do need to address the issue of fairness and inclusion in our school system, and I stand by that,” he said shortly after the press conference on Monday.

He too is right, though. It is his solution that is wrong.

The opinion of this newspaper is that sooner or later, Ontario will be forced to grapple with the impossible task of funding all faith-based private schools, or none at all.

And, to cordially endorse a recent Toronto Star editorial, “On that day, Ontarians should be ready with a single secular public education system that will welcome all students, whatever their beliefs.”