so, what's my projection for an ndp government? what do i think it's going to be like?

well, i'm not concerned about over spending, so much as i'm potentially concerned about cuts. but, i would also expect those cuts to mostly be transferred elsewhere. it would be more like a shift in priorities. and, it's probably not going to affect me much of any way or the other. it will be less money on this particular healthcare priority and more money on this other one, instead, sort of thing. i just hope the people that are affected have done their homework.

it's hard to take her seriously on her plan to buy back hydro one; i wouldn't expect that to happen. she may come up with some middle-point in between. if she does, that won't reduce rates. so, what's the point in doing it? see, this is an empty ideological thing, and while i might agree with her in principle, i don't agree with prioritizing it. and, unfortunately, i think she's misled a lot of people into thinking that buying back the lines will reduce costs, when it won't. ending time of use pricing is not going to reduce my hydro bill by 30%, either - it would be more like 2%, giving that i'm paying more than twice as much for delivery than i am for electricity. so, is she going to dictate terms to the board? it's supposed to be independent. maybe that itself is something that should change - maybe the board should come under stronger democratic oversight. but, if she follows through on her plan to end the refinancing, my hydro bill is going to increase. well, the upside is that i have $200 worth of credits, so it'll be a while before i pay anything. yet, how many people are going to vote ndp and then freak out when their hydro goes back up when she ends the refinancing? if you're voting for either horwath or ford to cut your electricity, you're going to be rightly pissed off in four years because neither of them will succeed in doing so. in the end, i'll be surprised if she does much of anything substantive on this file at all, because she's going to realize that the plans she's presented, while popular amongst low information voters, are going to harm her own re-election prospects if she actually follows through with them. so, i don't expect that an ndp government will actually be much different on hydro at all.

her platform has higher increases in social assistance than the liberals are promising, but the liberals are promising fairly substantive increases, as well. i'm skeptical that this gets changed, in the end - i think she'll probably follow through with what the liberals have already budgeted.

she says she'll let the gai experiment work it's way though, but i would expect the ndp to have a more producerist approach to labour, and not be happy about a gai, on ideological grounds. it was never totally clear if the liberals were going to actually do this or not (it came on the recommendation of a conservative senator, who is seeing it in negative income tax terms), but i think the ndp will probably kill it - and spend the money on job training, instead. this is a situation where the liberals are maybe a little more forward thinking in terms of understanding the future trajectory of the economy and are interested in protecting class interests through the welfare state, while the ndp are maybe stuck in backwards calvinist-style thinking that preaches ideas about personal salvation through hard work. unfortunately, a lot of voters may prefer that. but, as an anarchist advocate of positive freedom, this is the place where i break with workers parties, and maybe find them a little bit scary.

i think the question of the ndp's interest in environmental sustainability is a question mark, as they tend to focus more on pocket-book issues. if they win this election outright, they may argue this is one of the reasons for it. so, they may have less of an interest in pushing recycling programs or green bin programs, arguing it's not worth the money, and unpopular with voters. that's the other side of the ndp: they're a populist party. what that's going to do is shift the responsibility on to the individual, and open up a need for better activism. that might be a net benefit in the long run. if we're lucky, the green party wins their seat in guelph and gets a platform to keep them honest.

on the drug plan & dental plan, people are likely to be disappointed by what actually gets implemented.

broadly speaking, it's not going to be a catastrophe. i'm sure i'll find reasons to criticize them and reasons to praise them. and, while i might prefer the liberal plan for the reasons i've outlined, i'm not likely to find myself in deep opposition to an ndp government, either.