Ontario's NDP

Reading the Tor Star they had an article by Urqhart on the NDP and it did strike a cord with me -- the basic hypothesis was that the NDP although not poised to form a government will influence the direction of the government. I as a former provincial bureaucrat well understand that message -- having worked under all three of the parties -- I can honestly say that they are pretty much of a muchness when they get into power -- self interest does tend to reign.

That all being said the NDP does tend to have some real gems in their policy platform -- they actually consult with real people -- as compared to the Tories and the Liberals who tend to talk to the same 5 or 6 people and their pollsters and roll it out to their party faithful as the publics latest greatest needs and wants.

As a bureaucrat we routinely borrowed recycled from the NDP platform, added the correct wording made some vague reference to consistency with the Government platform and helped them to make it their own.

The NDP in power is a scary thing -- not because of their platform -- but because they are just not able to make decisions -- everything is done by consensus and takes far too much time -- I actually had to consult with a sowing circle (yes like knitting) out of some small town in Ontario when looking at ag stabilization programs. Very nice people but they had absolutely no idea what they were there for.

The NDP the official supplier of some good policy -- and damn good at it too. Now take this with a grain of salt as some of their ideas were just plain wacky -- take this lets just freeze everything in Ontario back in 2003. Howard needs some better advice.