Whatever else, it wasn't 'time for a change' in Ontario

Any way you want to look at it, the provincial election produced a massive endorsation of the status quo.

Provincially, Premier Dalton McGuinty did what no other Liberal premier of Ontario had done since Mitch Hepburn accomplished the feat in 1934 and 1937, winning back-to-back majorities.

The feat was all the more significant in that McGuinty faced a challenge no previous Ontario premier had, as the result of adopting a fixed date for the election. This denied him the opportunity of striking when the iron is hot, calling an election when the polls showed he was ahead, or in a favourite month, such as June, when voters tend to be in a better mood.

But it wasn't just in re-electing the incumbents that electors demonstrated their disdain for change. There was also the overwhelming repudiation of the proposed MMP (mixed-member proportional) electoral reform, with 2.6 million voters (63.2 per cent) rejecting the idea and fewer than 1.6 million favouring it.

Locally, the results were similar - the electors of Dufferin-Caledon again sending a Progressive Conservative to Queen's Park, albeit without a majority of votes cast, and following the provincial trend in voting 24,736 to 13,867 against the MMP proposal.

Interestingly, the election result showed how different things would have been if the MMP proposal had already been implemented. The Liberals would have faced the possibility of post-election defeat, in that they would likely have wound up with a minority of seats (based on having obtained only 42% of the popular vote) and could be ousted in a non-confidence vote that had multiparty support.

Beyond that, PC leader John Tory could have been awarded one of the at large seats; the Green Party's 8% popular support would have been worth several of those seats, and the NDP's support at 16.8% would have given them a lot more than the 10 seats they now have.

We're left wondering what the result would have been if Ontario voters had been given three choices in the referendum - the status quo, full MMP, and a small measure of MMP.

Our hunch is that most Ontarians would like the idea of having a handful of seats occupied on the basis of province-wide party support, with two requirements being that to qualify, a party would have to garner at least 5% of the popular vote, and the seats would be occupied only by the unsuccessful candidates who came closest to winning.

As we see it, the other good idea that went too far was John Tory's proposal to provide full funding for faith-based schools.

The idea was based on a realization that the existing system is terribly discriminatory, with non-Roman Catholics now having to contribute just as much as Catholics to supporting that faith's school system.

It wasn't always that way; far from it. Back in the days of one-room schools, the costs of elementary schooling were paid through property taxes that could be directed to the public or separate school system.

Even when former premier Bill Davis decided to provide full provincial funding of Catholic high schools, most of the separate school boards' revenues were still coming from Catholics through their property taxes. But now, most of the money comes from the provincial treasury and the education portion of property taxes goes to the Province.

The real challenge facing the McGuinty Liberals is to find a way of eliminating, or at least reducing, the discrimination without breaking the bank.

Tempting as it might be to her, we don't think Sylvia Jones should offer to give up her seat so John Tory will be able to succeed her via yet another local byelection.

We think it would be far preferable for the provincial Conservatives to approach their federal cousins with a proposal for a Senate appointment. After 17 years as MP for the riding now known as Simcoe-Grey, Jim Wilson faced seven opponents, yet became one of the few candidates to win a majority of votes (24,139 out of 47,731 ballots cast). Should he agree to accept such an appointment, the way would be clear for Tory to seek the PC nomination in a riding that appears to be a lot safer than Dufferin- Caledon.

Although Jones won handily, the fact is that of every 100 eligible Dufferin- Caledon voters, only 54 bothered to vote, and of those, only about 22 voted PC.