[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Kindergarten has always been optional. Heck, any grade is optional, as long as you educate your kids somehow ... kids can learn the important parts of the curriculum of most grades in a handful of weeks if they want.

Right, sure.
But if you wanted to send your kid to kindergarten the options have been all-day on odd days or half-days everyday. So, now there's another option to fill in the gap there. I don't see any downside to it.

To drag things back on thread, it's disappointing transit (and its boogeyman partner, gridlock!) have just been off the radar. It would be pretty easy for McGuinty to put his transit investments up against what Harris did but no one really seems to care either way. Kim Campbell was ahead of her time when she said elections aren't the time to talk about issues.

 

[TOareaFan]

Right, sure.
But if you wanted to send your kid to kindergarten the options have been all-day on odd days or half-days everyday. So, now there's another option to fill in the gap there. I don't see any downside to it.

To drag things back on thread, it's disappointing transit (and its boogeyman partner, gridlock!) have just been off the radar. It would be pretty easy for McGuinty to put his transit investments up against what Harris did but no one really seems to care either way. Kim Campbell was ahead of her time when she said elections aren't the time to talk about issues.

I guess he would....if he was running against Harris?

 

[liamdevlin02]

I guess he would....if he was running against Harris?

This is exactly it. People need to remember that McGuinty has been in power for two terms now and Harris has been out of office since 2002.

The PCs have said they've got 35 billion for traffic and infrastructure. Anyone shot any holes in that yet?

 

[rbt]

This is exactly it. People need to remember that McGuinty has been in power for two terms now and Harris has been out of office since 2002.

The PCs have said they've got 35 billion for traffic and infrastructure. Anyone shot any holes in that yet?

It's roughly the value that McGuinty has set aside in future budget years plus about 2% of the budget per year.

Once you take out funding for Eglinton LRT-Subway ($8B), numerous GO projects, Ottawa projects, Spadina Subway (~$1.5B remaining), required highway maintenance, etc. then you aren't left with very much.

Not terribly impressed with NDP transportation platform either. Reducing fares won't get more people on an already crowded bus, or subway train. $500M/year (roughly what they would give toward operations province wide) could build something useful.

 

[k10ery]

This is exactly it. People need to remember that McGuinty has been in power for two terms now and Harris has been out of office since 2002.

The PCs have said they've got 35 billion for traffic and infrastructure. Anyone shot any holes in that yet?

Hudak's money would not be for public transit. It would go to all communities in proportion to population, for spending on roads. That seems like a large shift away from urban areas with congestion problems -- to semi urban and rural areas that vote PC.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

It's worth mentioning Hudak's gas tax policy too: Right now it goes to something like 90 municipalities to fund transit but he thinks that's unfair to municipalities that DON'T have transit. So he'd (somehow) give all 400+ a slice of the pie for infrastructure without (he says) diminishing what anyone gets now.

It strikes me as oddly, well, socialist to say that some random little town needs gas tax money as much as Toronto or Mississauga just on principle but...well, that's his idea.

 

[k10ery]

That's the part of the infrastructure funding I was talking about.

But what's socialist about trolling for farmers' votes? (There's still a lot of Liberal MPPs in rural southern Ontario, but for how much longer?)

 

[gweed123]

It's worth mentioning Hudak's gas tax policy too: Right now it goes to something like 90 municipalities to fund transit but he thinks that's unfair to municipalities that DON'T have transit. So he'd (somehow) give all 400+ a slice of the pie for infrastructure without (he says) diminishing what anyone gets now.

It strikes me as oddly, well, socialist to say that some random little town needs gas tax money as much as Toronto or Mississauga just on principle but...well, that's his idea.

I don't mind this actually. Personally, I'd like to see the gas tax money given out on the basis of population. You have 15% of the province's population? You get 15% of the gas tax revenue. That way, municipalities can count on a relatively stable source of funding for infrastructure improvements/maintenance. And yes, that includes roads. If a small town gets a few thousand dollars from the gas tax revenue, that could potentially mean the difference between having a smooth Main St, and one that's more pot holes than pavement.

 

[doady]

It's worth mentioning Hudak's gas tax policy too: Right now it goes to something like 90 municipalities to fund transit but he thinks that's unfair to municipalities that DON'T have transit. So he'd (somehow) give all 400+ a slice of the pie for infrastructure without (he says) diminishing what anyone gets now.

Of course, Hudak's explanation about how the gas tax funding is allocated is completely wrong as the formula is based 30% on population and 70% on transit, meaning EVERY municipality in Ontario gets funding. Hudak just wants it be 100% population, meaning that that he doesn't want gas tax to be spent on transit in large urban centres, that's all.