Meghan Markle and her mother, Doria Ragland, on their way to tea with the Queen, May 2018.

Meghan Markle and Harry Wales have now shown the world that the British monarchy does have some kind of modern future. (Though, somewhat intriguingly, what was once the website of “The British Monarchy” nowadays just calls itself “The home of the Royal Family.”)

Meanwhile, back in the most northerly North American UN member state, Canada Day 2018  may also be a good time to think further about Jonathan Manthorpe’s helpful April 18 ipolitics report on “Commonwealth countries consider life after Queen Elizabeth.”

Long before the new populist age of Doug Ford (and some would add Donald Trump), Mr. Manthorpe’s book on The Power and the Tories in Canada’s most populous province convinced more than a few readers that (strange as it may seem) Ontario politics was interesting.

Canada Day 2018 fireworks set off between the North Shore and Canada Place in Vancouver start at 10:30 PM PT.

Many years later, his report on life in the Commonwealth after the Queen usefully frames a broad policy debate we ought to be having (quietly and craftily) in all parts of Canada today.

He urges that : “Directly electing the head of state sounds like a great democratic advance, but it is not.” From another point of view, this proposition at least deserves to be challenged, in a friendly, upbeat spirit, inspired by diverse traditions of compromise — and perhaps especially at a time when a president next door actually seems to be threatening the Canadian future (in one way or another).

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The city at night.

I agreed with a lot in  Masha Gessen’s Friday, June 22 column for The New Yorker : “Trump’s Opponents Aren’t Arguing for ‘Open Borders’—But Maybe They Should.”

It fits with the “global village” that the Edmonton-born Marshall McLuhan began to talk about in the 1960s. And this has come to echo loudly in the now very diverse City of Toronto where he ended his life (and where I live today) — and in various other places around the world.

At the same time, when I finished Masha Gessen’s piece I also found myself remembering Robert Frost’s wonderfully memorable poem of early 20th century New England, “Mending Wall.” It seems to have some particular relevance for the USA today, even though it was written more than 100 years ago.

Frost’s poem captures something quite deeply rooted in the modern American experience, I think. And it is one of Donald Trump’s undoubted if still largely mystical talents that he has a crude but sometimes deadly instinct for appealing to such things.

Frost farm in New England autumn today.

For better or worse, this place has now been restored as a “Frost Farm” heritage site, and you can still see the stone wall that appears in “Mending Wall.” Very briefly, the poem is about a conversation between farmer Robert Frost and his neighbouring New England farmer, as they go about their annual exercise of repairing the wall between their two properties.

The poem begins : “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,/That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,/And spills the upper boulders in the sun;/And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.” As was the custom, however, the poet meets his neighbour “at spring mending-time” to repair such gaps, and “set the wall between us once again.”

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The still seriously unreformed Senate of Canada wisely passed Bill C-45, the government's legislation to legalize recreational marijuana, Tuesday evening, June 19, 2018, without further toil and trouble. (Mark Blinch/Canadian Press).

[UPDATED JUNE 21 (& happy summer solstice) & JUNE 22]. Something Donald Trump tweeted this past Monday morning illustrates one of the many things wrong with his view of the real world I live in.

In Mr. Trump’s own words : “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

As I have tried to write down what I object to in these three sentences I have fallen into what may be the ultimate depths of the issue. (A fate the stunning new information technology of our time  so easily promotes.)

Stepping back from the ultimate depths for a moment, I began my quest with : “what is wrong with these three particular Donald Trump sentences on Germany and Europe?”

In the first place, crime in Germany is way down, not way up.

(See, eg : “Actual German crime data from last month shows the national crime rate in Germany over the previous year was at its lowest level since 1992.” Or : “Crime actually fell in 2017 by 9.6 percent in Germany … Also, crimes by non-German suspects fell by 22 percent in 2017. By any measure, Germany has far less violent crime than the US.”)

This may not be a “real-life” photo of Donald Trump with a gun in his hand, of course, but it seems arguable that it at least speaks a language he admires. Thanks to North Amarillo Now — part of the rising tide that will eventually rule Texas!

So the second of Mr. Trump’s sentences above is simply factually incorrect. This is admittedly not an issue that seems to worry his own art-of-the-deal political philosophy unduly. But for those who want to be at least outwardly sensible it ought to raise concerns.

From a more complex angle, Donald Trump’s three sentences about Germany and Europe (above, in italics) were tweeted in defence of his (and Jeff Sessions’) own deeply mean-spirited recent immigration policy practice of separating children from parents (just now discontinued), in migrant families who break the law along the US-Mexico border. (See, eg: “President Trump blames Democrats, doubles down on immigration amid backlash.” And, most recently : “After outcry, Trump signs order that will stop separations and detain families together … ’The border is just as tough, but we do want to keep families together,’ president says.”

[For June 21 UPDATE click on "Read the rest of this page" and/or scroll below].

UPDATE JUNE 22 : If this US domestic struggle over immigration policy finally does become “a defining moment” for the Trump presidency — with much impact on the mid-term elections this coming November — an altogether  new report will be in order. Meanwhile, the author of this report, L. Frank Bunting, passes along his lightly annotated current reading list :

The original L. Frank B., 1856–1919. God knows what he would have made of the real-life Wizard of Oz who is now President of the United States of America?

* “Some families reunite in US as questions linger at border … Mixed signals continue for migrants as Trump chides Republicans.” (Associated Press, Jun 22).

* “Confusion, uncertainty at border after Trump’s about-face … Lawmakers reject hard-right immigration bill.” (Associated Press, Jun 21) … A hard-right bill was defeated when 41 Republicans crossed party lines to vote against it. The vote on a second bill, considered a compromise, was postponed as Republicans looked to rally support. Democrats oppose both measures as harsh. The second bill, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “may be a compromise with the devil, but it is not a compromise with the Democrats.”  Meanwhile Mr. Trump is advising Republican lawmakers to wait until November when : “We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!” in the mid-term elections.

* “Melania Trump wears ‘I really don’t care’ jacket before visiting migrant kids.” (Mr. Bunting notes : “I really have no idea what’s going on here. I thought it was a Photoshop joke at first.)

* “Italy to seize two migrant ships for ‘illegally flying Dutch flag’.” (Westmonster, Jun 22). Donald Trump would no doubt like the new Italian populist coalition government’s approach to immigration. And note that the “Westmonster” author of this article (a play on “Westminster”, home of the Mother of Parliaments?) is a UK website that believes in a “full, clean Brexit, defeating radical Islam, ending the scourge of violent crime.”

Former Republican Steve Schmidt, who will vote Democrat in the 2018 mid-term elections this November, because “the future of our country is at stake in many ways.”

* “Americans finding ways to work against Trump immigration policy” (From Rachel Maddow) ; “Record-High 75% of Americans Say Immigration Is Good Thing” ; and (alas?) Susan B. Glasser’s “Letter from Trump’s Washington” in The New Yorker : “Trump’s Cynical Immigration Strategy Might Work for Him—Again … The lesson Trump learned was not that saying shocking, untrue, and arguably racist things about immigrants was politically dangerous but that doing so helped him become President.”

* Bunting’s last update item here is another Canadian reporter’s look at the ultimate depths of the issue. In this case it’s Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason’s June 22 piece on Steve Schmidt,  who just resigned from the US Republican party : “The warning we must hear, from a former GOP loyalist.” Anyone who watches MSNBC TV in 2018 will need no introduction to Steve Schmidt. He believes his old Republican Party has become “corrupt, indecent and immoral” and a “danger to our democracy and values.” The Democratic Party “is now called” to defend “liberty and freedom.” It is “essential that Trumpism be repudiated.” Mr. Schmidt argues the upcoming midterm elections have seldom been so crucial. If Republicans maintain control of Congress, it will only embolden the President … “There is a lot riding on these elections …. Really, the future of our country is at stake in many ways.”

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Wild weather downs trees, wires across Toronto — as here in the St Clair and Oakwood area — 13 June 2018. Photo: Matty@mattytoophatty.

[UPDATED 4 PM]. The brief but fierce big rainy wind that toppled a huge old oak tree down by the lake is over, here in this big-urban Ontario NDP electoral district. But it also almost seemed like a meteorological comment on key current political events.

The human dramas have calmed down now, along with the big rainy wind. And like others of our citizenship — with “Protégera nos foyers et nos droits” ringing in our ears — we’re pleased to hear that the Angus Reid polling organization has discovered : “Canadians feeling confident, not cowed, post G7; prefer harder line in negotiations with Trump.”

Along the way, Justin Trudeau’s once-flagging approval rating has jumped up 12 percentage points. It is now almost back to where it was this time last year. And : “The surge in Trudeau’s approval rating comes alongside an uptick in support for his Liberal Party.”

(In an era when conspiracy theories do grow on trees, it is almost impossible not to wonder whether Prime Minister Trudeau and President Trump have cooked up their latest public quarrels, to gain domestic political advantages both could use at the moment? But of course this cannot possibly be true in Justin Trudeau’s case …  Well, probably … ?)

“Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau at the most recent G-7 summit, in Quebec. Photograph by Evan Vucci / AP.”

And then two gentlemen who may or may not be from the New York intelligentsia have acknowledged various deeper truths in : “Why Justin Trudeau Is Able to Stand Up to Donald Trump” (Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker) ; and “Trump’s Insults Are Bringing Out Canada’s Inner Fiery Nationalism” (Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine).

Finally, there are (were) Bill Maher’s warm words of love for Canada (home of several of his girlfriends?) — and the amusing Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump piece in his show from darkest Los Angeles last night. (Which also had George Will suggesting there is an argument the Mueller investigation has not been set up in a strictly proper way, or some such thing. Which may or may not mean who knows what for the increasingly absurd career of President Trump?)

In any case as of 4:02 PM ET, 15 Jun 2018, Maclean’s magazine journalist Paul Wells was tweeting : “For what it’s worth, I think the mood in Canada has shifted rapidly from outrage to ‘whatever’” …  Not too much later, we counterweights editors here can report that we (well … most of us) have now moved beyond our initial outrage too.

On June 14 the Toronto Marlies beat the Texas Stars 6-1 to win the Calder Cup — trophy of the American Hockey League championship.

Whatever else, President Trump has managed to unite the bitterly warring Canadian political classes, in both official languages, from coast to coast to coast, and from left to right and back again. That is a rare achievement.

The Trumpeter may have also provided a decisive reason for going ahead with the Trans Mountain pipeline in Alberta and BC  (while doing everything possible and more to protect Canada’s stunning Pacific coast). As Prime Minister Trudeau has noted, Trump’s US trade policies just underline the importance of diversifying Canada’s trade relationships. And Trans Mountain will open markets for Canadian oil in Asia instead of the United States.

Meanwhile, however the future develops exactly, we share the quiet faith in Canada’s unique northern North American destiny that the latest trade disputes with the USA (and Mexico) have once again laid bare. Go Canada Go. “Protégera nos foyers et nos droits”!

UPDATE 4:00 PM ET — This just in, from John Bowden  : “Americans favor Trudeau over Trump on trade policy: poll … A Global News/Ipsos poll released Saturday [JUNE 16] finds that Trudeau enjoys a 20-point advantage … among Americans when it comes to which leader respondents think is better handling the discussions over tariffs and other trade issues … “Fifty-seven percent of US respondents told the poll they support Trudeau’s actions, compared to just 37 percent who said the same for Trump.”

FOX News will not believe this, of course, but … could the venerable US Constitution actually be amended so that presidents have to be either born in the United States or have previously served as head of government of a neighbouring North American democracy? (Under some updated 21st century interpretation of the old Monroe Doctrine?) Certainly not of course. But if something like that ever did happen, former US head of government Barack Obama could win a reciprocal election as Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada successor without campaigning.

[UPDATED JUNE 10]. At somewhere around 3:00 AM the morning after, with 99.89 % of all polls reporting, the Doug Ford PCs have 76 seats (61.29% of the total) with 40.49% of the province-wide popular vote.

Andrea Horwath’s NDP has 40 seats with 33.57% of the popular vote. Kathleen Wynne’s former governing Liberals have 7 seats with 19.59% of the vote. And Mike Schreiner’s Green Party at last has 1 seat (his own, in Guelph) with 4.60% of the vote.

Mr. Ford’s victorious majority government is not quite of the greatest in Ontario history magnitude he once envisioned. As a handy chart published by the Globe and Mail makes clear, among the now 19 Conservative majority governments in the modern province the 61% of the seats won by the Ford Nation PCs in 2018 ranks 15th.

It’s better than the 59% of seats managed by John Robarts in 1967, but not quite as good as the 63% Mike Harris won in 1995. And it pales altogether beside the 88% won by Old Man Ontario Leslie Frost (aka The Silver Fox) in 1951, or the 85% won by Frost in 1955. Or the 81% achieved by James Pliny Whitney in 1908. Or even the 80% won by Howard Ferguson in 1929.

In any case it has generally proved true that this time the pollsters were pointing in the right direction. And, eg, Éric Grenier’s very final seat projections for the CBC Poll Tracker on June 6 (PC 78, NDP 45, LIB 1) underestimated the Liberals and overestimated the NDP (and even the PCs slightly), and left out the Green Party’s first seat in the legislature. But both here and in its % popular vote estimates the CBC Poll Tracker was close enough to what has finally happened to make M. Grenier look pretty good (and even the CBC too, maybe?).

On another front, with almost all the polls now reporting, Elections Ontario’s “Election Night Results” are estimating a province-wide voter turnout of 58% — at least up considerably from the 51% of 2014 and especially the 48% of 2011.

[For JUNE 10 UPDATE on Liberals and Green Party click on "Read the rest of this page" and/or scroll below.]

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At Doug Ford’s final event of the campaign, Caledonia Fairgrounds, June 6, 2018. Photo : Adam Radwanski.

If you altogether accept the polls as the best guide to what will happen in Ontario election 2018, it seems clear enough that the Ford Nation Progressive Conservatives will indeed win a majority government at Queen’s Park on June 7.

There are 124 seats in the Ontario legislature now, making 63 the minimum for a majority government.

As of 11:30 PM, June 6, Éric Grenier’s CBC Poll Tracker was projecting the final seat count as PC 74, NDP 49, LIB 1.

On the earlier afternoon of June 6, Barry Kay’s somewhat parallel operation at the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy was predicting PC 69, NDP 50, LIB 4, GR 1.

(Trying to check this later in the evening for any updates, I was greeted with “Too Many Users. Sorry, but this application has exceeded its quota of concurrent users. Please try again later.” There seems no reason to expect any large last-minute change in any case.)

Professor Kay’s “GR” wrinkle incorporates the likely enough prospect that Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner will win a seat at last in Guelph.

The smart money says Marit Stiles will take Toronto Davenport for the New Democrats.

(Somewhat intriguingly, Guelph is the home of the old Ontario Agricultural College, now known as the University of Guelph. And  Mike Schreiner was born and raised on a family farm in The Sunflower State of Kansas.)

Meanwhile, if the larger prospect of the late Rob Ford’s older brother, Doug Ford, as Premier of Ontario distresses you to no end, you might take some residual hope from an Adam Radwanski article in the Globe and Mail : “ Ontario’s election outcome is more volatile than polls suggest.”

I haven’t read this article. (You have to pay for it.) But I think I could imagine several different ways  in which Mr. Radwanski may be right? (Or not, of course?)

Set aside all more efficient PC translations of popular votes into seats. And the vote percentages from the “last instalment of the Maclean’s-Pollara tracking poll” — PC  38%, NDP 38%, LIB 17% — capture a mood  among certain observers. They harbour a sixth sense (hope?) that some slightly bigger final surprise than a PC majority government might be in the air.

More than one forecast seems to predict that Nathalie des Rosiers will keep her seat in Ottawa Vanier — even if no other Liberal wins anywhere else.

Anti-Premier-Ford voters could take additional heart from Abacus polling chair Bruce Anderson’s June 4 tweet : “Here’s a probability forecast published by the NY Times ON THE SAME DAY Donald Trump was elected President.  As the polls closed, the model said Clinton had an 85% chance of winning.”

(According to the CBC Poll Tracker, as of 11:30 PM on June 6, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have an 88% chance of winning a majority government.)

I am left with two conclusions myself. The first is that I am quite certain about the allocation of the 124 seats in the Ontario legislature I, Citizen X, would like to see when all the ballots are counted on June 7 —  PC 58, NDP 55, LIB 10, GR 1.

This would soon enough, I think, lead to some form of NDP-Liberal Accord government for the next two years, say, broadly on the model of the 1985 Liberal-NDP Accord.  And as far as I’m concerned this would be the best possible outcome of the election.

Will it actually happen? My second conclusion is that I am much less certain about what I think the final result in the real world will be, when all the ballots from all parts of the province are properly counted.

. How one group of 10 politically smart Ontario people think the 124 seats in the provincial legislature will be allocated after the June 7, 2018 election. Compliments Warren Kinsella, 11:35 AM - 6 Jun 2018.

A Doug Ford Conservative majority government still doesn’t sound quite right to me.

But much of that could just be more wishful thinking.

And I certainly  am impressed both by the weight of polling evidence and by the many politically smart people who do believe a Doug Ford PC majority government is …

… what the non-believing majority of the people of Ontario will have to wake up to this coming Friday morning …

At the same time, we will be having a big counterweights TV surveillance party on Ontario election 2018,  as it unfolds over the evening of June 7.

If only to keep things interesting for this event, I will continue to urge objectively that the outcome on the eve of the election remains uncertain and unknown — in yet another place of sudden deep mystery and fascination, with god knows what for an immediate future?

Who knows? In the age of alternative facts that may even be half-right.

(And my final strictly personal thought remains : may the best woman win.)

Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath at discussion on electoral absenteeism among youth and minority groups in Toronto, February 2018. (CP/Chris Young.)

OLD STREETCAR SUBURBS. SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2018. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny afternoon. At one point the sound of birds in the yard reminded me the world will still be beautiful, no matter what happens in the Ontario election on Thursday, June 7.

And the announcement on TV  — in which an “emotional Kathleen Wynne … acknowledged that she will no longer be premier after the June 7 election and encouraged voters to elect Liberal candidates to prevent the NDP or PCs from securing a majority” — may have gone to my head.

But I have concluded I like the idea myself, for my own hidden-agenda reasons.

Like more than a few Ontario voters I’ve long believed the Liberals and New Democrats should do more to co-operate at Queen’s Park — or in Ottawa for that matter. (As bizarre as that may seem, in the midst of our own local version of the early 21st century tribalist political culture, north of the Great Lakes.)

Without going into great (or even minor) detail, I agree with those who think each party, New Democrat and Liberal, has important virtues that the other lacks.

They work best together. And the people who agree with me begin with my TV-watching partner, such that the view in my immediate surroundings is unanimous.

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UPDATE MAY 28, 12:30 AM ET —  INITIAL REACTION TO ONTARIO ELECTION, SUNDAY LEADERS’ DEBATE : Whatever else, on this kind of subject Twitter cuts closer to the bone (and thus more intriguingly) than the much-abused mainstream media.

Everyone has their own tastes and convictions. Two tweets from justly eminent conservative journalist John Ibbitson — about an hour apart — struck me as especially intriguing :

* “If a televised debate could move numbers, the Ontario Liberals’ numbers would move tomorrow. Kathleen Wynne’s performance is head and shoulders above Andrea Horvath’s. And Doug Ford does not belong on that stage.”

* “Bottom line for me: Ford: an incoherent glop of policies he couldn’t convincingly explain. Appeared confused at times. Horwath: Aggressive and argumentative, but got her message across. Wynne: Proud of her legacy. No regrets. Master of every file. But people have already said no.”

I also liked Susan Delacourt’s “Watching the  #onpoli leaders’ debate. That “I’m not sorry” bit by @Kathleen_Wynne off the top was pretty powerful. May not change minds, but memorable.”

Traditionally Liberal policy and politics guru Warren Kinsella (who, some may be starting to think, actually could be a closet supporter of his friend Doug Ford this time around?) gave what may finally be the most cynical but nonetheless trenchant observation :

“This debate, in and of itself, won’t matter. It was at 6:30 on a beautiful almost-Summer evening. Few watched it … All that’ll matter are the clips that show up later. I suspect @Kathleen_Wynne will prevail in those — which is what @fordnation needed her to do.”

Meanwhile, just before the debate the latest Abacus ON Pulse survey (May 25–26) went some distance toward confirming the sizeable NDP surge in the latest Forum poll. Abacus ON Pulse found NDP 37% , PC 33%, LIB 23%.

Its literary conclusion is worth quoting too : “The election, by all accounts, is too close to call. The NDP has momentum headed into the Leaders Debate tonight.” It “remains incredibly difficult to imagine a Liberal comeback.” And “PC support has declined somewhat (thanks more to undecideds moving to the NDP than a loss of its own support) but its support remains solid and concentrated among voters more likely to vote.”

PROLOGUE. MAY 27, 5PM ET : Many thanks to Gary Davis@VoteTheGOPOut18 for two recent quotation tweets, that also seem to nicely set the stage for tonight’s Ontario election leaders’ debate from the depths of the CBC in downtown Toronto (among many other things, the most populous Canadian province’s capital city).

First, from the great liberal, populist, politically incorrect Los Angeles environmentalist and stand-up comic and social critic, Bill Maher : “Over the last 30 years Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital.” (And what if we Ontarians stuck a “New” in between “years” and “Democrats” these days?)

Second, from the great liberal critic of the American Gilded Age that followed the Civil War, Mark Twain : “Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

The final thought here, as preparations for viewing the great debate on the 65-inch TV in the counterweights conference room wrap up, is just may the best woman win. And (yet again, and again) the ultimate thing to remember was spelled out years ago by the last great master of the Big Blue Machine : “The people of Ontario have never been spoiled by too much perfection in government.”

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. UPDATE MAY 25 — BACK TO HUGH SEGAL? [UPDATE 2 — MAY 27, 3 PM ET] : What a difference a day makes in Ontario election 2018.  The world north of the North American Great Lakes awoke this morning to a 5AM posting of a new and almost dramatic Forum Poll taken just this past Wednesday, May 23.  It reported : “amongst those decided and leaning almost half of Ontarians (47%) say that they would support the NDP. A third (33%) say they would support the PCs, and one-sixth (14%) say they would support the Liberals … If the election were held today, we project these results would see an NDP Majority Government with 79 seats.”

Éric Grenier, guru of the CBC Poll Tracker, remains more cautious as he integrates this latest Forum poll into his broader sample of current surveys. His “Updated on May 25, 2018” rounded popular vote numbers are NDP 38%, PC 37%, LIB 20%. (Later in the day this moved to NDP 36%, PC 36%, LIB 21%.) And he further explains : “The PCs are still projected to win the most seats because they hold a lead in the GTA-Hamilton-Niagara region, where they can win twice as many seats as the NDP despite a relatively modest edge in the polls. But they are losing their advantage quickly — the NDP has moved ahead in Toronto and has widened its lead in southwestern and northern Ontario. The best hope for the Liberals at this stage is a few seats in Toronto and Ottawa.”

So (as Premier Wynne might say) … we are still some distance from an NDP majority (or even just minority) government in the real world … But even serious progressive supporters of the current premier might be starting to breathe a little easier?

Even old-school Ontario observers and just plain political junkies might also be starting to think, at least for the moment, that a Premier Doug Ford may not actually be inevitable. The ancient PC guru Hugh Segal’s seasoned wisdom of the late 20th century may still have at least some currency in the age of Donald Trump : “What is fundamental is that no Conservative wins an election in Ontario by getting only Conservative votes. The Conservative core on a good day is 24 percent. A Conservative can win an election in the province only if a lot of people who normally vote otherwise decide the leader can be trusted for the next four years.”

In any case there are now a few more reasons to stay tuned …

(And  a May 23-24 EKOS poll — NDP 36%, PC 35%, LIB 20% — also suggests that the latest Forum poll could prove something of an outlier, with residual Liberal strength giving the Ford Nation team the most seats in the end, though possibly not a majority?) Meanwhile, for earlier deep background on Ontario election 2018 see “Ontario election 2018, II : Is it turning into the Conservatives vs. New Democrats struggle Stephen Harper dreamed of ????”.)

Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley welcomes then Conservative PM Stephen Harper to Calgary Stampede, July 2015.

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON., MAY 24.  [UPDATED 1 PM ET]. According to CBC poll analyst Éric Grenier’s latest calculations, the rounded-off polling averages for Ontario election 2018 are now Ford Nation PCs 37%, Andrea Horwath New Democrats 36%, and Kathleen Wynne Liberals 21%.

M. Grenier explains the future between now and the June 7 election day with : “Doug Ford’s numbers have been trending downwards since the start of the campaign and are beginning to put a PC victory in some doubt. Nevertheless, the PCs lead where the bulk of the seats are located … After first taking support away from the Liberals, the NDP appears to be eating into PC support. If this continues, the odds of an NDP victory will increase.”

Meanwhile, the latest Maclean’s-Pollara Ontario poll for May 21–22 has Andrea Horwath New Democrats 38%, Ford Nation PCs 37%, and Kathleen Wynne Liberals 18%. And the latest Leger poll has PCs and NDP tied at 37% with the Liberals at 21%. (Leger finds as well that “a sizable number of voters — more than one third of those asked — have yet to make a final decision.”)

Warren Kinsella has also stressed that the PC vote “is spread out in a way that is more efficient” than the NDP vote. And Éric Grenier’s latest calculations are still suggesting a PC majority government of at least 63 of 124 seats in the legislature.

It is still not exactly easy to believe that a government led by Andrea Horwath is finally going to be the result when all the votes are counted on June 7. Grenier’s May 24 poll averages nonetheless suggest that both Liberals and PCs are losing ground, while the New Democrats (and to a much lesser extent Mike Schreiner’s seldom-noticed Green Party) are gaining.

From an Ipsos poll released May 9, 2018 when the official election writ was dropped in Ontario and the sign campaigns began.

At the same time, there are moments when I wonder whether what’s happening in Ontario right now is actually coming very close to Stephen Harper’s old dream of a Canadian political system that congenitally pits Conservatives against New Democrats, who the majority of voters are finally bound to view as unrealistic socialist utopians (or something of that sort).

There may or may not be some prospect that the leaders’ debate on TV this Sunday, May 27 (6:30 to 8:00 PM) will add a fresh edge to the race. Meanwhile, I am hoping that Mr. Harper’s old dream remains locked in the closet to which it was consigned by the 2015 federal election. While I continue to wonder and wait … wait and wonder …  (and remain personally convinced that a Premier Horwath could certainly not be any worse than a Premier Ford).

Premier Kathleen Wynne (l) and Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development Mitzie Hunter (r) with friends.

[UPDATED MAY 19]. I will still be voting for Kathleen Wynne in the Ontario election this coming Thursday, June 7, 2018.  (Or more exactly, for those less familiar with the system up here in We The North, I will be voting for her Liberal party candidate in the electoral district where I reside, on the north shore of the fourth largest of the North American Great Lakes, as measured by volume of water.)

To me Premier Wynne is the one seriously class act in Ontario politics today. And she has done a better job than any other prospect in sight of governing Canada’s most populous province through challenging times, and in the interest of the great majority of its ordinary citizens (among whom I of course count myself).

The province’s economy, broadly speaking, is doing well. (The latest statistics,  eg,  show below average unemployment rates for all of BC, Quebec, and Ontario  — along with 9,300 net new jobs in Ontario for April 2018 alone, and 133,400 new jobs in the province since April 2017.)

Ms Wynne’s government, which seems to me to have been more mindful of the interests of the province’s diverse business community than some branches of this community have been willing to credit, has also tried to help those adversely affected by an economy that is both growing and changing dramatically (adding to GDP while “creatively destroying” other parts of itself).  [For more after the UPDATE click on “Read the rest of this page” and/or scroll below.]

. John Barber from Lakefield, Ontario.

UPDATE MAY 19 : Citizen X, author of this piece, also wants to highly commend John Barber’s May 17 article in the Toronto Star : “Kathleen Wynne was the premier we didn’t deserve .” It apparently says everything X finally wanted to say about Premier Wynne and more, and “much better than I managed.”

Here is a quick taste of Mr. Barber’s tribute : “Certainly four years of Premier Doug Ford will be more than enough to clear the air. But even before that, I suspect Wynne will emerge in hindsight as the bold leader of the most capable and effective government Ontario has enjoyed since the heyday of the fabled Big Blue Machine.  She will be remembered as the best of her generation … Ontario at its best.”

Kathleen Wynne and William Davis, last modern master of the Big Blue Machine.

Mr. Barber concludes : “She failed because she was too ambitious, she failed because she never resorted to easy deceptions. She failed because she’s a woman, and because she’s gay. She failed because she’s Ontarian, at the mercy of Ontarians, and we’re as ugly as anyone … The future will judge, and what it will say is that we didn’t deserve her.”

Citizen X cites for his necessarily modest commendation as well the short bio of John Barber that accompanies this Star opinion piece, for any who may be unfamiliar with his long and distinguished career as a Canadian journalist : “John Barber chops wood, varnishes boats, and yells at clouds in Lakefield, Ont.”

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