Southampton shore on Lake Huron, Southwestern Ontario. Photo by Alistair Edmondson.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO, QUEEN’S PARK, TORONTO. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2011. Ontario throne speeches are seldom inspiring – or, some cynics might say, even interesting. The test of a good speech of this sort (others have already long ago explained) is that you can drop its unbound pages on the floor, pick them up in a completely different order, and the thing will still sound the same.

The speech given by Lieutenant Governor David Onley this afternoon, on behalf of Dalton McGuinty’s new “major minority”government, is no doubt in the best of these old traditions. But some also see a palpably dark message in today’s unbound pages.

Nettleton Lake, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

“The Ontario government,” Karen Howlett at the Globe and Mail has reported, “is making a concerted effort not to raise the expectations of voters with a blueprint for its third term that is short on promises and long on the province’s gloomy economic future.”Â  Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson at the Toronto Star’s Queen’s Park Bureau have echoed these thoughts in: “Gloomy years ahead, throne speech warns … Doom and gloom in Ontario’s economy will linger for another four years, the re-elected Liberal government warns in a sombre speech from the throne.”

My own feelings, as I listened to  Lieutenant Governor Onley drone on this afternoon, came dangerously close to untarnished admiration. For me at any rate, it is hard to imagine how a better job could be done of spelling out just where Canada’s most populous province stands, in this “time of significant global change, upheaval and uncertainty.” The result is not gloomy, but just refreshingly realistic.

Algonquin Park. Photo by Two Big Paws.

I altogether agree as well that “while the challenges facing Ontario in the global economy are considerable, there are also opportunities to be seized … And it’s necessary to seize those opportunities – not to strengthen our economy for its own sake, or to improve the lives of a select few – but so that all our families have opportunities of their own.”

This is not to say that there is no room for continuing improvement. I was also encouraged to hear that:  “As your government moves forward … all members of this House will be called upon to work together … Where there are good ideas, your government will adopt them … Where members are willing to work together to strengthen our economy and create jobs, your government will welcome the opportunity to work with them.”

Trinity Bellwoods Park, Toronto. Photo by Colin Stewart.

I hope various good ideas in this spirit will be forthcoming from the opposition benches in this new Ontario era of major minority government. (Or at least from some suitably frugal New Democrats? For the moment Mr. Hudak’s Conservatives still seem stuck in their own rhetorical backyard?) One way or another, I think we will quite likely have to embrace some new public policy experiments in this “time of significant global change, upheaval and uncertainty.”

I was especially struck by the quotation from Abraham Lincoln towards the end of the speech: “The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” Here’s hoping someone is listening to these wise words. We are probably going to need to heed them. And ultimately, no doubt, there is a message here for everyone, on all sides of the new 40th Parliament at Queen’s Park, and beyond – among we the sovereign “people of Ontario,” whom “your government will not let down.”