Ontario election… the halfway point

By Scott Munnoch, Temple Scott Associates

The halfway point of the Ontario election has come and gone and it’s a good bet you fall into one of two groups – either you’re apathetic or you’re surprised.

Earlier this week, the four Leaders appeared together in the only officially-sanctioned debate.  Andrea Horwath took negative shots at everyone. Doug Ford stuck to his own script. Steven Del Duca tended to speak over everyone and Michael Schreiner of the Green Party rose above the clutter with his focused comments. Three days later and the only thing being mentioned about the debate is that two of the four Leaders have now tested positive for Covid-19.

Polling continues with at least one new poll every day since the campaign started. The latest Nanos poll, taken after Monday’s debate, continues to indicate the PC strength at 36% followed by the Liberals at 29% and the NDP at 20%. No real change at the top here, but a noticeable 4 point drop in the NDP numbers must be troubling for Andrea Horwath.  Doug Ford, on the other hand, will be quite pleased with the campaign and its low-key nature. He doesn’t need to do anything as the voters have seen what he can do in the last year and have clearly formed their opinions. So far, he continues to be the most favoured to be the best Premier from the three main parties and a low-key, error free campaign the rest of the way will likely maintain this.

Steven Del Duca is the new kid on the block and needs to gain some ground to first become an official party in the legislature and secondly the Official Opposition. So far, it remains to be seen if he is making enough impact to achieve both goals.

The NDP appear to be in trouble. Andrea Horwath was criticized for her performance in the debate and has really not offered much new during the campaign. Progressive voters are liking Del Duca’s messaging more and there seems to be a significant shift to the Liberals in this group.

As for the surprises, there have been some interesting developments on the campaign trail. Typical policy positions and support bases are getting turned upside down. First and foremost is the union support for Doug Ford and the PC’s, typically a strength of the NDP. Unions are publicly supporting Ford and his team, including: Liuna; the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; International Brotherhood of Boilermakers; SMART Union, Local 285 and IBEW Construction Council of Ontario.

Law and order has always been a base for the PC’s, but it’s the Liberals that have come out swinging with a pledge to ban hand guns. They’ve also stated a desire to look at a 4-day work week and 18 month paternity leave – surely these should have been in the NDP platform…. And the NDP, they just want some attention like offering a 40% reduction in auto-insurance rates? Huh? How are you going to do that?

So, with 2 weeks to go, things seem upside down on many fronts and yet, there appears to be little interest in the election. Polling numbers have not moved much, certainly not enough to topple the governing party. As for the Opposition parties – they may change places in the standings in the Legislature, or not.

Will things change in the next 14 days? Two parties hope so. One does not.

Party Platforms

• Ontario Conservative Party Platform (not yet released)
• Ontario Liberal Platform
• Ontario NDP Platform

OTHER NEWS

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney resigning as UCP leader 

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced his resignation as United Conservative Party leader Wednesday after receiving 51.4 per cent approval of his leadership from UCP members.

“The result is not what I hoped for or frankly what I expected,” Kenney told a gathering of supporters and volunteers in Calgary after the results of the leadership review were announced. 

“While 51 per cent of the vote passes the constitutional threshold of a majority, it clearly is not adequate support to continue on as leader.”

Kenney had previously suggested he would accept a result of 50 per cent plus one. 

Party members were asked to answer yes or no to the question “Do you approve of the current leader?”

Of the 34,298 party members who mailed in ballots by the May 11 deadline, 17,638 said yes and 16,660 said no. 

Long delays at Alberta Land Titles office slowing down real estate transactions

According to the provincial government’s land titles website, the office is currently registering land title documents received on Feb. 4 and survey plans and documents received on March 2. 

Previously, the typical turnaround time has been two-to-five days and as long as two weeks during peak times. 

Professionals in the real estate, law and land surveying industries say the title registration delays have yet to derail deals, but they are holding up certain types of real estate transactions. They are also a looming problem for municipalities, which send out property tax bills this month.

Why are titles important?

A land title is a document that proves ownership of a piece of land. Without it, parties in real estate transactions are in limbo between the date of sale and the purchaser taking possession.

What’s causing the delays?

Service Alberta said real estate transactions and packages submitted for registration have nearly doubled since April of last year. Service Alberta is working to implement solutions by the summer and expects to see the backlog decrease after that.

ECONOMIC IMPACT & RESOURCES

Canada’s inflation rate inches up again, to new 31-year high of 6.8%

Canada’s official inflation rate rose to 6.8 per cent in April, a new 31-year high.

Statistics Canada reported on Wednesday that the cost of living crept higher mainly because of increases in the cost of food and shelter. Food prices have risen by 9.7 per cent in the past year, while shelter costs are up by 7.4 per cent.

Global factors, including the war in Ukraine disrupting the price and supply of grains, as well as outbreaks of bird flu and extreme weather events in the United States, are combining to drive up the cost of meat and produce.

Among the increases:

• Fresh vegetables, up 8.2 per cent
• Fresh fruit, up 10 per cent
• Meat, up 10.1 per cent
• Bread, up 12.2 per cent
• Coffee, up 13.7 per cent
• Pasta, up 19.6 per cent.

Gas prices ease slightly

Gasoline has been a major driver of inflation lately, but pump prices actually fell by 0.7 per cent in April after spiking by more than 11 per cent the previous month. Compared to where they were a year ago, gas prices are still up by more than a third, however.

Economists had been expecting the overall inflation figure to ease slightly from March’s 6.7 per cent level, but instead it went slightly higher. That’s a troubling sign that inflation has yet to peak, even though it’s at its highest level since 1991.

US Inflation

The U.S. has also seen its inflation rate skyrocket in recent months, but numbers for April suggest that the wave may have crested there, with the official figure cooling to 8.3 per cent in April from 8.5 per cent in March.

Interest rate increase coming

The high inflation number makes it even more likely that the Bank of Canada will hike its benchmark interest rate at its next policy meeting in early June.

NEWS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES

US News: Powell says U.S. Fed will ‘keep pushing’ until inflation comes down

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in his most hawkish remarks to date, said the U.S. central bank will keep raising interest rates until there is “clear and convincing” evidence that inflation is in retreat.

“What we need to see is inflation coming down in a clear and convincing way, and we’re going to keep pushing until we see that,” Powell said Tuesday during a Wall Street Journal live event. “If that involves moving past broadly understood levels of ‘neutral,’ we won’t hesitate at all to do that.”

The Fed chair repeatedly stressed the need to curb the hottest inflation in decades during the roughly 35-minute interview, calling price stability “the bedrock of the economy” and acknowledging that some pain in achieving this — including a slight rise in the unemployment rate — was a cost worth paying in order to achieve it.

Powell and his colleagues on the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee voted to raise their benchmark rate by a half-percentage point at a policy meeting earlier this month, and the chair at the time suggested to reporters that hikes of similar magnitudes would be on the table at their next two meetings in June and July. He repeated that guidance Tuesday, while adding that near-term inflation developments would be a critical determinant of the size of coming moves.

If the Fed doesn’t see clear and convincing evidence of abating inflationary pressures, “then we’ll have to consider moving more aggressively,” Powell said. “If we do see that, then we can consider moving to a slower pace.” The target range for the benchmark federal funds rate currently stand at 0.75 per cent to one per cent. The FOMC next meets June 14 to 15.

US consumer prices rose 8.3 per cent in the 12 months through April, according to Labor Department figures published May 11. That was slightly lower than the 8.5 per cent increase in the 12 months through March, which marked the highest inflation rate in 40 years.

While inflation is set to recede further, supply-chain disruptions associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Covid lockdowns in China will probably keep upward pressure on prices in the coming months. Powell made it clear that the Fed would not be over-analyzing the incoming data as it formulates near-term policy.

IFA News: Mike Layman, Senior VP Government Relations Named Most Influential Washington

 IFA’s Senior Vice President of Government Relations, Michael Layman, was named one of the top 500 most influential people in Washington by Washingtonian Magazine. The Magazine highlights the work Layman and IFA have done to stop harmful legislation like the Protecting the Right to Organize Act saying; “Layman fought against the Democrats’ PRO Act, a bill aimed at boosting labor, which he has called an “existential threat” to the recovery of franchises.”

Read more here.