Why wynne might connect on hail mary to voters

Wednesday’s provincial budget was the last throw of the dice by the embattled Liberals, a Hail Mary if you like, to seek a way out of the abyss and back into political contention.

The budget, with its billions in social spending, has been roundly criticized for what it is: a big play for votes in the June 7 election. But there is a reason the Liberals are doing it. They cannot hope to win an election in which change is the overriding theme. Kathleen Wynne has to find a way to change the conversation and turn the ballot question into who’s more capable of helping ease the burden on you and your family.

Wynne is not fazed by criticism that she is a free-spending, big-government advocate. She believes in it, and by turning on the taps, hopes to turn the conversation away from her Achilles heel — change — to one about the services and programs people need to improve their lives. And, crucially, who can best deliver them. This helps the Liberals stand apart from the Progressive Conservatives. Indeed, this budget has less to do with outflanking the NDP and more to do with drawing a sharp contrast between her and PC Leader Doug Ford.

With the Liberals offering nearly every freebie under the sun, the PCs either have to offer similar programs — which one suspects is not in Ford’s character — or campaign against the Liberal promises. The debate then can be framed in terms of what the Liberal party is doing for you, and what the PC party is taking away from you. That gives Liberals a fighting chance. The big question is: Will people buy it? By every measure, the election appears to hang on a strong desire for change that remains unshakable. But it would be foolish to dismiss the Liberal strategy as a cynical ploy voters will soundly reject.

Would you vote for change ... or free childcare?

I found myself this past weekend among a group of young professionals talking about their lives. About three or four of them were going on about how they love the Liberal government’s under-25 free drug policy because, since the New Year, they’ve not had to pay for prescription drugs for their children. Even so, they left no doubt that Ontario needed change and they would vote against Wynne. When I pointed out that a Liberal loss might — just might — spell the end of their drug benefit, they were stumped. (This group didn’t seem particularly warm towards the NDP, and Ford has not said he would support the Liberal drug plan).

These young people hadn’t considered the possibility that their cherished program might die with a Liberal defeat; faced with it, they started to waver. This was just a small group, but it occurred to me that if they were, at the very least, having second thoughts on a position they had taken because a program they liked might be threatened, could other people make similar calculations based on their own needs?

If you are a voter and one party is offering free prescription drugs, free college tuition, a $14$15 hourly minimum wage, billions of dollars for that spanking new hospital your community needs; and the other side is talking about cutting waste, cutting spending and reducing taxes — which would you support? Would your desire for change trump support for a long-sought program that was suddenly within reach? Would you vote for change or would you vote for the free childcare you’ve wanted for so long ? These are things voters would be considering during the campaign.

The appetite for change may yet win out, but Liberals believe that when it comes down to it, people will buy into bread and butter issues such as free prescription drugs, childcare and college tuition, rather than arcane or more abstract ones such as debt and deficits. It worked for the federal Liberals in 2015 and Wynne is hoping that the same will happen in 2018. We shall see. Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa writer.