The referendum on Andrea Horwath’s NDP is just beginning

At the midpoint of the election campaign, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is in uncharted territory.

Has she gone from third to second? And thence from second to first? No one knows.

Never mind that pundits and pollsters don’t really know what’s on the minds of most voters. Bear in mind that many voters may not know their own minds at this point.

That’s because the only constant in a so-called “change” election is that many voters keep changing their minds. In fact, this campaign has really been three consecutive campaigns — each a referendum in itself. The opening act amounted to an instant referendum on Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne. After five years as an increasingly unpopular premier, the verdict from most voters was game over — disqualified from the start.

Next?

The second referendum focused on Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford. As the incarnation of populism and the personification of Ford Nation, he aroused more apprehension than comprehension among the majority of people, who soon had second thoughts.

Next?

And so we come now to the third referendum of the campaign, which shines a spotlight on Horwath. From the first, she has framed the election as a non-starter for Wynne and ultimately unwinnable for Ford, deftly casting herself as the default choice for voters.

It is an interesting irony of the campaign that Horwath insists the election should be decided on hope, not fear (not least because New Democrats are often the target of scare campaigns). In reality, the NDP has profited from anger against the Liberals and fear of the Tories to reinvent itself as the last hope — not hope for hope’s sake, but the only hope against the hopeless Liberals and hapless Tories.

Horwath has emerged in an enviable position as the last leader standing, the survivor — so far. But with survival comes scrutiny and, with two more weeks until voting day, the referendum on the NDP is just beginning. A televised leaders’ debate is scheduled for Sunday night, yet judging by her winning performances in two previous outings this month, Horwath is braced for the inevitable attacks.

Yet so far, all is not unfolding as it should.

The first bad break came last week, when a $1.4-billion hole was discovered in the NDP’s platform. The provincial budget allocates an annual $700-million reserve for contingencies. If unexpected expenditures arise, the government dips into that fund to avoid blowing the budget — but the New Democrats blew it, mistakenly booking an expenditure as revenue (doubling the error).

Initially, the NDP refused to own up. But after digging herself into a deeper hole over that fiscal hole, Horwath belatedly plugged it — boasting that the party had quickly corrected the record (never mind those initial denials).

But the NDP leader is also boxing herself in on Hydro One, the transmission utility that was partially privatized by Wynne’s Liberals. Horwath has pledged to buy it all back for more than $6.4 billion, counting on the $250 million in dividends that flow annually to the government as part-owner (likely to take two decades, not the two terms in office that she claims). Yet those dividends have already been earmarked for other expenditures, which means the money has to be made up elsewhere. Like the disappearing budget reserve fund, the Hydro One dividends aren’t “found money,” because Horwath has to find the funds somewhere.

The third mystery in the NDP platform is its tangled promise of expanded child care. Unlike the rival Liberal plan to offer free preschool child care for ages 2.5 to 4, the NDP plan implausibly targets infants first (up to 18 months) and then toddlers (18 months to 2.5 years old).

The problem, as non-partisan child care experts have pointed out, is that there is nowhere near the capacity to offer discounted child care spaces for the NDP’s target group — their upside-down plan would only create massive waiting lists.

In the referendum she now faces, Horwath’s winning personality may yet prevail over her platform problems. On the campaign trail and in televised debates, she projects sincerity when commiserating with voters over the broken promises of cynical politicians.

It’s a good line, notwithstanding the problems with her budget lines. Next?

Do we have a winner, or are there yet more referenda to come? We won’t know until June 7.