Dalton McGuinty laid out his campaign themes - and some of his campaign strategy – today as he launched the 2007 Ontario election.
McGuinty made it clear he’s jumping in with both feet to the faith-based schools issue. He believes John Tory has shot himself in one of his by advocating public funding for those schools.
McGuinty spoke to reporters after he and his wife Terri visited the new Lieutenant Governor, David Onley, today at his Queen’s Park apartment.
He asked Onley to dissolve the legislature and call an election.
Not that there was a lot of suspense. We knew the date was set for October 10th, thanks to legislation to fix election dates from here on in.
But there’s still a lot of suspense in this contest. In particular, who will succeed in this election?
And what does success really mean for each of the parties?
Sometimes it’s a game of expectations.
Does John Tory have to win power, or just increase the number of seats his party has?
Success for the NDP might be just getting enough seats that they don’t have to worry about losing official party status.
The expectations are be the highest for McGuinty. Once you’re Premier, you have to at least retain power. But what if he is re-elected with a minority, as some have predicted.
Tune in tonight, when we’ll gather some familiar faces – Liberal Sean Conway, Conservative Janet Ecker and New Democrat Dave Cooke, activist Susan Eng – as well as a new guest, Grand Council Chief John Beaucage of the Union of Ontario Indians.
We’ll ask them to define the meaning of success for each party in this election.
