Preville on Politics

Voodoo news to me

Posted on October 3, 2007 by Philip Preville

Last night on TVO’s The Agenda, Stephen Maynard, the NDP candidate in London-Fanshawe, told Steve Paikin that the NDP would create a “Bank of Ontario” that would set its own interest rate. As policy ideas go, it is a surefire award winner for Voodoo Economics. Not even a separate Quebec envisions having its own central bank.

Paikin was nearing the end of the show, so he more or less let the statement go. Trying to confirm or deny it over the Internet is impossible because the NDP Web site, which once featured all kinds of information on a multitude of topics, has been stripped down to six commitments and nothing else. Amazingly, Maynard is in a tight three-way race in his riding, a tribute, I presume, to the quality of his competition. I assume that his Bank of Ontario comments are not official party policy and that the young Maynard was merely musing aloud, but I’d advise him to make like the Web site and stick to only six commitments’ worth of talking points for the next week.

Comments

Neither the author nor Toronto Life necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Editors will not correct spelling or grammar. Toronto Life reserves the right to edit or delete comments entirely. Read our full policy


Author Bio Pic

Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


Preville on Politics RSS Feed