Horwath's campaign announcement a failure to differentiate for the ONDP

Andrea Horwath held a rally early Saturday that can only be described as a de facto campaign launch what with so little time ahead before the June provincial election.

It was fairly typical of such events with a partisan crowd of presumptive supporters and an admittedly solid delivery from what is now a seasoned campaigner. Under the rather pedestrian slogan of "Change for the Better" Horwath announced five major platform planks that the ONDP  apparently plans to make central to their pitch to become the next government.

Some of these were more interesting than others. The pledge to make Hydro in the province fully public again is certainly a standout and contrasts well with the Wynne government's terribly shortsighted partial privatization of the utility. The pledge to convert post-secondary student loans to grants was also a positive one.

On the other hand the pledge to "end hallway medicine" means little other than as a slogan and the details around what this implies and how this would be achieved were rather scant.

As to the platform planks getting the most attention -- those that are being spun as promises for "universal" pharmacare and dental care -- these both sound much better at first than they seem to under scrutiny.

To begin with, as I have pointed out on The Left Chapter before, the NDP appears to be continuing to promise to cover, in full and for all Ontarians, the 125 generally most commonly used drugs starting the year 2020, and to then include more on an as yet undefined timeline. This would cost, according to the NDP, about $475 million annually.

This is not pharmacare in any meaningful sense of the term and excludes most of the most expensive drugs that drive people to bankruptcy. It also has to date neglected to take into account or deal with the fact that the Wynne government introduced an OHIP+ plan, already in effect, that covers over 4,000 medications in full, for everyone in Ontario 24 years old and under.

What this means is that Horwath and the ONDP either has to keep the existing plan and then drop coverage to only 125 drugs when you turn 25, or they plan to scale back the existing plan to 125 drugs for those under 25. While one would assume that a social democratic party would do the former as opposed to the truly awful latter this has yet to be made clear and the incorporation of the OHIP+ plan into the NDP's version of pharmacare would almost double its cost.

Meanwhile the dental care plan does not appear to be universal at all, but rather a means-tested, income based approach that would cover some or even many of the uninsured. This is problematic on a number of levels, of course, and certainly belies the positive headlines that the ONDP managed to get out of it.

All in all these are a few positive, mildly social democratic announcements and we will see where they go when the full platform is released. Whereas some, rather fancifully,  are calling this a shift to the "left" by the ONDP it is hard to see how in the changed context of this election and other than in conditions where "left" really has little meaning anymore.

If this is a "left shift" it is an extremely minor one and one that goes nowhere near far enough in differentiating  the ONDP from the Liberals, especially given the Liberal legislative shift of the last few months. This differentiation is truly important to attempt to make going into an election that is very likely to be a "strategic voting", anti-Ford election for many progressive voters. .

The problem for the ONDP is that a Ford PC leadership actually puts the juxtaposition between the Liberal policies of the last year and the threat of Ford into very stark contrast.

No one, other than the delusional, think Wynne and Ford are remotely akin to each other. There is far more that politically separates the Conservatives led by Ford and the Wynne Liberals than there is that separates the Liberals and the NDP and only the intellectually dishonest would dispute this. (This is not meant as a compliment to the Liberals so much as a reflection of the liberal centrism of the ONDP).

Some of the ONDP's partisans have even tried to frame the Ford triumph as representing a real "chance" for the ONDP, which is bizarre and misguided as to the progressives the ONDP are targeting Ford is not seen as an opportunity, he is seen as terrifying.

The narrative about this election (which has already begun) is going to be "stopping Ford" for many, many progressive "swing voters". That Wynne is down in the polls now, and may continue to be heading into the election, does not mean this will continue with a poorly framed strategy on the part of the NDP.

The path for the NDP, both politically and morally, would seem to obviously be to back a serious, clearly left agenda that can truly contrast with the recent Liberal "progressive" one. The Liberals have delivered some significant reforms that impact on the lives of people in very direct ways, and given that Ford is likely to roll some or many of these back, the ONDP needs to make a clear case as to why they should be seen as the real, "better" alternative to Ford -- strategic voting considerations aside -- than the actual government and its existing legislation

While the ONDP's supporters may have seen that today, I don't think anyone else did.

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The ONDP's timid 'pharmacare' plan played right into Liberal hands

As another provincial election looms the price of the Ontario NDP's timidity and lack of a serious transformative focus is coming to the fore even earlier than one might have expected.

This past weekend Andrea Horwath made a highly anticipated announcement at the party's provincial convention telling the faithful that the ONDP would head into the next election in the summer of 2018 with the promise of universal pharmacare as one of its banner policies.

It was a move that was greeted by widespread rejoicing by members who are likely thrilled to see any sign of a shift away from the disastrous and reactionary "pocketbook populism" campaign of 2014 that contributed greatly to the unexpected victory of the Wynne Liberals. It even garnered praise from the Toronto Star editorial board which is ironic given how much New Democrats love to vilify the paper as an organ of the Liberal Party.

But, as is generally the case with New Democratic policy proposals these days, once you delved into the details of the plan as revealed on the Monday after the convention, what Horwath and crew were offering was not really universal pharmacare at all, but the promise to begin to make a start towards it in 2020.

The NDP are promising to cover, in full and for all Ontarians, the 125 generally most commonly used drugs starting that year, and to then include more on an as yet undefined timeline. This would cost, according to the NDP, about $475 million annually.

Shortly after the NDP released its not-pharmacare pharmacare plank, the Liberal government tabled its budget and, of course, not to be outdone it included a not-pharmacare pharmacare plank.

The Liberal plan would cover basically all drugs -- around 4,400 of them -- but only for those under the age of 25. It will also actually come into effect prior to the next election and will launch in January, 2018.

And this spells very serious trouble for the NDP's "big idea".

It is amazing how it is that if you come out with what is only a partial "pharmacare" platform, someone else can then implement a different vision of a partial "pharmacare" program and really throw off your whole platform plank.

Both of these plans are clearly inadequate plans. I think it is easier to make an argument for the NDP plan being the better one than the Liberal plan for a couple of fairly significant reasons, not the least of which is that the NDP plan -- as limited as it is and assuming that they would actually follow through on it -- makes far more sense as a transitional stage to real pharmacare than does the Liberal one. There is also the fact that relatively few of the 4,400 to be covered are actually used regularly by children and youth who tend to be in the best health of any demographic.

But here is the thing; the Liberal plan will actually be in place before the next election while the NDP's partial plan would not happen even in its present form for another three years and only if they were to be elected.

When Horwath waxed poetic about how "Seeing a doctor just doesn't mean much if you need a prescription, but you can't afford to fill it", the obvious rhetorical flaw is that her plan will not change that in a great many cases. Given that only the most common drugs will be covered most of the most expensive medications -- which are not that common  -- will not be, which means that those who face the greatest economic challenges due to a lack of coverage will not get any serious relief or benefit and will continue to face crippling costs and destitution.

As a result even Horwath had to acknowledge that they were only going to "start building universal pharmacare right here in Ontario" which is exactly what the Liberals can now also claim to be doing with the added bonus that people and parents in Ontario are going to start seeing the benefits very shortly.

In addition this means that the NDP will either have to expand their plan to include what the Liberals will have created with all of the associated costs (which would, of course, not be the full amount of the Liberal plan, but still a significant portion of it) or they will have to say that they would rollback the coverage for those under 25 to 125 medications.

I assume even the ONDP is wise enough to do the former -- perhaps not a safe assumption -- but yet again we see how easy it is for liberals to blunt the rhetoric and ill-conceived plans of 'social democrats' who continue to insist on playing the "responsible managers" card.

The clever move for the ONDP would have been and now would be to put out a serious, comprehensive timeline -- that will not take decades -- towards the implementation of total and actual universal pharmacare for everyone. This would be inspiring and transformative though it would almost certainly have to be backed by tax increases including personal tax increases.

I am not going to be holding my breath though and expect we will, instead, see the ONDP try to carry forth with what they have already laid out and then have to spend months defending one partial and inadequate plan against another, learning again that there is no milquetoast 'social democratic' chimeric concoction that a liberal cannot simply steal away by watering it down slightly.

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