A Place to Stand, A Place to Vote, Ontari-ari-ario

The PCs gun for a conservative 'hat trick', the Liberals aim for a three-peat, and the NDP waits to play kingmaker.

The moment that Ontarians of all stripes have been waiting for all summer long will grace the province tomorrow: The start of the NHL's regular season.

There also happens to be a hotly contested provincial election the same day that's really too close to call. The Toronto Star's Thomas Walkom gives it a go anyway by running through all the possible outcomes, and decides that the one certainty will be that no coalition government will result. The reason? "Politics," says Walkom. The last time Ontario had a coalition government, it was between the NDP and the Liberals, both of whom fared worse in the 1985 election than the ruling Progressive Conservatives, but together had enough seats for a majority. The only reason they could form a viable coalition, says Walkom, is that "the two losing parties ... could plausibly argue to the public that the province had voted for change." The Liberals are the status quo today, and for the NDP, "propping up a discredited government would be bad politics." A coalition between Hitler and Benjamin Netanyahu is more likely than one between the PCs and the Liberals, and even though Andrea Horwath's NDP and Tim Hudak's PCs share a number of policies (notably on the HST), they're otherwise ideological opposites that would hardly make for a seamless coalition. So, with all those scenarios out of the way, all signs point to minority government and all the horse-trading and acrimony that comes along with one.

As to whether Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty or Hudak will end up as premier, the National Post's John Ivison admits, despite all his efforts, that the polls are pointing to a McGuinty victory. "The only question seems to be whether Mr. McGuinty secures his majority, or slips back into minority territory," says Ivison. "Either result would be a triumph for a man for whom political obituaries were being written in the summer." Ivison surely would have loved to have written another come Friday, but Hudak hasn't exactly helped that cause. "He is the most scripted leader I've ever covered and he's been repeating the same message for years," notes Ivison. And while that endless "Dalton McGuinty: Taxman" refrain might have played well in another year, Ivison figures it was the wrong message at a time when the health of the economy was on everyone's minds. That, and, y'know, the gay and immigrant stuff.

Finally, Bruce Anderson of The Globe and Mail observes that incumbent electoral victories at the federal level and in Manitoba and Prince Edward Island indicate that the threat of recession and other economic ails has Canadians voting for the devils they know. "In any other global economic context, the Liberals might well be heading for the dressing room," notes Anderson. "But in this election, at this moment in history, Ontarians who are at least 'getting by' tend to crave stability. They are not in much of a mood for revolution, common sense or otherwise." We'll admit that economically speaking, there isn't too much difference between what the Liberals and PCs are offering in their platforms. But the one indisputable advantage that the Liberals have is experience. The McGuinty "experience" so far hasn't exactly been roses (E-health, broken tax promises, Caledonia, etc.) but it did weather the recession of 2008-09 relatively well. Surviving that chapter with the province more or less intact could be all McGuinty and the Liberals need to return to their seats in Queen's Park.