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Ontario Liberals are spending the weekend girding for a spring election they do not want.

But if Premier Kathleen Wynnes minority government is toppled in a budget confidence vote, internal party polls show some positive signs for the Grits as they gather in Toronto for their annual general meeting.

Mindful that Wynnes political strength is in and around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, the Liberals have been polling in key ridings currently held by the Progressive Conservatives and NDP.

We wanted to see where our best opportunities were for growth, said a senior campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss strategy.

The insider said Friday the Liberals were encouraged by Wynnes showing against Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath in the eight opposition-held ridings tested.

In Toronto, the Gandalf Group polling obtained by the Star suggests the Liberals may fare well in TrinitySpadina, Davenport, ParkdaleHigh Park, and BeachesEast York, currently represented by New Democrats.

The telephone interview survey of 603 residents in those four ridings conducted earlier this month has a margin of error of 3.99 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Gandalf did not test the names of the local MPPs and candidates, instead using Wynne, Horwath, Hudak, and Green Leader Mike Schreiner to gauge voting intention.

In TrinitySpadina, represented by veteran Rosario Marchese, the Liberals were at 40 per cent, the NDP 19 per cent, the Tories 13 per cent, and the Greens 7 per cent.

In Davenport, held by rookie Jonah Schein, the Liberals had 37 per cent, the New Democrats 25 per cent, the Tories 7 per cent, and the Greens 4 per cent.

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Positive polls buoy Liberals as they prepare for spring election

The slogan, as Ontario Liberals gather this weekend in downtown Toronto for their annual general meeting, is What leadership is.

If they were honest with themselves, and each other, they might go instead with Lowered expectations.

From a brief, near-euphoric high after Kathleen Wynne took office last year, the governing party has come down a long way. Just how far is apparent both from the way the rookie Premiers pitch to her province has changed, and from what the Liberals are hoping their new message will achieve.

No longer is Ms. Wynne trying to sell herself as new and exciting, a different sort of politician willing to stake out bold policy positions to advance her values and vision. As laid out in a speech on Thursday night at her partys biggest yearly fundraiser, she is now making a case for remaining in office that is strikingly similar to the argument made in the last provincial election by Dalton McGuinty the predecessor from whom the new Premier not long ago seemed to seek a clean break.

Not once, not twice, but four times, Ms. Wynne referred to her safe hands. They are needed, she said, because its a turbulent word out there, and Ontario must stick with a careful, steady balance that allows slow but steady progress; it cannot afford the risky, radical approach of the Progressive Conservatives, or the risky indecision of the NDP.

The most obvious casualty of Ms. Wynnes new-found contempt for risks is her first big commitment after replacing Mr. McGuinty. This month, she announced she will not proceed with new gasoline, sales or personal taxes to fund expansion of Ontarios transportation infrastructure the policy with which she tried to establish her willingness to level with voters about the sacrifices needed to meet their collective needs.

But to listen to Ms. Wynnes speech this week was to detect a subtler climb-down as well.

During the leadership race, and shortly after winning it, Ms. Wynne spoke like the activist she has spent much of her life being arguing for social justice or a fair society. Those words may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but they were true to her roots.

While she delivered her text competently on Thursday, nobody would believe it came from her heart. From the attacks on the other parties to the touting of a six-point economic plan with repeated references to corporate subsidies to create jobs, it sounded like a checklist of items Ms. Wynnes advisers believe play well with key vote groups up to and including the pitch for a provincial public-pension plan that has replaced transit taxes as her signature policy.

None of this is meant to appeal to the province as a whole, or even to increase the Liberals support much.

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Liberals new message signals lowered expectations

Critics of Rep. Paul Ryans remarks about cultural factors in the persistence of poverty are simultaneously shrill and boring. Their predictable minuet of synthetic indignation demonstrates how little liberals have learned about poverty or changed their rhetorical repertoire in the last 49 years.

Ryan spoke of a tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, adding: Theres a real culture problem here.

This brought down upon Ryan the usual acid rain of accusations racism, blaming the victims, etc. He had sauntered into the minefield that a more experienced Daniel Patrick Moynihan a liberal scholar who knew the taboos of his tribe had tiptoed into five years before Ryan was born.

A year from now, there surely will be conferences marking the 50th anniversary of what is now known as the Moynihan Report, a k a The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. In March 1965, Moynihan, then 37 and assistant secretary of labor, wrote that the center of the tangle of pathology in inner cities this was five months before the Watts riots was the fact that 23.6% of black children were born to single women, compared to just 3.07% of white children.

He was accused of racism, blaming the victims, etc.

Forty-nine years later, 41% of all American children are born out of wedlock; almost half of all first births are to unmarried women, as are 54% and 72% of all Hispanic and black births, respectively. Is there anyone not blinkered by ideology or invincibly ignorant of social science who disagrees with this:

The family is the primary transmitter of social capital the values and character traits that enable people to seize opportunities. Family structure is a primary predictor of an individuals life chances, and family disintegration is the principal cause of the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

In the 1960s, as the civil rights movement dismantled barriers to opportunity, there began a social regression driven by the explosive growth of the number of children in single-parent families. This meant a continually renewed cohort of adolescent males from homes without fathers; this produced turbulent neighborhoods and schools where the task of maintaining discipline eclipsed that of instruction.

In the mid-1960s, Moynihan noted something ominous that came to be called Moynihans scissors. Two lines on a graph crossed, replicating a scissors blades. The descending line depicted the decline in the minority then overwhelmingly black male unemployment rate. The ascending line depicted the simultaneous rise of new welfare cases.

The broken correlation of improvements in employment and decreased welfare dependency was not just bewildering, it was frightening.

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Liberals cant wrap heads around cultural causes of poverty

A planning expert believes a major increase in funding will be needed to introduce the Liberals proposed single statewide planning scheme within four years.

The Liberals have advertised six positions for their new Planning Reform Taskforce.

The Deputy Liberal Leader Jeremy Rockliff says the goal is to have one set of documents and procedures for every planning application.

"We are about delivering on a simpler fairer and cheaper planning system," he said.

The changes are expected to be made with existing departmental resources but Matthew Clark from the Planning Institute of Australia says more money will be needed if it is to be achieved within the Government's first term.

"I'd like to see some increased resourcing into the planning system to help achieve that," he said.

The incoming Government says it will take into account work that has been done in the past few years to streamline the system.

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Liberals' planning scheme revamp needs more resources says planning expert

Liberals win Tassie, SA on the line
Labor Party faces a major blow, set to lose power in its last state of South Australia after the Liberals claim victory in Tasmania. Nine News.

By: GaleryVideo

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Liberals win Tassie, SA on the line - Video