The 2018 Ontario Election campaign is depressing and desperate

I’m a person born late in the baby boom generation.

You know us: the generation keeping millennials out of the housing market and controlling their avocado supply. My wonder years were spent in a time of Cold War conflict and the threat of nuclear exchange. If a politician or social justice warrior made waves, they were assassinated.

We endured Watergate, wage and price controls and four straight Stanley Cups in Montreal. Our clothes looked ridiculous and only two forms of music were heard: snotty progressive rock and mindless disco.

But if you were growing up in Ontario through the 1960s and 70s there was a political version of Valium that kept us calm.

It was called “The Big Blue Machine” — the seemingly tenured reign of the Progressive Conservative Party under ‘Brampton’ Bill Davis.

WATCH ABOVE: Ex-Ontario Premier Bill Davis cracks jokes, makes fun of John Tory

Budgets were progressive but never onerous and certainly not in deficit. Our parents weren’t subject to the money shakedowns you see from schools today. My junior high school music program was outfitted with as many instruments as a modern philharmonic. We had b-flat AND e-flat clarinets for heaven’s sake. Oboes? We’d have to kick oboes out of the way to make it across the music room floor.

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I wasn’t aware of any backroom machinations in the Ontario political process at the time; it seemed that government collected its taxes and fees, determined where there was need and we’d get infrastructure, health care and a subway station or two.

Good times.

1:43 Taking a look at Ontario’s deficit and debt

WATCH ABOVE: Taking a look at Ontario’s deficit and debt

Fast forward to 2018 and everything in provincial politics has gone pear-shaped. Three major political parties have, in just five months, convinced me that nobody deserves the government seats at Queen’s Park after the June 7 provincial election.

Election, released in 1999 and by acclaimed director Alexander Payne, is one of my favourite underrated movies. Starring Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick, an overambitious and predatory student, it’s the story of a high school council election featuring three characters who want to be council president.

Flick, as mentioned, is extremely repellent. That prompts teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) to convince the jocular but immensely dumb athlete Paul to enter the race. Complicating things is Paul’s sister Tammy, a rebellious goth who decides to run solely to bring the system down from inside.

Three horrible choices on one ballot.

Spoiler alert: Paul is too kind and votes for Tracy who wins by one vote. Teacher Jim cannot let that stand and secretly throws two of her votes in the garbage, making Paul the winner. Jim is caught and fired and The End.

Unless you’re partisan beyond belief, these are the choices you have in Ontario. Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne isn’t evil like Tracy, but she’s despised by many. Progressive Conservative Doug Ford is as inarticulate in his message as Paul the Jock.

And Andrea Horwath? The NDP‘s promises of social justice, deficit and her capitulation to the public service unions would probably “bring the system down from inside,” as Tammy envisioned.

I know there are alternative parties — “Hey! One of those 93 votes was mine! — or you can decline your vote, but who would be stupid enough to travel to a polling station only to hand back your ballot?

All three parties are climbing over each other with promises of “free” this and that. There are platform costs that are either entirely wrong or that will never arrive. There are nomination tactics that were either corrupt or undemocratic. The current party leaders are blaming the stink in the air on the farts of previous leaders.

We’re just over a week away from the vote, and I can’t remember a campaign as depressing, desperate and dumb.

To my millennial friends, though I’ve been part of the demographic cohort that stole your houses and overpriced your avocados, I believe we do share one common trait: cynicism. I’ve become a political cynic.

Maybe we can commiserate one day over a pint of one of your hoppy-beyond-belief beers.

Mike Stafford is co-host of The Morning Show on Global News Radio 640 Toronto.