Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak (and you can bet the farm those aren’t marijuana plants behind him).

Late last week Grant LaFleche at the St. Catharines Standard reported that “Tories, NDP hope to repeat federal win in Ontario.”

According to Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, the federal Liberal massacre on May 2, 2011 “shows that people are tired of the same old thing, the same old parties … People are fed up with the HST, with rising hyrdo costs. They are looking for real solutions.” Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak has similar thoughts: “We have the HST, we have high hydro rates. We hear from families who say they are one or two paycheques from the edge … They want change.”

Ontario’s next fixed-date provincial election on October 6, 2011 is still just a little short of five months away. But the quiet din of battle at Queen’s Park has been in the air for several months. Now that the federal election is over, it will only grow louder. (See, eg: “Hudak backtracks on pledge to axe human-rights tribunal” from last Thursday, and “McGuinty doubts Hudak’s about-face on human-rights tribunal” just today.)

Ally and Edina blow bubbles as they exhale at Toronto Freedom Festival, May 7, 2011, Queen's Park. The Festival called for the legalization of marijuana and easier access for medical marijuana users – not proposals that any Ontario political party as yet supports. STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR.

So … if there really is some altogether fundamental transformation of the Canadian political party system underway, one might somewhat mindlessly speculate, we can also expect to see a Hudak Conservative majority government in Canada’s most populous province on October 6, with Ms. Horwath’s New Democrats as official opposition. On the other hand, if the McGuinty Liberal government does manage to win a third consecutive term, that could at least prove a much-needed morale booster for the new third-place true Grit rump in Ottawa.

It is still of course too early to get too serious about this forthcoming Ontario provincial contest. But some political predictions made by Toronto strategy consultant Andrew Steele at the start of this year offer a little food for thought. Two of his predictions have already come true: “Christy Clark is elected BC Liberal leader,” and now “Federal election returns a Harper majority.” (Mr. Steele did not also manage to predict the big surprise of Jack Layton’s New Democrats as federal official opposition: but who else even came close to this? And predicting both a federal election and a Harper majority on January 5, 2011 still looks pretty good.)

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath with Premier McGuinty: no one is talking about any Liberal-NDP coalition at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Steele’s prediction for October 6, 2011 in Ontario may or may not come true. But it is at least interesting: “Dalton McGuinty re-elected to third term … My guess is that the PCs will lead the polls right into the last two weeks of the campaign, but – caught between a rookie leader, contradictory policies, voter reluctance to leave Harper without a counterweight, and a tenacious and disciplined McGuinty – they will wilt at the finish.”Â  And when you read in the St. Catharines Standard about one of Mr. Hudak’s current contradictory policies (“The idea of lower taxes and improving frontline services like health care is what people are responding to”), it’s easy enough to guess that Andrew Steele just might be right again!