If there is a sentence that epitomizes the policy agenda unveiled on Saturday by Andrea Horwath, it comes in the bit about making gasoline more affordable for drivers.
"In an ideal world, we wouldn't rely on our cars," the document says, "but for many Ontario families driving is something you simply need to do."
In the past, Ontario's New Democrats have spent rather a lot of time striving for an ideal world. But under Ms. Horwath's leadership, they're more concerned with the world inhabited by swing voters. And that involves a lot of compromise, and a willingness to limit their ambitions for what government can do for us.
It would be unfair to suggest that the vague document presented at a weekend gathering in Toronto - a sort of quasi-platform, with a fuller version to follow closer to the Oct. 6 provincial election - entirely abandons the NDP's roots. There is, notably, a protectionist pledge to bring "buy Ontario" policies into law, which would surely keep trade lawyers happy. The energy proposals - which include less private-sector involvement, a shift away from nuclear power, and a merger of the various power utilities into something resembling the old Ontario Hydro - should make the party's base happy. And, of course, there is the vow to roll back the corporate tax cuts brought in by Dalton McGuinty's Liberals.
There's nothing new about New Democrats basing their spending proposals on additional business taxes - in this case, an extra $1.85-billion in annual revenues by 2015. But it's how Ms. Horwath would spend that money that marks a significant departure from the NDP's traditional emphasis on program spending and social equality.
Under her plan, the biggest new expenditure - $500-million, by the final year of the next government's mandate - would be on gradually removing the harmonized sales tax from drivers' fuel costs. And next biggest after that would be taking the HST off home-heating bills, another form of relief that would provide savings regardless of financial need.
Even public transit, long an NDP priority, is framed in pocketbook terms, with a few hundred million in extra dollars subsidizing fare freezes and not much else. And beyond that, most of the NDP's proposals - focused largely on health care - are rather marginal.
The pledge to provide a million extra hours of home care each year is striking on the surface, but less so when one realizes that's just a 3 per cent increase over the current total - a relative drop in the bucket, given our aging population. Rather dubiously, Ms. Horwath vows to do so while actually spending less money on home care - taking $100-million out of a bloated administrative budget, and reinvesting just $35-million of it.
Meanwhile, the NDP says it would provide an extra 2,650 long-term care beds, which is actually fewer than Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives promised in their platform. More ambitiously, it claims to be able to cut emergency-room wait times in half - but with no details and no allotted funding, that appears to be mostly aspirational.
New Democratic officials stress they're not done with spending commitments, with more to come between now and the official start of the campaign in September. Their projections show an average of about $450-million each year in "remaining funds," at least some of which will presumably be directed toward education and other social services that got no mention this weekend.
Realistically, that's not enough money to deviate significantly from Ontario's current governance model, and the scope of services it provides. And while shifting the tax burden from individuals to business is something the New Democrats gathered this weekend can get behind, much of their party's membership would surely like to do more than that.
But Ms. Horwath, much like federal NDP Leader Jack Layton, has little interest in the NDP's familiar role as the party of social conscience. She'd sooner talk about what's on voters minds than tell them what should be on their minds.
The idealists in her ranks will have to learn to live with it, or find someone else who wants to change the world.