Last week the narrative seemed to be that Premier Kathleen Wynne's approval ratings and re-election chances had suddenly been resurrected from rock bottom because the Sudbury bribery trial was thrown out by the judge presiding over the case.

According to some journalists "a huge weight" has been lifted off Wynne's shoulders in her re-election bid because of the judge's decision.  Of course, the charges against Wynne's former deputy chief of staff (and now election campaign manager) Patricia Sorbara being thrown out by the judge was definitely some much needed good news for the Premier, but don't buy into the hype that this was what has been the main reason for her unprecedented unpopularity.

As some astute political observers have known all along, the Sudbury bribery allegations were only brought to court because of the release of surreptitiously recorded audio of Sorbara and a local Sudbury Liberal kingmaker offering a former Liberal candidate potential favours to step aside.  It was clear from the get go that there was no explicit job or monetary offer made to the former candidate — thereby no bribe — and that the case against the two Liberal aides would go nowhere.  For that reason it is a bit odd that the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario wasted money on attack ads tying Wynne to this already fizzled out scandal, especially when a former lawyer like PCPO leader Patrick Brown surely knew the charges wouldn't stick.  But political attack dogs don't care about details, the optics were more than juicy enough to bite.

But that's neither here nor there when looking at Wynne's atrocious approval ratings over the past year.

Wynne's government is mainly dogged because she is disliked as Premier by a majority of the electorate for her record as the leader of Ontario.  And it's not hard to see why.

First and foremost, the Liberal government's disastrous botching of Ontario hydro has finally dealt a heavy price to Wynne because Ontarians' electricity bills steadily climbed over the past few years.  Wynne's band-aid solution, known as the eerily euphemistic Fair Hydro Plan has not done much to quell voters' dissatisfaction with being hosed on their electricity bills.  Even though Ontarians supposedly get an average of 25 per cent off their bills in the short term, in the long term they will again skyrocket and the whole plan will cost Ontarians tens of billions of dollars in additional interest.  The Liberals also spent $2 million on outside accountants to cook up a scheme to keep the additional debt off the next couple budgets so they can dishonestly claim they've balanced the budget.  Then there's the whole part where Ontarians are now bombarded by $5.5 million in Fair Hydro Plan ads — not including all of the other government ads also ubiquitous on airwaves and online — that don't mention the true cost or the added debt, instead painting a rosy future.  Then add the selling off of most of Hydro One and the continued locked-in, wasteful green energy contracts and it's no surprise Wynne has plumbed new depths of unpopularity.

It's as the popular expression goes: it's the economy, stupid.  As much as the media, Bay Street, and Liberals everywhere continue to claim the economy is booming, on Main Street the average Canadian has not noticed the new warmth of the so-called hot economy.  Perhaps that is especially true of Ontario, where the Liberals in the last fourteen years have saddled the province with virtually unmanageable debt and sold out the province's interests in signing lucrative green energy contracts to their friends.  To further scare away business, Wynne introduced a cap-and-trade carbon tax scheme, adding to the unattractiveness of a jurisdiction with already off-the-dial electricity costs.

So, when Wynne suddenly starts clinging to well-liked politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders — someone she was trashing just last year â€” in her desperate bid for reelection, no-one should be duped into thinking she herself is popular again.  When Wynne overreacts to Brown misspeaking about her standing trial by suing him, everyone should see it for what it is: an incredibly unpopular Premier's last-ditch and pathetic effort to try and regain the moral high ground.  When Wynne starts throwing around unaffordable goodies like a $15 minimum wage and a guaranteed income it should be seen as nothing more than the equivalent of a rich kid with Daddy's credit card trying to buy friends.  To try and frame the end of the Sudbury bribery trial as some sort of exoneration of Wynne and the beginning of her comeback is to completely lose the plot.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon