The polls are closed. The votes have been counted. The people have spoken. The democratic process has triumphed. Cliché, cliché, blah, blah, blah. Mr. McGuinty is the Premier-designate his government will be sworn in shortly.

From the point of view of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, there are three key messages that stem from Election 2003.

First, the process surrounding the Taxpayer Protection Act which both Mr. Eves and Mr. McGuinty pledged to uphold, worked … and worked well: A point to which I'll return in a moment. Second, the "tax relief" agenda is not dead, far from it! And finally, moving forward, Mr. McGuinty's electoral landslide was the easy part, governing the economic engine of Canada - we churn out 42% of the nation's GDP - comes with its own unique constraints which thankfully inherently limits the tax-happy spendthrift ambitions of any political party.

On September 11th, my colleague Ontario CTF director John Williamson scored a coup and secured Dalton McGuinty's signature on our Taxpayer Protection Promise. Ernie Eves also signed our Promise a day or two before and faxed it to our Toronto office. For the record, Mr. Williamson offered the same public signing opportunity to the Tories but they chose not to avail themselves of this offer … in hindsight, this was clearly a strategic blunder on their part.

Mr. Williamson even went so far as offering to hop in a car right after Mr. McGuinty signed our pledge on the 11th and drive anywhere within the 416, 905, 705, 519, or 613 area codes (basically everywhere except Wa Wa, Timmins or Thunder Bay) to secure Mr. Eves signature in a similar public ceremony which is a compelling testament to his and the CTF's non-partisanship.

Both leaders pledged to abide by and uphold Ontario's Taxpayer Protection and Balanced Budget Law (we'll call it the Act). To be clear, this law does not stop a political party from raising taxes, to do so would be anti-democratic. However, if a party does propose to raise personal, corporate or sales taxes, or introduce new taxes, the Act states that the party leader must be "specific, clear and unambiguous" and seek approval of the electorate either through a province-wide referendum or in a general election campaign. Voter approval or rejection is then predicated on voter awareness … it is

Both the Liberals (after some prodding by the CTF with the Chief Elections Officer of Ontario) and PCs were in full compliance with the Act. The PCs clearly laid out their legislative proposals with respect to giving cities the power to levy gas or sales taxes in the context of local referendums. And the Liberals costed out their business tax rollbacks (read: hikes) and the billion-dollar impact of their 2003 income tax freeze and abolition of personal income tax cuts that were scheduled to go into effect next January.

(As an aside, if the NDP did win Thursday's election, their proposed corporate and income tax hikes would have been the subject of a referendum, since Mr. Hampton didn't bother to obey the Act during the campaign.)

Party leaders must write the CEO at least two weeks before voting day outlining their tax proposals. The CEO then evaluates the proposals for compliance with the Act and communicates with the clerk of the legislature if they are in accordance with the Act or have run afoul of the law no later than nine days before Election Day.

Never in the history of the province have voters had such clarity. The provisions of the Act worked and as authors of this law in Canada, we are justifiably proud.

The other good thing about the Act is that it forbids deficits. So no matter what Mr. McGuinty and his Finance Minister find - the old change of government song, whoa, the books are worse than we thought - he and his colleagues are committed to balancing the province's books by March 31, 2004.

As for those misinformed pundits who gleefully pronounced that the era of tax cuts is over, sadly, they're way off the mark. The Eves' platform was hardly a fiscal conservative's dream.

To start - as my colleague John in Toronto has noted repeatedly - a leader must first and foremost be credible when proposing tax relief measures. Just 18 months ago Mr. Eves opposed the private school tax credit and scoffed at the idea of mortgage interest deductibility. And delivering a budget in an auto parts plant as opposed to the legislature, well that was patently stupid.

Tax cuts are alive and well but the provincial PCs did not follow the successful template when it comes to tax relief. Cuts to personal income taxes work best when they are across-the-board which blunts criticism from opponents who pit one income group against the other when questions of who benefits the most are raised?

And speaking of this criticism, the Eves campaign gimmick of cancelling a planned 10% across-the-board cut to everyone's provincial education portion of the property tax in favour of a 100% cut targeted to senior citizens was ideologically and fiscally indefensible.

Enduring examples abound as to the success of the across-the-board formula: The Klein tax cuts of the early 1990s. The Harris tax cuts in 1995 and 1999. Bernard Lord in New Brunswick in 1999. Paul Martin's pre-election budgets in February and October 2000. The BC Liberals in 2001 and earlier this year, Jean Charest's Liberals won Quebec, partly on the back of an across-the-board 27% personal income tax cut proposal.

Finally, many observers fret that Mr. McGuinty - in order to keep his wish list of promises which rivals Santa's toy parade - will plunge Ontario into deficit and hike taxes tremendously. The economic health of Ontario is critical for the country as was a whole and a return to the bad old days of Bob Rae plunging the province and the country into a three year recession is not on.

Any moves in this direction would not only be met by scorn from Ontario taxpayers - including those who voted Liberal - but by fellow premiers across the land and his inevitableness himself, Paul Martin. Besides, Mr. McGuinty has signed in blood not to run deficits.

As my business law professor at Carleton back in 1988, Mr. McGuinty kept his word on getting assignments back to his students on time. And you can rest assured that my friend John Williamson in Toronto is carrying a signed copy of our Taxpayer Protection Pledge in his back pocket at all times to ensure that Mr. McGuinty keeps his promise to taxpayers.