Ontario's Premier Doesn't Get It.

It would seem the McGuinty Liberal government at Queens Park is completely incapable of acting in the best interest of anyone besides public sector unions. Considering this government was ostensibly elected to represent the interests of ALL Ontarians, their willingness to throw around tax money to OPSEU, to the OPP, and now to Ontario's prison guards is appalling.

With Ontario's deficits stuck well into double digit billions, it should be clear to anyone with half a clue that the government has to stop increasing spending, and start reducing it.

Bob Rae realized this about halfway through his single term as Premier, and the result was Rae Days. For all that, though, he was incapable of reducing government spending significantly, and as a result was soundly thrashed in the 1995 provincial election which elected the Progressive Conservatives under Mike Harris. This government kept it's promises, and massively reduced government expenditures during the following years, while simultaneously cutting taxes. The result was a span of strong economic growth in Ontario.

But a departure from the decisive government of the late 1990s by the PCs in the early 2000s led to an increase in government expenditures, and a picture of a government that had lost touch with it's raison d'etre. The result was a Liberal victory in the 2003 election, highlighted by Liberal promises of a balanced budget, no new taxes or tax increases, and labour peace between the government and public sector unions.

What did Ontario get? Labour peace, but only because the Liberals gave away the farm to public sector unions. As a result, even with the Liberals early on breaking their promise not to increase or add taxes with the health care tax, health care in Ontario is a disaster, literally threatening the lives of Ontarians. Other tax increases followed, but Ontario is now a fiscal basket case, a “have not” province with a standard of living underneath the national average for the first time since Confederation.

Consider: are you any better off today than you were in 2003? Do you feel any more confident about the future than you did then? Do you think our healthcare system will be there for your children like it is for you? I doubt most Ontarians will answer any of these in the affirmative.

As we move closer to the fall election, the question Ontarians need to begin considering is this: can Ontario afford another four years under Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals?

Portrait of a madman | Wellington Times

By Rick Conroy - from the Wellington Times

Just how far will he go?

Since Dalton McGuinty stared into a television camera in a leaders’ debate in 2003 and promised he would rid the province of coalfired electricity generation by 2007, there has been no barrier, no regulation, no safeguard strong enough or important enough to slow Dalton McGuinty from his futile obsession with wind and solar powered generation. Never mind that eight years later Ontario is still generating electricity from coal, and despite lavishing developers, conglomerates and others with billions of taxpayer’s dollars—he is no closer to his goal than he was in 2003.

So he has become more desperate. Now he appears willing to throw entire species under the bus for the sake of a piddly and unreliable trickle of electricity that might from time to time be emitted from an array of massive turbines on Crown land on Prince Edward County’s south shore.

A quick recap of the madness that has twisted Ontario’s energy supply so far under Dalton McGuinty’s guidance:

- billions of dollars spent and committed to developers to erect an intermittent power supply that cannot be harnessed by our grid operator or consumers;

- billions more committed to Korea’s Samsung in a deal negotiated in secret and of which Ontarians remain in the dark;

- legislation that removes local government input and authority over wind and solar factories in their jurisdictions;

- the replacement of environmental, archeological, social and economic impact scrutiny applicable to every other power or infrastructure development by a check-thebox process for wind and solar factory developers. Did you consult with the community? Yes? Check. Did you consult with the municipality? Yes? Check. It matters not that any of the folks consulted had critical objections, only that they were consulted;

- Crown land, set aside by our ancestors to preserve natural features and beauty, sacrificed and handed over to developers— whose interest in the land extends not one second past the 20 year life of the guaranteed power purchase contract it holds;

- residents forced from their homes and made ill due to vibration and noise from neighbouring wind turbines; and

- not as well understood are provisions in the Green Energy Act that compel the Ontario Energy Board and grid operators to take intermittent electricity from wind and solar electricity generators. These utilities have no use for electricity they can’t dispatch (turn on or turn off) so, under orders, they take the wind and solar-powered electricity and fork over to other markets or risk putting the system out of balance. Those markets like Michigan and Ohio are happy to take it off our hands—for a hefty fee.We are being held ransom daily in the electricity market by one man’s misguided obsession. In the United Kingdom the government has begun paying intermittent electricity generators to disconnect from the grid for the same reason.

Read more...

Portrait of a madman | Wellington Times