Ontario Election

[Nemo888]

A minority governments paralysis usually keeps them from making any meaningful decisions, especially in these partisan times. This is good news/bad news. With the G20 stimulus over and the second great depression making a comeback a paralyzed government is good to the degree they are incompetent.

 

[a_majoor]

A PC opposition is almost irrelevant; the Liberal/NDP collective is now facing a more formidable opponent: the Bond Rating agencies.

McGuinty's spending is out of control to the extent of a projected  $16 billion deficit for this year alone, and has doubled the Provincial debt to $200 billion in his eight years in office. When the rating agencies start slashing Ontario's bond rating to match the PIIGS, we will be in real trouble; the only solution the Liberals and NDP know is to raise taxes, crushing the economy and collapsing revenues as labour and capital flee to Saskatchewan and Alberta. This naturally makes the rating agencies cut again; only the George Soros and Warren Buffets of the world can comfortably buy billions of "CCC" grade Ontario bonds and collect the 9% interest (that we will be paying).

So taxpayers can now choose from four memes:

1.Go Okie (to Sask and ALB, or maybe Texas)

2.Go Galt (stop buying and producing to choke off the revenue streams now. Victory gardens and rain barrels are good investments for the next four years)

3. Stand and fight (a popular meme in the US is to place stickers on gas pumps and grocery stores explaining the high prices are courtesy of Obama; the same stickers with the name McGuinty can be used here)

4. Do a TEA Party like movement ot take over the Ontario PC party rising association by riding association and get people who are willing to explain the problem (out of control spending) and the solution (spending cuts with everything on the table) publicly and openly.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
... explain the problem (out of control spending) and the solution (spending cuts with everything on the table) publicly and openly.

Which is precisely what Don Drummond will do when he reports to the Gov't of Ontario. Further, he will explain how to cut, without a politically unacceptable "slash and burn" regime, why deep, severe cuts can be managed and even, in the medium term, benefit most Ontarians, and when the cuts, especially the most politically painful ones, need to be made (hint: soon, day after tomorrow, so that the most painful cuts will have lost their sting before the next (2015) election).

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen is an interesting take (speculation?) on why the Liberals ended up in minority territory:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Anti+turbine+forces+turned+election+tide/5524661/story.html

Anti-turbine forces turned election tide
Liberals lost 10 seats targeted by coalition group Wind Concerns Ontario

By Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen

October 9, 2011

Did wind turbines cost the Ontario Liberals their majority in Thursday's provincial election? A close look at the election results suggests it's more than possible.

The Liberals lost 10 seats - almost all in rural Ontario - targeted by the anti-wind coalition Wind Concerns Ontario. Had they retained even one of those seats, they'd have won a majority government.

Progressive Conservative or New Democratic candidates defeated seven incumbent Liberals, and won three Liberal seats where the incumbent wasn't running for re-election. All the ridings are home to industrial turbine projects or have active proposals for some.

Three Liberal cabinet ministers from rural Ontario were among the casualties, including Environment Minister John Wilkinson, an outspoken defender of the government's green energy policy, who went down to narrow defeat in Perth-Wellington. He won the seat by 6,000 votes in 2007.

Leona Dombrowsky, education minister in Dalton Mc-Guinty's cabinet, lost by 3,000 votes after winning by 6,000 votes in the last election. And agriculture minister Carol Mitchell, whose margin of victory in 2007 was 7,000 votes, fell to Tory Lisa Thompson by 4,500 votes in Huron Bruce.

Liberal incumbents also lost in Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock, Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, Northumberland-Quinte West and Algoma-Manitoulin. Conservative candidates won in two open Liberal seats - Chatham-Kent-Essex and Elgin-Middlesex-London, and the NDP picked up Essex.

All 10 seats were targeted by Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of wind opponents that claims to have mobilized thousands of volunteers angry at the Liberal government's embrace of wind power.

"The Ontario Liberals have spent the last two years denying science, refusing to accept local democracy, and tonight they paid a price," John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, said in a news release.

"The Liberals have an opportunity to change their course during this minority parliament, act on our concerns and put the interests of people ahead of the special interests behind the industrial wind lobby that cost them their majority," Laforet said.

Jane Wilson, chair of the North Gower Wind Action Group, which is fighting a proposed eight-to-10 turbine development near their community, said the election results show "the tide has turned.

"If the Liberal government wants to have good government for all Ontario, they're going to have to look at the concerns of rural communities," Wilson said.

She credited Wind Concerns Ontario with connecting concerned residents with other communities already living with wind turbines. "It gave them a kind of cohesion and more information than they would have had just acting on their own."

The proposed turbine development near North Gower came up repeatedly during the campaign, according to Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod, who represents the area and opposes the project.

Wilson said the project is still awaiting a contract under the province's Feed-In Tariff program. "I gather that's connected to whether there's transmission capacity," she said, adding: "We don't believe there is."

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Things that make you go 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

So I wonder how long it'll be before McGuinty trys bribe someone from the NDP or PC to cross the floor and give them a majority.

That or put someone from the Opposition in as Speaker to even the floor at 53 all, knowing when it comes to a tie breaker, the Speaker, no matter the party stripe usually sides with the government.

 

[a_majoor]

While Ontarians may have buyers remorse now, it will be a long time before the electorate and opposition parties are ready to take on the Public Sector Unions again:

http://russ-campbell.blogspot.com/2011/11/o-ntarios-liberal-minority-parliament.html

Hudak ready to pull plug on McGuinty’s government?

Ontario’s Lib­eral mi­nor­ity Par­lia­ment is hardly set­tled in and al­ready Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive leader Tim Hu­dak is threat­en­ing to pull the plug on them. Ap­par­ently, Dal­ton McGuinty “shot down” Mr. Hu­dak’s ideas for a pub­lic-sec­tor wage freeze and a re­formed ap­pren­tice­ship sys­tem, and this trig­gered the threat and a fundrais­ing let­ter to PC sup­port­ers call­ing for sup­port.

From where I sit, this looks too much like an empty threat in­tended only to fire up the PC base and, per­haps, col­lect a few bucks for the party cof­fers. Un­for­tu­nately, it will take more than good ideas and brave words to de­feat the Grits. On what topic and on what tim­ing would there be a meet­ing of minds be­tween the PCs and An­drea Hor­wath’s New De­moc­rats?

If there is such an is­sue, it’ll have to be a big­ger one than the charg­ing of HST on home heat­ing bills. Any such vote is not likely to be one of con­fi­dence in the gov­ern­ment, so win or lose the Grits will re­main in power.

And, frankly, I don’t see the Grits putting any­thing in their next cou­ple of an­nual bud­gets that will give the op­po­si­tion some­thing to rally round and vote the Lib­er­als down.

Fur­ther­more, can any of the three par­ties re­ally af­ford an­other elec­tion in the next 24 months or so? Surely they need at least that much time to build up their war chests. Though the thought of lis­ten­ing to these guys huff­ing and puff­ing at one an­other for the next two years is a dis­mal one.

My ad­vice would be to sheathe sabres and dis­pense with the empty threats. Take the fight to the com­mit­tee rooms at Queen’s Park, there to in­flu­ence Lib­eral leg­is­la­tion as best as can be done.

Lib­er­als will be in a bind:

On one hand they have to rein in spend­ing or see the bud­get deficit grow out of con­trol. That’ll be hard to sell in the next elec­tion. On the other hand, spend­ing re­straint will be tough for pub­lic sec­tor unions to swal­low and that might dampen their sup­port for the Grits in a fu­ture re­turn to the polls.

The Queen’s Park Lib­er­als are a spent force; in 18 months, they’ll be want­ing to do al­most any­thing to stay in of­fice. At that point, they’ll likely turn first to the Dip­pers for help, and the re­sult­ing com­pro­mise leg­is­la­tion will sink them in the next elec­tion—prob­a­bly Oct. 2015.

 

[a_majoor]

The average lenght of time for a minority government is 18 months? That will seem like a very long time indeed....

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1093088--cohn-mcguinty-will-pay-a-price-for-minority-missteps

Cohn: McGuinty will pay a price for minority missteps
Published On Sat Nov 26 2011

Dalton McGuinty is unaccustomed to defeat. The Premier hasn’t lost an important vote in the Legislature since 2003.

Until now. After barely a week on the job, opposition MPPs have humbled him — outvoting his minority Liberals on a symbolic proposal to remove the HST from home heating.

The bracing defeat, so early in his new mandate, is a pointed reminder to McGuinty that minority government requires a major effort to keep opposition MPPs onside. So far, he’s only been getting on their bad sides.

Meanwhile, Tory Leader Tim Hudak has been cozying up to his NDP counterpart, Andrea Horwath. The erstwhile enemies are now frenemies — BFFs, you might say, on the grounds that the enemy of my enemy is my Best Frenemy Forever.

The opposition leaders had jointly beseeched McGuinty for a meeting, but he blithely ignored them — until he realized they were huddling without him. Belatedly, on the eve of the Legislature’s first sitting, the premier’s office hastily summoned them for separate audiences.

The encounter with the Tory leader was a fiasco. Hudak’s chief of staff, Ian Robertson, tried to lay the groundwork by reaching out to the premier’s principal secretary, Jamison Steeve, but got nowhere. The actual summit was short and sour — barely 30 minutes, thanks to a McGuinty staffer popping into the room, on cue, to say Hudak had five minutes left.

By all available accounts, McGuinty haughtily dismissed each of Hudak’s five points as if he were an errant schoolchild. Some of Hudak’s ideas were non-starters, notably his demand that Finance Minister Dwight Duncan be fired. But a couple of proposals were worthy of a serious response instead of a patronizing brush-off:

• Boost skilled jobs by rapidly expanding apprenticeship positions across Ontario, which are now facing bottlenecks due to outdated rules that have left us far behind other provinces.

• Restructure the arbitration system to make it more responsive to economic realities, rather than rely on the traditional mindset that government can merely raise taxes or boost the deficit to pay for wage hikes. And create a permanent body of arbitrators, so that they aren’t always dependent on union support for their posts.

• A mandatory wage freeze deserves a more reasoned debate than the legal fig leafs proffered by the Liberals. With salaries taking up well over half of total government spending, the Tories argue that Queen’s Park won’t reduce its $16-billion deficit without a legislated freeze.

McGuinty insists his hands are tied by the courts, citing a 2007 B.C. ruling that overturned rash legislation in that province. Hudak counters that the situations aren’t comparable, because the B.C. government acted without consultations, whereas Ontario unions have had ample warning of the dire fiscal situation, and other provinces have invoked legislation.

Court rulings in Ontario and Ottawa also reaffirm the power of lawmakers to intervene in times of financial stress, adds deputy PC leader Christine Elliot. The Liberals “want to be able to shelter under the B.C. decision,” she told me.

McGuinty’s claim that a case in another province, in another time, tied his hands for all time, has always seemed dubious. The Liberals were motivated more by politics than legality when they eschewed a legislated wage freeze on the eve of an election.

The government opted instead to simply budget for 0 per cent increases, loftily calling on unions to fall into line. They haven’t. Government wage settlements are now trending at 1.6 per cent — below the private sector (1.9 per cent) — but not by much, and some have been much higher.

There are no easy answers. A legislated wage freeze could stoke fresh divisions, which McGuinty is keen to avoid. But Queen’s Park needs quick relief to meet its budget targets, because broader restructuring efforts will take time.

In the new minority Legislature, the Tories are targeting public sector unions. If McGuinty wants to win over public opinion, he’ll need cogent political and economic arguments. Merely shutting down the conversation with Hudak won’t get him very far.

Martin Regg Cohn’s provincial affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca, twitter.com/reggcohn.

When the "Red Star" paints the picture so starkly and accuratly (yes Virginia, Public Sector Unions are part of the problem in Ontario), then you know Dalton McGuinty is in trouble.

 

[a_majoor]

Elections do have consequences:

http://toronto-tory.blogspot.com/2011/12/union-bosses-block-job-creation-in.html

Union bosses block job creation in Ontario
The Windsor Star's Chris Vander Doelen asks a very important question in this morning's paper:

    If you could quickly produce good new jobs for a third of Ontario’s 550,000 officially unemployed, would you change a minor rule or two to do it?

The obvious answer would be yes, but for Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals, the issue is not so simple.

Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC Party have put forward a proposal to change Ontario's apprenticeship system, which currently limits the number of apprentices who can find jobs by setting artificially high journeyman:apprentice ratios. For some skilled trades, businesses must employ five seasoned journeymen to train one apprentice. Almost every other province has moved away from this 1970's era system, as have countries around the world, and the results are staggering. Ontario now produces 46% fewer skilled trades people per capita than the rest of Canada. Despite over 500,000 unemployed in Ontario, we have a major labour shortage in the skilled trades.

But McGuinty and his union bosses have no problem with that major labour shortage. Because of the labour shortage, wages are artificially sky high and work is guaranteed for the unions. If young people are trying to find an apprenticeship, the only people they can turn to are the union bosses. As a result, the unions have a stranglehold over the skilled trades sector - and after running a multimillion dollar attack ad campaign against Tim Hudak and the PCs in the last election, the Liberals owe them.

Ending the union monopoly would create 200,000 jobs in four years. It would drive down construction costs - not just for the private sector, but for the government's multi-billion dollar infrastructure spending. And all it requires is a minor regulatory change. Yet Dalton McGuinty continues to sit on his hands, bought and paid for by his union bosses.

It's time to get tough on union bosses. Tim Hudak proposed strong measures during the election, but they seemingly went ignored by the media, and sadly, conservative voters. If the union bosses can convince the Liberals that creating 200,000 jobs for young workers is a bad idea, it's time we all started paying a little more attention.

 

[a_majoor]

The PCPO needs a bit of help finding its voice. Luckily, the Internet allows you to rediscover all things, so for your reading pleasure:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57099326/Common-Sense-Revolution
http://justinsamlal.wordpress.com/the-common-sense-revolution/
http://www.danieldickin.ca/2011/12/common-sense-revolution.html

(Three different sites in case the link gets broken).

Given the precarious position the Liberal government is in today, I would suggest anyone interested in change look here for inspiration (and hope; after all, this is the platform which pulled the Ontario economy around after the Rae disaster and ended up increasing government revenues by $20 billion despite drastic Federal funding cutbacks to the province.) Of course the problem is much bigger today (over $100 billion in debt and an estimated deficit of $16 billion this year), so dramatic steps will have to be taken soon.

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting to see how this will turn out. With high unemployment, a huge debt and an additional $16 billion deficit on the way for this year, it is hard to imagine any sane person not taking the Drummond report seriously and implementing the recommendations. Will the Liberals stall? I agree with the blogger; yes they will. Will this be enough to trigger an election or parliamentary revolt? Maybe, but it is hard to see any workable means of getting to where we need to go without an outright majority government:

http://clownatmidnight.blogspot.com/2012/01/no-way-out.html

No Way Out

Don Drummond is on track to becoming my new favourite person. Not just because he has the Liberals in a bind with his upcoming report, which we got a sneak preview of today, but also because his weighing in signals that a time of change is at hand for the entire province of Ontario.

Nothing and no one will be spared, the former federal bureaucrat and retired bank economist says. Despite the temptation to go easy in certain areas and avoid political controversy, his commission has pulled no punches in its attempt to transform the way Ontario operates — and spends.

“There are going to be a ton of things in our recommendations that the government is not going to be pleased with,” he muses.

And the public should also brace for bitter medicine: “There will be lots of negative reaction, lots of anger.”

You had better believe it. The era of non-ideological Bill Davis blandness is at an end. Instead, the people of Ontario will be forced to confront the hard truths that we on the right have been talking about for years.

Oh, but don't worry. Dalton is going to delay as long as he can. Drummond, like the Auditor General and the Ombusdman, doesn't run the show. And if Dalton says that Drummond's recommendations don't fit with his plans to Move Ontario Forward, well, then he'll just direct his people to publish an embarassing list of Don Drummond's personal expenses and that will be that.

For Dalton is not going to do this:

And health care faces radical surgery to bend the cost curves even harder — down to less than half of what hospitals have counted on for annual increases. That means yearly increments must be scaled back — not just down to 3 per cent as the government had planned, but pushed even further to 2.5 per cent, or less than half of the annual rises until now (about $1.2 billion less than hospitals had been counting on).

Or this:

Universities and colleges also face new cost pressures — and performance obligations — to reduce waste if they want to continue receiving government funding. The blank cheques of the past should be phased out because rapidly rising post-secondary costs are a major budget hotspot that is ripe for reform.

And especially not this:

Unions would be invited to bid (along with everyone else) for their old jobs — not at the lowest price, but with minimum government standards and value for money in mind.

Instead, we're going to get the same kind of toeing the line we've gotten from Dalton for the past 8 years. A few dollars here. A few dollars there. Barely enough to make a dent in the deficit that's been created.

Except- and this is the hilarious part- Dalton and company have done such a good job sweeping the problems under the carpet and telling Ontarians they've never had it so good that any sort of cuts, no matter how superficial, will provoke a tsunami of fury from Ontarians. Lord help them if they actually implement Drummond's suggestions to the fullest.

And the moment that happens, the PC Party of Ontario will have been given the moral authority to seize power in Ontario and to make the cuts that are necessary. Why? Because when the most respected economist in the province told Dalton to fix things or else, Dalton told him, "Eh....we'll get there eventually. No hurry."

And because Dalton will drag his feet when the most respected economist in the province tells him to fix things or else, and because Dalton's foot dragging will lead to things getting worse for everybody, it will very quickly become time for the PC Party of Ontario to re-attach their scrotums and start doing what Dalton won't do.

The Liberals will default to Walkerton and Ipperwash and Closing Hospitals And Schools and all that scary stuff. That's fine. Their inaction will lead to circumstances that are worse than Walkerton, Ipperwash, etc. etc. Maybe there'll be widespread strikes by unions who aren't satisfied that Dalton has abased himself sufficiently. Maybe doctors walking off the job. Maybe corporations packing up and leaving en masse, leaving scores of jobless Ontarians. And after that happens for a while, the mood will start shifting rapidly. It's happened before.
Dalton likes to say, "None of us is as strong as all of us."

I have one for him: "Either some of us suffer or all of us suffer."

 

[a_majoor]

People I know connected to the PCPO are frustrated with the current Party leadership (the back room leadership much more than Tim Hudak, although he is in for a certain amount of criticism as well). The main complaint is the Party's apparatus isn't coupled to a clear set of goals and direction (sounds familiar).

Here is a little reminder of a past set of goals and directions; the contrast between then and now is pretty stark:

http://russ-campbell.blogspot.com/2012/01/golden-years-of-mike-harris.html

The golden years of Mike Harris

As I consider the mess in which Ontario now finds itself—bloated, ineffective government; out-of-control deficits; dependant on federal hand-outs—I find it somewhat comforting to recall the, by comparison, golden years Ontario enjoyed under then Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris.
Those deluded progressives who defend and justify Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government record like to remind Ontario residents of the Mike Harris era. But, to hear them tell it, those were dark days filled with labour strife and cuts to the education and health care sectors.
Revisionist history, folks.

Mike Harris’s terms ran from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He assumed power after 10 years of inept, ruinous Liberal and New Democrat government rule—similar to the predicament in which we now find ourselves.

The Harris government immediately set about implementing its election promises: a much needed agenda considering that the provincial deficit had reached a record $10-billion under the now-Liberal but then NDP, Bob Rae. Unlike most, the Harris government could be counted on to fulfill its  something of which any thoughtful person could accuse the Dalton McGuinty Liberals.

Harris’s promises had been outlined in “Common Sense Revolution” platform—no hidden agenda from him. It focused on tax reduction, balancing the budget, reducing the size and role of government, and emphasized individual economic responsibility thereby significantly reducing government handouts. An agenda that even a decade later sounds fresh and reasoned, not to mention it remains as relevant now as it was then.

The Tory political ads back then spoke in terms of working for welfare, scrapping affirmative action and cutting taxes to promote more employment. In other words, common sense. And the public loved it, giving Harris and his PC team a solid majority government in 1995, with the PCs taking 82 of 130 legislative seats at Queen’s Park.

Opponents of the Harris government like to dwell on the cuts they claim were made to health care and education and the downloading of certain provincial costs to municipalities. But they disingenuously ignore the roll Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government had played in Ottawa.

Chrétien along with then finance minister Paul Martin had launched a program of deep cuts—tens of billions of dollars worth—to provincial transfers after winning the federal election in 1993. Those cuts, though necessary, were having a dramatic effect on Ontario’s already strained finances, especially since the province had traditionally relied on federal transfers for a substantial portion (about 40 per cent) of its health care budget.

So, yes, there were cuts under Harris’s government—much needed cuts. And, yes, nurses were laid off, a mistake openly acknowledged and for the most part corrected later in his term. The Harris government actually increased Ontario’s health spending to record levels to offset transfer cuts from the federal Liberal government.

The Harris government also took on the teachers’ unions by insisting on badly needed reforms. The unions balked, of course, at anything and everything the government did that weren’t designed specifically to benefit the teachers themselves or their arrogant, confrontational trade unions. But the Harris government held fast, refusing to cave in to the demands of greedy teachers. (A lesson Dalton McGuinty could well heed.)
This confrontation came to a head in 1997 when Ontario’s teachers walked out on our kids in an illegal strike that the Harris government roundly condemned and to which it refused to knuckle under. The government prevailed, and, in the end, the teachers got little in the way of significant changes to government policies.

The Harris PCs had won a legal, democratic election and had received a major mandate from the voters of the province. The unions, though, weren’t having any of that. They participated in work stoppages and several large protests—some near-riots—on the grounds of the Ontario Legislature. Those demonstrations stand out as some of the most shameful attacks ever on Ontario’s democratic political system.

Under the Harris government, economic indicators in Ontario—for the first time in years—improved dramatically. During its first term, Ontario’s economy expanded faster than almost all other North American jurisdictions. Notably, such has not been the case under any Liberal or New Democrat government in Ontario in over a half century.

During his premiership, Mike Harris was able to manage prudently enough to eliminate the record high deficit run up by Bob Rae’s reckless NDP government. Moreover, Mike Harris so thoroughly proved himself to be an effective economic manager that Ontario’s voters gave him a second majority government.

Those were golden years indeed, not the dark days we hear about from progressives.
Oh, how I yearn for the return of those good old days. Over to you Tim Hudak.

Revisionist historians can run in circles, but the job figures and a $20 billion increase in provincial revenues really speaks for itself. (and before anyone begins again, please explain by what economic theory selling government assets creates private sector jobs, or for that matter, kindly enumerate $20 billion dollars worth of asset sales). In the mean time, the PCPO remains afraid to embrace the legacy of Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution, and so will continue to underwhelm the voters with the "me too" agenda.

 

[Infanteer]

The guy talks of Golden Years, but doesn't give anything to back up his claims.  If you're going to call the other side out on its claims, you should probably put some effort into showing the numbers.

 

[a_majoor]

I have several posts upthread and in other threads which outline the numbers, but a quick summary:

Between 1995 and 2002 Harris increased health care spending by $6 billion. (Source: Ontario Ministry of Finance website)
Between 1995 and 2002 Ontario government revenue increased by $16 billion (a 50% increase) (Source: Ontario Ministry of Finance website)
By 1998, over 300,000 private sector jobs were created
Harris also turned Bob Rae’s $8 billion deficit into a surplus by 1999 and produced three balanced budgets.

So the record is pretty unambiguous (although I had been quoting a different set of numbers to get the initial $20 billion figure, now that I have the Ministry of Finance websitefigure I don't think I need to worry about "biased" figures anymore).

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I have several posts upthread and in other threads which outline the numbers, but a quick summary:

Between 1995 and 2002 Harris increased health care spending by $6 billion. (Source: Ontario Ministry of Finance website)
Between 1995 and 2002 Ontario government revenue increased by $16 billion (a 50% increase) (Source: Ontario Ministry of Finance website)
By 1998, over 300,000 private sector jobs were created
Harris also turned Bob Rae’s $8 billion deficit into a surplus by 1999 and produced three balanced budgets.

So the record is pretty unambiguous (although I had been quoting a different set of numbers to get the initial $20 billion figure, now that I have the Ministry of Finance websitefigure I don't think I need to worry about "biased" figures anymore).

 

[a_majoor]

While the post is interesting in that it identifies with some of the issues the PCPO is contending with (and I have talked to enough members, and also know some people who actually split and joined the Freedom Party in frustration [although from a practical point of view, this isn't what I would think of as a productive COA]), I am not as confident as the poster that the PCPO is willing to take up the challenge. The election of a new Party President might do the trick, but my "frustrated" contacts suggest the entire power structure lost its way with Ernie Eves and never really got back on track:

http://clownatmidnight.blogspot.com/2012/01/time-for-another-thoughtful-post.html

Time For Another Thoughtful Post
Do we want to fix Ontario, or do we just want to get back into government?

I pay a lot of attention to the federal Liberals and their trials and tribulations. Because, in case you haven't noticed, the PC Party of Ontario and the federal Liberals have a lot of the same problems.

-Preoccupation with past victories
-Base that is split into different camps
-Lot of complaining about the government while not offering as many solutions
-Fruitless complaining about leadership
-Resistance to change and input from the party rank-and-file
-Party rank-and-file assuming that the people in charge know better than they do and not speaking out against things that they feel are wrong

How do the Liberals approach these problems?

Past victories: The Liberals still don't get that they aren't the preferred choice of most Canadians. More people voted for other parties than they did for the Liberals. The "60% of Canadians didn't vote for Harper" argument that they like to toss around ignores the fact that the Liberal share of the vote has been declining for a long time now.

Split base: When people are writing books about your intra-party warfare, it's not a good sign.

Complaining about government: They've been doing this for years. Everything the Conservatives do is the worst thing ever, but the Liberals don't ever tell us how they'd fix things or do things differently. They want legislation banning attack ads by third parties (as noted by the War Room Boss here) but they ignore the fact that Dalton does the same thing. They complain about conditions in Attawapiskat, but ignore that they didn't fix the problem when they were in government. They try to scare people into thinking Harper wants to destroy gay marriage, but ignore the fact that they didn't close the loophole that led to that whole kerfuffle.

Leadership: Bob Rae was supposed to be interim leader, and now it looks like he's permanent leader, and the Liberals say they're OK with this. Despite the fact that David McGuinty announced that he wanted to complete the Daltonian takeover of everything at their biennial.

Party rank-and-file not speaking out: See above.

Resistance to change: The Liberals decided they wanted to replace the current voting system with some form of ranked ballot. I can't find a single person outside ther LPC who thinks that there's a serious problem with the way we elect politicians in this country. The federal Liberals think it's a problem because they suddenly can't get elected anymore under the old system. When the old system gave them Trudeau, Laurier, Chretien, Pearson, King, etc., it was fine. Now that it gave them Harper, it's gotta go. I bring up this example because it shows how the Liberals are so stuck on defeating Harper that issues like this take precedence over issues that actually affect Canadians.

How do we approach these problems?

Preoccupation with past victories: Sadly, there are still people who think bringing Harris or Tory back would fix everything, and many people still think the same things that worked in the Bill Davis days will work now. However, we didn't get relegated to third place like the federal Liberals did, so we must be doing something right.

Base split into different camps: You could say that we have that problem. I don't think people in the PCPO want to fight the battles of the past the way the Chretienites and Martinites have done for decades, though.

Complaining about leadership: Yep. "Time for a really conservative leader!" "Like who?" "Um...." Fortunately, we don't have every other elected official in our party trying to do an end-run around the leader, and we are less preoccupied with who leads us than the federal Liberals.

Not offering solutions: Pretty much the #1 complaint people had about changebook. Recent moves by Hudak are suggesting he's gotten the message, though.

Rank-and-file not doing enough: On this one, I think we're worse than the federal Liberals. We complain a lot, and do so publicly, but nothing changes. Remember: when changebook was announced, a room full of people gave it several standing ovations.

Resistance to change and input: If the central party doesn't change, it's because the rank and file doesn't give them any reason to change. The Liberals' marijuana resolution is useless, but at least they're trying to put resolutions forward. Are we going to have any resolutions at our AGM?

Now, the Liberals have basically decided that they don't need to address their past mistakes, and that coming out of their biennial, all is well and the natural order of things (permanent Liberal majority governments) will soon be restored. We'd better not do that. Our AGM had better be a loud, raucous, breast-beating, mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore affair where we address the following questions:

a)  What are the problems facing Ontario that are not being addressed by McGuinty?
b)  How are we going to address these problems?
c)  Do our solutions make sense? Do voters agree with them?
d) What are we doing that is preventing these problems from being solved?
e) What are each of us going to do to solve these problems?

Notice that I advocate a relative absence of complaining about the leader and the central campaign. That's been done. Our job now is to ensure that the leader and the central campaign gets the message from us that if something's going wrong, we will TELL THEM, loudly, right away.

The difference between us and the federal Liberals must be that we are willing to take a hard look at what we're doing wrong and fix it, while they aren't. Or else we will share their fate.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Do we want to fix Ontario, or do we just want to get back into government?

It seems, to me, to be difficult for a political party of movement to do the former, "fix Ontario," without accomplishing the latter, "get back into government."

Ideological purity is interesting, even entertaining, but I doubt it leads to to the government benches in Queen's Park.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Some useful comments on the painfully slow pace of fiscal action in Ontario in this report which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/adam-radwanski/while-mcguinty-stalls-drummonds-legend-grows/article2313923/

While McGuinty stalls, Drummond's legend grows

ADAM RADWANSKI

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012

Dalton McGuinty has spent so much time setting the table, he could give lessons to a busboy.

There was hope, in some quarters, that the Ontario Premier would use his Tuesday address to the Canadian Club to finally begin spelling out his plan to get the province’s finances onto a stable footing. Instead, Mr. McGuinty yet again served notice that tough decisions will need to be made, without shedding much light on what those decisions will be.

The closest the speech came to making news was a goes-without-saying warning to public-sector unions that wage restraint will be an aim of coming contract negotiations. Otherwise, there was a reiteration of the goal to eliminate the $16-billion deficit by 2017-18, a recognition that doing so is key to Ontario’s economic prospects, and a promise to be neither “rash” nor “timid” along the way.

All this may have been useful in framing the challenges ahead for Ontarians who don’t pay rapt attention to provincial politics. But it fell short of what seemed, based on the way Liberals have been talking lately, to be one of its key goals: wresting control of the provincial agenda back from Don Drummond.

Last spring’s appointment of the former bank economist to review the province’s public services was a political masterstroke, allowing the Liberals to push the heavy lifting until after the fall election. And it may have had policy merit, bringing a fresh set of eyes to what’s now a third-term government. But the Liberals didn’t fully consider what they were getting themselves into, and many of them are now grumbling about Mr. Drummond’s commission having taken on a life of its own.

Although his report won’t be released before mid-February, Mr. Drummond has managed to dominate the provincial news cycle by using interviews to slowly roll out his key findings. Among them have been challenges to some of the Liberals’ core policies, such as their signature commitment to smaller primary-school class sizes, and an extremely grim projection that 2-per-cent annual economic growth is the new normal.

Mr. Drummond’s growing legend, to which Mr. McGuinty made light-hearted reference at the start of Tuesday’s speech, can be chalked up partly to his adeptness at self-promotion. But if the Liberals are chafing, they also have themselves to blame.

Three-and-a-half months have passed since the election, and the government still hasn’t announced or clearly signalled a single major policy aimed at the financial challenges largely ignored during the campaign. So Mr. Drummond has stepped into the void, and in the process created the impression that he’s effectively writing the next budget.

If that’s not true, and the Liberals insist it isn’t, then it needs to be quickly disproven – if not for the sake of a confused public, then for markets and credit agencies, one of which recently warned Ontario of a potential downgrade.

It’s one thing, perception-wise, for the government to cherry-pick from a commissioned report as it implements its own plan. It’s another for that report to be the only discernible plan, and for the government to reject large elements of it. Even if the Liberals were subsequently to unveil their own alternatives to Mr. Drummond’s proposals, they would have to be pretty bold to avoid the perception that they simply didn’t have the stomachs to implement what their own “austerity guru” had recommended.

The most intriguing line in Mr. McGuinty’s speech on Tuesday was that Health Minister Deb Matthews will “shortly” present an “exciting plan for health-care transformation.” He was apparently referring to a speech Ms. Matthews will deliver next week to the Toronto Board of Trade.

Considering that health expenditures are approaching 50 per cent of provincial program spending, and account for about a quarter of Mr. Drummond’s 400-plus recommendations, that gives the government one more chance to get ahead of the game. Or it could just be one more chance to set the table.

My guess is that McGuinty knows that "there is no alternative," as Margaret Thatcher used to say, but to implement Don Drummond's programme, in broad strokes if not in all the fine details, and he also knows that the coalition he has built bought, the one that brought him to and sustained him in power, will scream bue bloody murder when he does it.

My further guess is that the NDP will, of necessity, abandon him and force another provincial general election - one which the Tories might still lose unless they can get a competent, socially moderate but fiscally conservative leader.

 

[a_majoor]

A further look at the mess we have fallen into in Ontario. The fact that a financial disaster was being created was no surprise even then, and the results should be a surprise to no one now.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/02/13/terence-corcoran-keynesian-meltdown/

Terence Corcoran: Keynesian meltdown
Terence Corcoran  Feb 13, 2012 – 11:07 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 13, 2012 11:19 PM ET

How Ontario’s ‘stimulus’ spending led to disaster

The fiscal mess in Ontario is now common knowledge across the country, thanks in part to a sensational report from the Conference Board of Canada demonstrating that unless the government slashes spending and/or raises taxes, health care and education will have to be decimated. The report was no surprise to people who tracked Premier Dalton McGuinty’s march into Keynesian fiscal stimulus spending. The surprise was the appearance of the Conference Board as the harbinger of doom.

Is this the same Conference Board that only two years ago, in March, 2010, awarded Ontario “a gold star for stimulus” spending, according to ReNew Canada magazine? The province’s massive deficit spending, announced in 2009, would be creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and adding to the provincial growth rate. According to the Conference Board’s 2010 report — commissioned by the Ontario government to document the impact of its multi-billion dollar Keynesian stimulus effort — the deficit spending on infrastructure would also boost productivity, offset the recession, and set the stage for recovery.

Two years later, the Conference Board returned to the scene of the crime to report that Ontario is in rough fiscal shape, growth isn’t happening, spending will have to be cut, taxes raised and the province needs “transformative changes.” Missing from the Conference Board report was any acknowledgement that Ontario might be sinking under the weight of the stimulus gold star the board had awarded the province.

Like most other economists who are now issuing alarming reports and projections that Ontario faces a future of perpetual deficits, slow growth and rising taxes, the Conference Board appears to be wilfully blind to the dead corpus of Keynesian economic policy that is behind Ontario’s plight — policy that they all endorsed as the province’s economic salvation.

The McGuinty Liberals cannot be expected to admit that the massive stimulus balloon — which began with a $19-billion deficit in 2009-10 and has since expanded to an $80-billion-and-climbing monster that appears to be beyond control — has been a misguided disaster carried out under the influence of the finest economic minds in the country, if not the world. If a U.S. President can go crazy with US$1.5-trillion deficits, why shouldn’t the Premier of Canada’s largest province ring up $100-billion in deficits?

At the Toronto Economic Club on Monday, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan was towing his Keynesian gold star around. “The McGuinty government, like many others, invested heavily in stimulus — building roads, bridges and other important infrastructure.” This spending allegedly protected and created jobs, and will make Ontario “more competitive.”

Nobody really expects politicians to know what impact their actions have on the economy. They do what the economists, the Bay Street and in-house variety, tell them will work. And what the economists told them, via the Conference Board, bank reports and other outlets, is that running up billions in deficits is the ethanol that will keep the engine of growth going.

That the forecasters and theorists turned out to be dead wrong comes back to haunt no one. In Ontario’s 2009 budget, the province predicted that its total debt would rise gently to just over 30% of the province’s gross domestic product before beginning a decline. GDP growth, according to a consensus of Keynesian private-sector economic modellers, would rise to 3.3%, in part under the stimulus helium provided by the deficits. As it turned out, within two years forecasts had turned sour. The new debt-to-GDP ratio looked set to top 40% (see graph above). What happened is (a) the deficits kept growing and (b) the forecast growth rates began to look a little rosy. Rates of 3% and 3.5% were expected, presumably the result of all the infrastructure spending and productivity gains. Now, however, the forecast average growth rate is said to be unlikely to exceed 2%.

If we can’t expect politicians to take the blame for following the Keynesian deficit-spending policies advocated by their economic advisors, shouldn’t we turn to the economic experts to get them to explain themselves? The same people who supported and advised the McGuinty Liberals — and the Obama Democrats, the Greek and Portuguese politicians, the French and Canadian governments — to run up spending to rescue the economy will spend the next decade telling governments how to get out of the mess they helped create.

Ontario’s current circumstances create a perfect opportunity to confront the economic establishment and lay blame for the fiscal disaster that is Ontario. Government spending has been soaring for years. It all looks good if growth rates stay strong. Where were the dire economic warnings through the last decade that the expansion in government activity cannot continue without hitting a wall?

A table on Ontario’s spending habits (above) captures the disconnect between the government and the people. While the personal income of the people dragged at 26% growth, government spending soared more than 60%.

On Wednesday, former TD Bank economist Don Drummond will deliver a set of tax and spending options to the McGuinty government, a road map on how the province can resolve its fiscal problems. It would be nice if Mr. Drummond also charted the Keynesian fallacies that got Ontario into this mess.

 

[a_majoor]

Something tells me the most likely outcome of the Drummond report is a Liberal/NDP coalition. For the Liberals, the Drummond report is a repudiation of almost everything they have stood for and done over the last eight years, and only offers pain to the coalition of organizations who support the Liberal government (Working Families anyone?). For the NDP, this is a chance to get the leys to the treasury, since neither they nor Dalton seem to believe the issue is spending, all they have to do is tax ore and tax harder. In this regard, the two parties are pretty much united.

The PCPO is in a rough state, they are starting the process to rebuild their internal structures and have a leader who is not particularly popular or inspiring; nor have they shhown a great deal of spine when it comes to dealing with the Liberals or their various hangers on. They cannot take down the Liberals on their own, and I doubt the NDP is willing to go in with the PCPO to take down the government when an inticeing alternative is in reach:

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/19/a-recipe-for-political-dynamite

A recipe for political dynamite

BY CHRISTINA BLIZZARD ,QMI AGENCY
FIRST POSTED: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2012 06:31 PM EST | UPDATED: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2012 08:05 PM EST

Take one Premier Dad.

Add a PC leader who was recently accorded a tepid vote of support from party faithful.

Add a New Democratic Party leader whose approval rating with voters is soaring.

Add a dash of Don Drummond. Season with a juicy ORNGE scandal.

Shake it all up with a minority government — and what do you get?

A recipe for political dynamite as MPPs return to Queen’s Park after the Christmas break.

Premier Dalton McGuinty hasn’t spoken to reporters since last week’s release of the wide ranging report from economist Don Drummond outlining ways to cut funding.

Why is that? Is McGuinty running scared?

Or is he busy with a red pen in some ivory tower somewhere, scrapping this program, slashing that?

The polite sub-text of the Drummond report is a searing indictment of Liberal overspending. The McGuinty government spent themselves silly.

xxx

The lavish programs that have been the hallmark of McGuinty’s regime are what are digging us into a hole.

Look at what he suggests cutting.

Exhibit A — Full-day kindergarten. Sure, it’s a terrific boon for families with small children. But at $1.5 billion it was absolutely the wrong program to bring in at a time when the economy was tanking.

Exhibit B — McGuinty wants to be known as the green energy guy; no matter how much it adds to our bill.

Outrage over soaring energy bills prompted the Liberals to bring in the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit — the 10% rebate on your hydro bill.

Cut it immediately, says Drummond.

Exhibit C: Drummond says all federal and provincial post-secondary tuition grants and rebates should dropped and assistance should instead be focused on low-income students.

This includes the 30% tuition rebate that was part of the Liberal election platform last year.

Once again, yet another well-meaning but lavish program we just can’t afford.

So how will Finance Minister Dwight Duncan get his budget passed by the Legislature?

He’s going to need the support of one party — likely the NDP.

What does that mean?

Tax hikes, for sure.

New Democratic leader Andrea Horwath was making noises about that at a news conference last week.

We don’t need cuts if we increase revenues, she said.

That means the Liberals and NDP will likely cut a deal on the corporate tax cuts the Liberals promised in their last campaign.

If you don’t give businesses a break, the government can go on merrily overspending forever.

It’s an interesting compromise — and one that begs the question will the NDP and Liberals go for a formal or informal coalition?

xxx

In return for their support, will the Liberals give the NDP seats at the cabinet table — as the Tory government of David Cameron has done in the UK with Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats.

That’s not likely, for several reasons, the most compelling being that it would likely spell the demise of the NDP.

They’re simply not a big enough party or mature enough to stop themselves from being swallowed by the Liberal behemoth.

It also guarantees that spending will continue to spiral out of control.

An alliance with the NDP guarantees the government won’t get tough with public sector unions or attempt to rein in runaway spending.

All this at a time when Drummond has warned that the status quo isn’t sustainable.

If we continue down this primrose path, by 2017-18, the deficit will be more than $30 billion and the net debt will have soared to a massive $411 billion — more than 50% of the province’s GDP.

A toxic mix for sure.

And explosive if the government doesn’t take the right steps — now.

 

[a_majoor]

The Drummond report is destined to gather dust, (or will until the Bond ratig agencies come and turn Preimier McGuinty into Premier Downgrade):

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/22/ontario-keen-to-kill-more-time-before-taking-action-on-swollen-deficit/

Ontario keen to kill more time before taking action on swollen deficit
Kelly McParland  Feb 22, 2012 – 11:42 AM ET | Last Updated: Feb 22, 2012 11:51 AM ET
 
Peter J. Thompson/National Post
Don Drummond: Nice road map, says McGuinty
Ontario’s premier is full of energy and eager to get going.

“I think the time for talk is coming to an end,” Dalton McGuinty declared to reporters on Tuesday. “We’re running out of patience. The people of Toronto are running out of patience.”

Unfortunately, the action the Premier is keen to see isn’t from himself or his government.  Mr. McGuinty was expressing his frustration with Toronto’s inability to decide whether it likes subways or streetcars better, so he can hand over the $800 million promised to build one or the other.

In terms of his own priorities, Mr. McGuinty isn’t in such a hurry. It’s been a week since economist Don Drummond released the findings of his year-long examination of Ontario’s economy, which contained 362 recommendations and stressed that time was of the essence if the once-great province of Ontario was to be saved from oblivion.

Oh that.  Mr. McGuinty was the one who hired Mr. Drummond, and put off any serious attempt at remaking the economy until he had been heard from. Now that the verdict is in, however, he’s become a lot less enthused about embracing the proposals he sought.  In fact, he seems decidedly unenamoured of Mr. Drummond, who was recruited because of his much-respected record at the federal finance ministry and at TD Bank, giving him experience at the highest levels of both government and private sector.

Mr. McGuinty had several weeks to absorb the Drummond report before it was made public, but disappeared from public view just about the same time it landed, and hasn’t had much to say since. Far from an action plan to seize on and implement some of its more critical findings, he’s been off doing more important stuff, the economy being somewhere down to priority list all of a sudden.

With the provincial legislature back in session, however, ducking the issue got harder, so Mr. McGuinty let it be known that the big, important, much-heralded report he commissioned wasn’t such a huge hill of beans after all.  “As a government, we will not make thoughtless, reckless, across-the-board cuts,” he declared, not that anyone — certainly not Mr. Drummond — had suggested any thoughtless, reckless, across-the-board cuts.

He damned the report with faint praise, dismissing the exercise — which many observers have termed the most intensive examination of the provincial economy in memory — as a “helpful road map.”

“What Ontarians don’t want,” he announced, “are the same old tired talking points or ill-considered knee-jerk criticisms or mindless ideology that either says just cut everything or don’t cut anything.”

Well now we know what Mr. McGuinty wasn’t doing while he was in hiding. He wasn’t reading the report he commissioned. And now he’s emerged to offer the same old tired talking points and ill-considered knee-jerk criticisms in trying to justify not doing much of anything about it.

Unless he’s setting up an elaborate smokescreen, the Premier seems intent on the same old half-measures he’s championed in the past, backed up by trite homilies and bland cliches. “We’re going to have to find a way to do more with less,” he announced. “We absolutely must eliminate our deficit and balance our budget by 2017-18.” Even if, as Mr. Drummond days, it’s actually double what Mr. McGuinty claims it is.

He will not raise taxes, he says, a promise he made more than eight years ago before he became premier, and has broken any number of times since. Why would anyone believe him now? Who wants to bet that Mr. McGuinty convinces himself  that cancelling a pledge to lower corporate taxes doesn’t count as “new taxes”, and is thus perfectly okay? And he won’t do away with any of the vital services Ontarians expect and enjoy, by which he means any of the expensive programs he introduced and has been propping up with borrowed money.  No, he’s going to find another way to reach the cherished goal of a balanced budget, one that will ensure “the services we deliver are both affordable and of a higher quality.”

Sure. Okay. We’ll all wait until March and then drink in the marvels of the provincial budget with awe and admiration. Or maybe we’ll just wonder why all that money and time was wasted on Mr. Drummond’s report if Mr. McGuinty never intended to take it seriously, and was determined to stick to the ruinous path he’s been travelling for so long anyway.