Cornwall Ontario – Don’t you hate the utterly Orwellian titles politicians are giving their game plans? Kathy loves to use the term “fair” in her bills and plans even though most are certainly not fair to those that pay for them.
Patrick Brown is in an interesting position. He’s done well going from a closeted Harper back bencher to mere centimeters away from becoming Premier of Canada’s biggest and wildest province.
He’s ducked clinching with Kathy, happy to peck away without putting anything on the table, until this weekend when he rolled out a slick (for 2010) glossy digital mag presentation of his new party platform.
As I started reading this it was clear it was geared for the punters and we media folk.
The “bites” were clear enough so I thought I’d run through and comment on some of the more or less interesting things my poor fatigued brain caught from the low hanging fruit of the document.
Hydro – cutting 12% is frankly meaningless. Even really dumb people in South Stormont know that it’s the delivery and other numerous fees that are killing residents of Ontario. 12% is essentially doing nothing. Frankly so far Andrea has won the Hydro file by clearly stating that the NDP would buy back or cancel the sale of Hydro, which taxpayers are financing anyway, and do away with many of these fees, but then Andrea and her party don’t really seem interested in building actual relationships with media so few in Ontario have a clue about her party’s positions.
Taking a page from Trudeau’s game book, without going all out, a lot of promises are made which clearly have little chance of being kept, at least in a first term. Why do punters keep swallowing election promises the way we do in Canada? It’s embarrassing…..
We already know that Kathy is a like a crack addict when it comes to jabbing into Ontario residents when it comes to Hydro. There is no low that she and her team won’t seem to go when it comes to zapping us in our pocketbooks.
Dropping taxes for everyone is kinda nice, but doesn’t just about every party say that to some degree? And do your taxes ever really go down? No magic on that one.
Healthcare. Can anyone truly trust the PC’s after what Mike Harris did, and what Tim Hudak wanted to do? Long term care beds are nice, they’re needed, but frankly most of those that vote are the ones paying taxes, and while it’s important to take care of those in need, in election years I know I want to know what’s in a platform for moi.
Turning the page we now are talking jobs. Governments rarely create jobs. They are good at killing them as high hydro rates, the implementation of the new minimum wage, high taxation, and huge red tape have evidenced. No meat with them potatoes.
Transit – a lot of promises.
Drivers – scrapping the emissions tests is good. Winter tire credit, smart, auto insurance is an area where Brown could make headway, but he’s teasing us. He’s dangling the ankle when we want to see the thigh garter, but then he could simply be playing fey, although I much prefer Tina Fey who’s an utter hottie.
Education – sad and empty. The moratorium on school closures frankly is voter pandering. We sadly need to close a lot of schools in Ontario because rural Ontario has been socially engineered to trigger our young families to move where there is work and life, IE big cities, leaving older people and those with webbed toes mostly in the smaller burgs along with government workers who seem to control almost everything which is way too Kafkaesque for this writer. If we truly need to close schools to make sure real resources are given to our kids then that’s what we need to do. Brown misses a chance to fight back against the opposition. Both the NDP and Libs seem to think the only solution to education issues is to raise teachers salaries which means there’s less in the pot for actual education. The pendulum needs to swing back a bit in favour of our kids.
Environment. Conservatives and the Environment? N/A
Government Accountability – asking a politician to improve governmental accountability is like asking a rapist to create laws and punishments against rapists. It’s like asking the Justice system to function when judges are appointed essentially by political machination….
Turning the page we’re now into the FINE PRINT which kinda frightens this writer.
Brown wants to fund all children with Autism which explains most riding association meetings in Eastern Ontario.
Reading through the fine print it again reminds this writer of a similar Liberal document used a few elections ago. It worked in that election so kudos to Brown.
Every action that Brown has taken since his run for the party leadership has been calculated to get the result of becoming Premier of Ontario. While the Liberals have benefited from choices like Tim Hudak, the Cons may just not shoot themselves in the foot this time.
Frankly when your biggest issue is whether to come out of the closet or not to your own party you’re in pretty darn good shape. Patrick Brown, by running a slightly Red Tory party line just might drag the Cons back into power because frankly Kathy Wynne and her friends have really stunk and hurt the province of Ontario.
They’d have been turned out about two elections ago if there was any remotely credible opposition.
This plan and upcoming election just might be the end of their reign of higher taxes and strangeness that have scarred the province from Sarnia to Cornwall.
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Politicians are politicians are politicians. Government is government is government. Meaning? We’ll see if these plans are really workable or just more political garbage. They’re just all the plans put out by all political parties….plans to get the voters interested and to vote fore them. We shall see!!