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Wynne, Harper: Two Peas in a Pod
Fri, 2015-04-24 15:06
#1
Wynne, Harper: Two Peas in a Pod
Sat, 2015-04-25 13:49
#2
Clark, Harper: also Two Peas in a pod
Yet your government continues to allow the Harper Government to call the shots when it comes to decisions about pipelines that would lead to massive increases in tanker and other vessel traffic in BC.
http://www.straight.com/news/433056/open-letter-christy-clark-botched-va...
Sat, 2015-04-25 14:00
#3
Such a scandalous title must be the work of a hard-core Marxist. After all, the Libs made so many progressive promises during the election. They couldn't be the ideological cousins of the Cons.
You're right. It's the title of an article by that well known Marxist, Andrew Coyne. 
In Thursday’s budget, the federal Conservatives have pledged to hold the line on spending, while relying on asset sales and economic growth to — er, what? That wasn’t the federal budget lockup I just attended? That was the Ontario Liberals? Well I’ll be.
Some sort of mind meld has evidently occurred, some cosmic convergence through which the policies and rhetoric of the federal Conservatives, famously supposed to represent the right of the political spectrum, and the provincial Liberals, famously supposed to represent the left, have ended up looking and sounding almost exactly the same.
Like the Harper Conservatives, the Wynne Liberals have adopted the slow squeeze approach to spending, as a substitute for making choices about what government should and should not be doing. ...
Like the Harper Conservatives, the Wynne Liberals are relatively sanguine about the economy. There are almost identical charts in each budget showing oil prices rebounding to the $70 US range, and downplaying household debt as an issue. Like the Harper Conservatives, the Wynne Liberals depend heavily on asset sales — even the same assets, as in their respective General Motors holdings — to meet their own selfassigned deficit targets. ...
Like the Harper Conservatives, the Wynne Liberals are fond of projecting — and taking credit for — spending that is to take place many years from now, under governments that have yet to be born. Each boasts of the tax breaks it gives to manufacturing, in the form of accelerated capital allowances, or small business, in special lower rates. Each believes “entrepreneurship” is a quality that springs to life via multiple programs of government encouragement (see also: “venture capital”). Each has already booked savings from negotiations with public-sector unions that have yet take place.
They even take credit for the same programs: The Canada Job Grant in the federal budget is the Canada-Ontario Job Grant here. And of course, the contents of both were mostly leaked or announced well before the event — budgets nowadays being intended less to reveal than obscure. ...
The debt-to-GDP ratio, at a record 40 per cent and second only to Quebec’s among the provinces, is still rising; interest costs, as a proportion of revenues, are likewise headed higher, even as interest rates sink to record lows.
Yet the Wynne government seems almost to go out of its way to show how untroubled it is by all this. Even the revenue windfall from “unlocking the value” of provincial assets (Wynnespeak for “sell” or “privatize”) has ostensibly been put into the infrastructure pot, though as opposition critics pointed out this is a bit of a shell game: The same money could as well be said to have gone against the deficit, with the infrastructure contribution coming out of general revenues.
http://epaper.nationalpost.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
Sat, 2015-04-25 21:29
#4
montrealer58
Liberal-Conservative government in Ontario, Quebec, and B.C.
Yet more proof that Justin Trudeau is just the Twitter version of Harper.
Tue, 2015-12-01 18:20
#5
In Eglinton station today I noticed that OPSEU has an ad up featuring a photo of Stephen Harper with a packed bag beside Wynne with a suitcase that's open. It reads, "One down..."
Good stuff.
Tue, 2015-12-01 18:32
#6
lol wth is wth Ontarian voting against their best interests? why are they more suseptible to propaganda?
Tue, 2015-12-01 23:08
#7
Good question. Regardless, I'm glad to see OPSEU calling out Wynne as someone who needs to go.
Fri, 2015-12-04 10:17
#8
montrealer58
Aldous Huxley wrote about "the ultimate revolution" where the masses learn to be the loudest advocates for their own servitude. Evidently we are well along the road in this process.
Fri, 2015-12-04 10:32
#9
montrealer58
By then, the NDP will have some recent data to work with. Beaten by Wynne and Trudeau. In both cases, an anti-Conservative groundswell. The NDP HAVE to point out that the Hydro 1 sale is worse than what the PCs likely would have done. The only way you are going to defend Public Power is to vote NDP. I know Howard Hampton didn't do well in his federal seat but he cast a long shadow on Ontario.
Fri, 2015-12-04 10:55
#10
The NDP HAVE to point out that the Hydro 1 sale is worse than what the PCs likely would have done. The only way you are going to defend Public Power is to vote NDP.
If the ONDP had a gram of principle and courage (full disclosure: they don't), they would follow the advice I've been giving them and other NDP provincial opposition parties for years. Just say this to the media:
"When elected, we will re-nationalize any public assets privatized by Wynne, at fair market value, as determined by the government. Buyers, beware."
Instead, they seem to have opted for this:
"The Cons and Libs can privatize everything, but we are incapable of undoing the damage. Whine, weep, sob, stamp our feet! So, vote for us!"
Fri, 2015-12-04 12:24
#11
"When elected, we will re-nationalize any public assets privatized by Wynne, at fair market value, as determined by the government. Buyers, beware."
Its a nice idea, the problem is that trying to "renationalize" a utility can be like pushing toothpaste back into a toothpaste tube. Since provincial government do not have the legal power to simply confiscate privagtized assets (and neither do national government for that matter) - you are expecting that a government coming to power with a $300 billion debt would be able to instantly pay something like $10 billion dollars to buy back shares in Hydro One? and that would represent $10 billion that is NOT being spent on health, education, welfare, infrastructure etc...
Maybe some government could make that work, but it wouldnt be simple.
Fri, 2015-12-04 12:31
#12
"When elected, we will re-nationalize any public assets privatized by Wynne, at fair market value, as determined by the government. Buyers, beware."Its a nice idea, the problem is that trying to "renationalize" a utility can be like pushing toothpaste back into a toothpaste tube. Since provincial government do not have the legal power to simply confiscate privagtized assets (and neither do national government for that matter) - you are expecting that a government coming to power with a $300 billion debt would be able to instantly pay something like $10 billion dollars to buy back shares in Hydro One? and that would represent $10 billion that is NOT being spent on health, education, welfare, infrastructure etc...
Maybe some government could make that work, but it wouldnt be simple.
You were right on Unionist with your quote of the party line. Stockholm was then in the next post nice enough to give a perfect example of what you meant.
Instead, they seem to have opted for this:
Quote:
"The Cons and Libs can privatize everything, but we are incapable of undoing the damage. Whine, weep, sob, stamp our feet! So, vote for us!"
Fri, 2015-12-04 14:29
#13
Since provincial government do not have the legal power to simply confiscate privagtized assets (and neither do national government for that matter)
Oh yes they do. Both levels of government. And they do it all the time. Despite efforts by various right-wing think tanks, the "right to property" has never yet been enshrined in the Charter.
- you are expecting that a government coming to power with a $300 billion debt would be able to instantly pay something like $10 billion dollars to buy back shares in Hydro One? and that would represent $10 billion that is NOT being spent on health, education, welfare, infrastructure etc...
1. If the ONDP issues its "Buyer Beware" declaration now, guess what? The selling price will be driven way down. So even if Wynne goes ahead, she'll only get pennies on the dollar. And guess what else? Even if anyone buys in the face of that threat, it'll be that much cheaper to buy that sucker back later.
2. "that would represent $10 billion that is NOT being spent on health, education, welfare, etc."
Stockholm - listen to yourself. Wynne says she's selling it so that she can have $10 billion to spend on all that good stuff. So if she [b]doesn't[/b] sell it, that will "represent $10 billion that is NOT being spent..." and so forth. So - you want her to sell it!
Remember, always check text for logical consistency before pressing "Post Comment". Mind you, it's not too late to go back and refine your argument.
Fri, 2015-12-04 14:43
#14
Despite the windfall now from the sale, I've heard it's a loss over time that will reduce government capacity. Tax increases, such as a corporate tax increase, would be a better way to raise revenue.