What else do you want to talk about on a Monday morning?
I’m sick and tired of our municipal leaders sitting on their hands, and now our provincial leaders are going to do the same thing…
Every once in a while, I’ll ruffle some feathers with my political rants.
For the most part, my readership seems to agree with me, or at least agree with my “right” to speak my mind. But I remember a post last year when a reader commented something to the effect of, “David, when will you learn that your blog is not the correct forum for your political views?” It went on to explain how in addition to being incorrect in my opinions, I also shouldn’t be posting them in the first place.
I emailed this person the next day and said, “I’m thinking of writing about condos tomorrow, but I just wanted to know if you’re okay with that. Please let me know if I have your permission to write about condos on my blog. Thanks.”
Forgive my sarcasm, but “Toronto Realty Blog” isn’t just about real estate; it’s also about Toronto, as the name would suggest, and to be perfectly honest, it’s about anything I feel like writing about, and anything I think my readers might enjoy reading. That doesn’t mean that I expect my readers to agree, but I do expect the subject matter to be interesting.
How can you not be interested in Dalton McGuinty after what happened last week?
Rather than recap what Mr. McGuinty did, let me provide an analogy…
Dalton McGuinty was playing soccer.
Dalton McGuinty decided he no longer wanted to play soccer.
But Dalton McGuinty didn’t just walk off the field.
Dalton took the only soccer ball with him.
Then, Dalton took the referee’s whistle.
Then, Dalton rolled up all the sod and had a truck take it away.
Then, Dalton took down the goal-posts.
Then, Dalton had the holes from the goal-posts filled in with concrete.
Dalton went home, but ensured that nobody else – players, referees, coaches, parents, and spectators – could no longer partake in the game of soccer.
That is what Dalton McGuinty did last week when he prorogued the legislature.
Yes – “prorogue,” a word that most of us, myself included, had never heard until last week. How is this not trending on Twitter right now?
Rather than using “prorogue,” why don’t we call it what it is?
Mr. McGuinty “shut down” the legislature. Mr. McGuinty put it on hold. He closed the doors, and sent everybody home.
Then, he quit.
I know it must sound as if I complain about politicians every chance I get – municipal, provincial, federal. But that’s not my intention; I’m just passionate about Toronto, Ontario, and Canada respectively, and I like to watch with a keen eye as our elected leaders guide us through life in the country we call home.
Yes, I’ve complained a lot about Rob Ford and Toronto’s city council, but I’m not simply a politician-basher for the sake of being one.
I supported Mr. McGuinty during his first two terms in office, and I think he did an above-average job.
But what he has done in the past week is simply unprecedented, and in my opinion, it’s one of the biggest political offenses that our province has ever seen.
Since last Monday, every newspaper and every television station has been running pieces on this story, so I don’t intend to shed any new light on the subject. But I do have an opinion to share.
I personally believe that Dalton McGunity is a coward, and that his actions were selfish beyond belief. I believe that his actions and his timing was completely self-serving, and he was willing to hurt fourteen-million residents of Ontario, just to help himself and the Liberal party.
Make no mistake – the timing of his resignation and his proroguing of the legislature were no coincidences. And it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to realize why this was done.
Dalton McGuinty was facing a contempt motion from his opponents in the Conservative and NDP parties, and the power-plant scandal was going to make ORNGE and E-Health look like a walk in the park.
Liberals had pretty much admitted what they’d done – shutting down plans for power plants in Mississauga and Oakville only days before the provincial election in order to hold on to two seats in the legislature. I’ve seen the estimate of the cost to the taxpayer range from $230 Million to as much as $750 million, depending on the source, but either way, the Liberals wasted hundreds of millions of dollars of OUR money in order to help THEIR political party.
So what really happened here?
If we can summarize a few hundred newspaper articles into one sentence, what can we say took place last week? How about this:
Dalton McGuinty, facing a massive scandal, an unwinnable battle with unions, and the end of his political career, shut down the Ontario legislature for six months so that no further harm could come to his party or himself.
Is that fair?
The “Education Premier,” as he was known, had already burned the biggest bridge he had when he picked a fight with teachers in September.
To go off on a tangent here for just a moment, I’d like to defend the teachers, and go on record saying that even as “teacher bashing” is rampant in online forums and in opinion polls, I think teachers deserve every penny of the money they make.
A member of my family is a teacher, which isn’t why I defend them, but rather it allows me to see what really takes place on the front lines.
On the very first day of school this year, my family member asked two students to please remove their i-Pods and take off their hats. One of the students turned to her and said, “Why? Who gives a shit if I’m wearing a hat? What’s the fucking point?” My family member said, “Could you please refrain from using that language in the classroom?” To which the young man responded, “Wow, fucking lighten up.” She asked the student to leave, and he yelled back at her, “You know what you skinny bitch? I fucking hate you already.” And he walked out. Do you know what repercussions he faced? Nothing. And he never will…
Our public school systems are increasingly watered-down, as the “make it somebody else’s problem” mentality forces teachers to pass everybody up to the next grade, shuttering them off to university or into the working world where they are destined for failure, or at the very best – mediocrity.
When a student in my family member’s class finishes the year with a 12% average – that’s right 12%, as in out of 100, that student does not automatically fail, as you or I would fail with a 49% grade. Instead, some socialist guidance counsellor will call my family member and ask, “Is there anything that Bobby can do to raise his mark in your class to 50%?” Seriously? Is this what our education system has come to? A kid that hands in one assignment and takes one test in an entire year is going to be given “credit recovery” in order to receive a passing grade?
Remember what it was like in the 80’s and 90’s when we worked hard in school, got good grades, learned, and went off to university to continue working hard? Where did all that go?
As I said – this was a tangent, but I had to get that out of my system, and I want people to realize that what Mr. McGuinty did to teachers is not fair.
He didn’t just freeze their pay for two years, and he didn’t just freeze their pay-grids, but he also stole all of their banked sick days (dating back to decades-old, mutually agreed-upon contracts), which I believe is a massive invasion of their human rights.
Mr. McGuinty took away teachers’ right to collectively bargain, and when he launched Bill 115, he knew that it likely wasn’t “strong enough” (ie. it was absolutely cruel and unfair) to stand alone, so he put a clause in the bill that ensured his own authority would supersede that of the Ontario Court of Appeals, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
Wow, what a guy! And this was the “Education Premier?”
So after picking a fight with the very people that are on this earth to usher our kids in to the real world, Mr. McGuinty set his sights on every other union and public sector in Ontario.
I may be a neo-conservative, but I believe in collective bargaining and human rights. Whether or not I believe that unions and public workers should be paid more or less, notwithstanding, I do believe that the approach should be fair and equitable. I don’t believe that five more bills like Bill 115 would have made our province a better place.
I think Mr. McGuinty saw that he had no chance of working out another “wage freeze” deal with public employees, and that he had lost much of the support that helped the Liberals win the last election. He was having trouble taking the heat over the power plant scandal, and he ultimately decided that the best possible outcome to any of this was an indefinite break.
Now, an indefinite break is simply not possible in the real world. Despite the advertisements for Kit-Kat chocolate bars, it’s impossible to simply break-free from life and all responsibility. But that’s the great thing about politics! It has very little association with the real world!
In what other industry could you simply take a planned, six-month break?
Facing the end of his political career, Dalton McGuinty didn’t just quit on the people that elected him; he quit, AND he shut down the legislature, ensuring that his contempt motion, all questions surrounding his power-plant scandal, and his unwinnable battle with public sector workers would be put on hold for six months.
What a coward. What an awful man.
He could have walked away, but he didn’t. He walked away, and froze the entire province for a half-year.
MPP’s, who had enjoyed the summer off, and who had just returned for their daily one-hour of work, now get six months paid vacation.
Soooo…..since the teachers had their pay scaled back, should we expect that MPP’s will scale back their pay for doing absolutely nothing for a half-year? No? Really?
Mr. McGuinty pretended like he resigned to spend more time with his family, but that’s just political fodder. Nobody believed that.
Mr. McGuinty wanted us to believe that he prorogued the legislature to allow the Liberal party ample time to find a new leader, but know that’s not true. Even the leftist Toronto Star became anti-McGuinty last week when they exposed an even larger scandal: that Mr. McGuinty decided to prorogue the legislature BEFORE he decided to resign. Read the article HERE.
So what can we conclude from this mess?
I think if Dalton McGuinty can’t win, he’ll not only quit, but make sure that nobody else can play. Damn everybody else involved!
I’ve grown accustomed to our municipal “leaders” sitting around, doing nothing, but now it’s going to happen at the provincial level.
I can’t remember a worse time in Toronto/Ontario politics.
What do you think Stephen Harper is doing right now?
Ralph Cramdown
at 7:46 am
Well, now I know the answer to a question that’s been bugging me for years. On Queen’s Park Crescent East, across the street from Queen’s Park, there’s a pair of cannon, facing the legislature. Everywhere else, they’d be defending the seat of democracy, but here, they’re aimed at it.
Kyle
at 9:29 am
Not to defend Dalton, but i think he learned the prorogue in the face of heat move from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2009/12/30/parliament-prorogation-harper.html
Jeremy
at 10:21 am
No kidding. Harper did it twice (and that’s where most of us actually learned the word).
JC
at 2:13 pm
Thats right. I hadn’t heard of it until Harper did it the first time back in 2009.
jeff316
at 9:29 am
And that’s the problem…when one person/group/party misuses democratic tools for partisan purposes, it erodes the faith in democracy to such a point that others who rightly opposed that use end up doing the same, with little or no downside.
jeff316
at 9:30 am
Oops didnt’ see JOe’s more succinct reponse below.
George
at 9:40 am
How can we make our government more accountable? We used to have some power, but we have given it all away to our politicians and corporations. Now we must have permission to do just about anything, while our government can do almost anything they want. That’s backwards!
Why can’t we just all vote as a province to void McGuinty’s salary/pension as a result of this mess? Why is he still on our payroll? It’s outrageous. If any of us did this to our employer, we would neither expect nor receive any compensation.
Joe Q.
at 10:02 am
Agreed with Kyle on this one — Harper “broke the seal” on prorogation. Expect to see it used more and more around the country.
Also, a correction — it is not McGuinty who is facing a contempt motion, but rather his energy minister, Chris Bentley. The repercussions are pretty severe: he could be jailed if the contempt motion passes.
Paully
at 10:09 am
I am glad that he is gone. Good riddance. Maybe their next leader will understand the meaning of the word promise.
CS
at 11:54 am
Stephen Harper was playing soccer.
Stephen Harper decided to cheat at soccer.
Stephen Harper got caugh cheating.
Instead of facing the penalties of cheating, Harper decided he no longer wanted to play that game.
Harper took the only soccer ball with him.
Then, Harper took the referee’s whistle.
(etc)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Afghan_detainee_issue
MY
at 3:50 pm
I really don’t think the end of bankable sick leave is an intrusion on their “human rights” – that term is thrown around way too loosely.
jeff316
at 9:40 am
Yeah I’d agree, though it is a very good program to incent good attendance and to give flexibility to the few who may actually need more days here and there. It’s one of those things that they’re getting rid of for the wrong reasons. I certainly don’t have this option but can admit that it likely works.
McGuinty’s approach to civil servant compensation is wacky. He preaches wage freezes in public. And by and large the unions have been receptive, as long as agreement don’t eat away at other benefits. And yet what does he do? The opposite – take away at sick/vacation/leave benefits but give many public servants pay increases that they don’t really want if it comes down to a choice between sick/vacation leave or money.
His agreements save money on paper, but in reality cost the public more. It is baffling. I guess he was itching for a fight and when he didn’t get the one he wanted, he found something to fight on anyway.
1962silver
at 12:02 am
I 10,000% agree with all of your comments, except: “He didn’t just freeze their pay for two years, and he didn’t just freeze their pay-grids, but he also stole all of their banked sick days (dating back to decades-old, mutually agreed-upon contracts), which I believe is a massive invasion of their human rights.”
Government deficits are out of control in many places in the world, including Canada and esp Ontario. If we keep up the pace of deficits, eventually (maybe not that far off) investors will refuse to buy our bonds. If that process ever started and gained momentum (with interest rates rising), the government would eventually go bust. If that happened, I think civil servants would have a little problem on their hands (and we all would by the way.)
Sooo…if we don’t cut back government expenditures, we have to raise taxes….and raise them in a very substantial way. Period.
What should we do? Raise taxes or cut civil servant compensation? Every study I’ve ever read shows that civil servants earn more than poeple in the private sector (for the same job). And how many conversations have I had over the years where such and such person wants to get a government job because of the pay and benefits? I am married to someone who works for the government – the benefits and days off are simply ASTONISHING! In my view it is DISGUSTING!
Why has this happened? Very simple. Unions want more and more (who doesn’t?) They strike. The public is upset because services are interrupted. The solution? Just borrow the bloody money to pay for it. You don’t have to raise taxes. So…everyone is happy. The unions are happy…they get pay 30% above their market value. The public is happy…services are restored and their taxes are the same. Bay Street is happy…thet get to underwrite bonds. BUT….the game can only go on for so long … when debt levels go high enough, investors get scared (and rightly so) they won’t get their money back. And these investors are starting to wisen up all over the world. It’s going to get interesting…how interesting? Some of the most intelligent and successful investors in the world believe that a TOTAL COLLAPSE OF OUR ENTIRE FINANCIAL SYSTEM is a real possibility.
I do really think the whole thing is just disgusting. Someone called it fiscal child abuse. And that is exactly what it is. You have kids, then proceed to vote for a poltician that will not increase your taxes but rather borrow needed funds so that your kids can pay for it when they are working adults. And it has real and massive consequences on your kids…make no mistake of it. When expenditures one day have to be cut in a real draconian way…it will mean massive cuts to healthcare (are you okay with waiting one year for cancer treatment?) and every other government service. Plus the sudden cuts needed will result in massive unemployment….look at some of the countries in Europe. Unemployment rates are 25% with you unemployment at 50%+.
I feel like Chevy Chase in Christmas vacation when he famously chews out his boss after he opens his bonus cheque and realizes he’s been enrolled in the jelly of the month club…..
Horrido
at 7:07 pm
Nice post. It forces me to ask a really, really, really stooopid question:
Most people in our society have families, have children. Presumably, they care about their children’s future and the world they will inherit. Otherwise, why bother having children at all??
So my stooopid question is, why do these people knowingly screw their kids’ (and grandkids’) future? Or do they not realize what they’re doing? Or do they not really care?
Maybe they should’ve sterilized themselves first before having sex. I’m just saying…
1962silver
at 4:20 pm
Great question!
I think you hit on both reasons. Probably the biggest reason this is happening is ignorance. I mean how many people actually know the difference between the deficit and the total debt. I bet 5% know. Another reason is that people generally are selfish and just want more and more without paying for it. But because of their ignorance they don’t realize that this attitude has significant consequences for the next generation. And I think some people basically know what the consequences could be (or will be) but they just hope that somehow things will work out fine.
What you need is a honest, intelligent, well-informed, disciplined public that understands that there are no shortcuts and cares deeply (I mean really truly cares*) about the next generation.
*If you truly cared, you’d take the time to understand the consequences of too much government debt. We all know it is there, and most of us at least have a feeling that it may be bad for the next generation. But how many of us have studied it? Maybe I just have a different definition for caring.
SOOO…I could ask everyone on this board the following questions: How many i) know that we have significant government debt and; ii) how many have of these people have at least some minor suspicion that it could potentially have some negative impact on the next generation?
For those of you that answered affirmatively to these two questions….I would say that if you haven’t yet studied government debt and its potential impact on the future, then in my view YOU DO NOT CARE ENOUGH about the next generation. I might even say you don’t really truly care about the future of your own kids.
BTW, I’d say that over 90% of the public would answer affirmatively to these two questions. Yet, they keep voting for politicians that promise more and more without taxing you more. Hmmmmmm…….
It may take another 5 or 10 years before this thing turns into a crisis in North America (or in other places like Japan) but when it does, all I can say is fasten your seatbelts!
jeff316
at 9:32 am
” Every study I’ve ever read shows that civil servants earn more than poeple in the private sector (for the same job). And how many conversations have I had over the years where such and such person wants to get a government job because of the pay and benefits? I am married to someone who works for the government – the benefits and days off are simply ASTONISHING! In my view it is DISGUSTING!”
This is actually untrue. Civil servant pay is higher in entry level positions but much lower in senior positions. The civil service has a difficult time retaining the very useful senior staff who cut their teeth in government and then go off for a payday in the private sector.
I don’t see what’s wrong about wanting a job for the pay and benefits. In the end, that’s the reason most people get a job. 🙂
1962silver
at 4:30 pm
I respectfully disagree! I see civil servants who are earning in the $100,000 range that would earn substantially less in the private sector. And I bet that 80-90% of civil servants earning in the $100K to $500K range would make less in the private sector.
Yes there are some very useful senior staff that do leave the goverment for the private sector…..but as a percentage of total staff (or as a percentage of the total wage bill) its going to be very close to NIL! (lets call it 0.1%)
Yes, of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a job for pay and benefits! But if the pay and benefits are much too high relative to the private market, then as a taxpayer I find that decidedly wrong!
lucifer
at 8:02 pm
we should hold mcguinty in contempt since the buck ended with him, and have him face possibly ten years in prison without parole, and have his pension cancelled and the pension given back to the province since he stole millions for himself and also made this province have a huge deficit and a debt comparable to California though keep in mind California has twice the population of ontario. and also make the liberal voters in ottawa south and in the toronto area banned from voting forever.
FrancesMC
at 12:48 am
Lucifer, you are an ignoramus and your comments about McGuinty are libellous.
You can blame much of the province’s problems on Mike Harris and Company. He was the one who cut taxes to the point where there is not enough coming in to run the province, given that our taxes pay for medical care as well as the other responsibilities of government. It costs a lot to borrow money so it would be cheaper in the long run to raise taxes than to borrow. And we need more money because our welfare rates are scandalous.
As for the Sick Leave Gratuity, when teachers are absent, their employer has to pay for a substitute. The sick leave gratuity was simply a way to reward teachers who limited their sick days and thus saved their employers the cost of the substitute. My husband was a teacher for 25 years. In all that time he had about 25 sick leave days and that included a month off for surgery, leaving 5 or so days for the remaining time. The school boards knew that they would have to pay a certain amount for this so they should have funded it (that is, put aside something to cover it) but they didn’t so the liability built up and they began complaining about the cost.
And if you never heard the word “prorogue” until now, you haven’t been paying attention to politics this last 10 years, or for that matter, you weren’t paying attention in school either. Do you know what Responsible Government means? Do you know how it differs from Representative Government? Do you know what Confidence means in relation to parliament or the legislature? Do you know what a Money Bill is? Do you know what First, Second and Third Reading means?
Jeff316, “incent” is not a word.
Krupo
at 10:56 pm
Apparently “incent” is a back-formation from incentive… if you’d like to fight a war on creation of new words, good luck 🙂
Scott Bell
at 12:27 am
Wage freezes do not & will not work. OPSEU & all the rest of the greedy unions will be back at the trough come next contract negotiation looking to get back everything they gave up and more just like the CAW did in the past few weeks.
The problem is too many employees working in government!!! Government just keeps on growing. Last time I checked the Ontario government had over 1.2 million employees. That works out to 10 employees for every man, woman & child living in Ontario.
79 thousand of these employees are on the Sunshine List making more than 100 thousand per year which comes out to 7.9 billion a year. 170 of them make more than 400 thousand per year which works out to $68 million a year.
As per FrancesMC’s comment, “When teachers are absent, their employer has to pay for a substitute. The sick leave gratuity was simply a way to reward teachers who limited their sick days and thus saved their employers the cost of the substitute.”???
How does paying a sick day to an employee who comes to work sick save the employer the cost of replacing them if the employee is at work being paid for the day and also being paid an extra day for being sick when they are already at work???
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to ask government workers to contribute to short & long term disability insurance like most in the private sector do? And maybe give them 6 or 7 sick days a year which is about average. I get 8 personal days per year and if I don’t use them I get paid out at my current rate on my anniversary date, not the rate I will be making years from now.
Joe Q.
at 9:42 am
Methinks you got your fractions upside-down. How could there be “10 [government] employees for every man, woman & child living in Ontario”?
Scott Bell
at 10:11 pm
I stand corrected…meant to say 1 employee for every 10 Ontario residents.
Sorry……It was late.
Krupo
at 10:59 pm
That’s not 1.2 million government employees. That’s public sector employees. There’s a difference and it matters, especially in a country with public health care, for starters…
subhash acharya
at 9:09 am
Actually i am happy that he left. good decision. next can feel that one should keeps of one promises.
subhash acharya
at 9:10 am
Actually i am happy that he left. Good decision. next can feel that one should keeps of one promises.
Mark C. Robins
at 10:23 am
Gee nothing Partisan about this post.. Wondering exactly when did you renew your PC party membership?
Pfft