Provincial Politics – Page 121

Tim Hudak is not always wrong.

June 18, 2013 by Peter Lowry

Just because you wish someone was not there does not make him go away. It is almost as though Kathleen Wynne and her Ontario Liberals do not know what to do about Opposition Leader Tiny Tim Hudak. It is not that Timmy is an in-your-face type of guy. He is more like a yapping dog outside your window when you are trying to take a nap. He is more of an annoyance.

But Wynne and her friends need to pay some attention to him. First of all, just because he thinks an idea’s time has come does not necessarily mean that it is a bad idea. He probably got the idea about selling the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) from a good Liberal. For example, this liberal thinks the time is well past due to turn around the entire stupid way we sell alcohol in this province. It is not only narrow-minded, archaic, inefficient and a bad use of political effort but it shows the political inertia of our province. Timmy is absolutely correct when he says we could make more money from a liberalized and privatized approach.

All that Premier Wynne and Finance Minister Sousa are proving is that they do not understand the modern world. This is not the 1920s in Ontario when you had to please the Orange Lodge and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. If they do not get in touch with the realities of the 21^st Century, they are going to be gone and forgotten whenever we get this province to the polls.

Are these people so busy obeying the dictates of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath that they cannot give a nod to poor little Timmy? If the NDP in Ontario ever realize the harm that Horwath is doing to them, they will be waving red flags, occupying Queen’s Park and having a Socialist Spring in Ontario. Forgiving the waste of hundreds of millions on cancelled gas-powered electrical plants for a maybe reduction in car insurance rates is the saddest tale in Ontario in many years.

Neither Wynne nor Sousa seem to have a clue what Timmy is going on about. All he is saying is that convenient, neighbourhood access to alcoholic beverages means more revenue for the government. You do not have to be an economist to understand that. People would buy smaller packages if they were convenient. Smaller packages offer more tax percentage than larger packages, more people are employed, less binge drinking, easier policing and less medical concerns with alcohol.

In this argument, Timmy is on the side of the angels.

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Sousa: Jim Flaherty is your friend.

June 3, 2013 by Peter Lowry

Ontario Treasurer Charles Sousa needs to think outside the box. He needs to be developing creative ideas to fund transit in the Toronto area and he needs to realize that Federal Treasurer Jim Flaherty is his friend. Flaherty is saving Charles from making a really stupid mistake.

Flaherty has said, in very clear language, that there is no way another one per cent on the Harmonized Sales Tax can be used to fund Toronto’s transit needs. And Sousa is hardly going to win any awards anywhere for arguing the case.

Sousa should be looking at the Metrolinx problem. While it is awkward to fire them, there is no question that the Metrolinx people have overstayed their usefulness. They need to be honoured in front of family and friends and sent packing. They were bereft of ideas and helpful suggestions. Their support of a higher HST to pay for transit needs in the GTA was never going to fly.

And the Metrolinx people and Sousa did not need to have Jim Flaherty point it out to them. The HST is a regressive tax that annoys everybody. It picks no favourites but it does impose less on the rich. The basic problem is that it does not reflect the infrastructure needs of the community where it is collected.

The greatest concern for community infrastructure is among business. Business pays a high price for gridlock. It needs to get its employees to work and home again. It needs to make and receive deliveries. Doing business in a large community can be very beneficial. It also needs to be more efficient.

What also reflects the infrastructure needs of the community are costs related to property. These include land transfer taxes, development fees, municipal taxes and transportation fees. Just because Toronto Mayor Rob Ford did not understand land transfer taxes, does not mean the province has to follow his lead.

Until the last election in Toronto, there was an unholy alliance between the East and West Toronto lefties and the smug rich of Rosedale and Lawrence Park. They worked together to keep down and screw those poor people who have to live in the suburbs. It is why there has been no action on the growing gridlock on Toronto’s roads. Rob Ford’s election was the first sign that maybe the deadlock in Toronto could be broken.

If the province is going to step into this mess, it has to be prepared for a tough fight. There has to be clearly earmarked funding for transit and an audit trail that shows the funds are being used for the purpose. Anything less will just continue to fuel the outrage over the hours spent trying to get to and from another ill-paying job.

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In search of redemption.

June 1, 2013 by Peter Lowry

It seems the main subjects for political analysis today are people in search of redemption. And it is not the target of the attention as much as the people who voted for them. In Toronto, in Ottawa and at Queen’s Park, it is the voters who search for redemption.

In Toronto, we have the ongoing daily trials and tribulations of the Ford boys. Can there be redemption for the Toronto voters who chose Mayor Rob Ford? The man is a caricature of his voters. He promised them he would end the gravy train but that train had left the station. The virulent news media versus Ford saga is a sad and savage example of bear baiting from the Middle Ages. The attack hounds of the media should remember that it failed as a popular entertainment back then because it killed more dogs than bears.

But it is not the news media that will determine the fate of Ford. It will be the voters of Toronto. Given a clear choice, an uncluttered list of candidates, the voters will opt for peace at city hall. What the media has to understand is that the amorphous Ford Nation’s loyalties are fleeting.

And then there is Senator Mike Duffy. The only voter that Mike Duffy has ever had is Prime Minister Stephen Harper. There is no redemption for Harper or his Senate or his government. For Harper brought it all on himself. He is an autocrat, not a democrat.

Senator Duffy’s problem is his own sense of entitlement. And it was the Prime Minister who encouraged that entitlement. Duffy looked at Stephen Harper’s imperial role as Prime Minister with his personal A310 Airbus, his staff hairdresser and his disdain for parliament and figured that he did not need the hairdresser. He just felt entitled to everything else.

At Queen’s Park, Kathleen Wynne is enjoying the role of Premier. It is her voters across Ontario who seek redemption. They want their opinion on who will be premier to be recorded. Wynne has no mandate to rule the province. After more than 100 days of shoring up the dikes, she can either trust the voters or she can enjoy some final days in the role of Premier.

At all three levels of government, the need is for redemption. The one major concern is the lowering levels of voter turnout, the lack of confidence in the process, the blatant dishonesty of some of the participants and the laxness of the news media. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility. Is there redemption for any of us?

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Premier Wynne, taking on Ford Nation.

May 31, 2013 by Peter Lowry

Premier Kathleen Wynne could be taking on far more than she has bargained for in commenting on the situation at Toronto city hall. It is more like a yappy cocker spaniel taking on a couple of pit bulls than a premier dealing with her responsibilities. She is definitely trying to pick a fight way out of her weight class.

While the province has responsibility for the city, there is nothing in the situation over the past couple weeks that requires the Premier to act on behalf of Toronto citizens. Neither Premier Wynne, nor the Toronto Star, nor the Globe and Mail can serve as judge and jury in this situation. As long as Rob Ford is free to carry on his responsibilities as Mayor and the city continues to function, there is no reason for the province to interfere.

Even if the Premier was answering a direct question from the media about the Toronto situation, she needed to be more diplomatic and to stay out of it. If the questions about the Mayor’s recreational preferences are ever really answered, there is going to be serious spatter for everyone involved. She hardly wants to be a bystander when that hits the fan.

And do not forget that any politicians or news media outlets that go after the Fords are also taking on Ford Nation. While amorphous and unstructured, Ford Nation is still real. It is more of a concept than a movement. It is the same ‘get even,’ ‘get ours’ mentality that Conservative Leader Tiny Tim Hudak counts on across the province. It is no bastion of liberalism. They are the same people as those moving their lips as they read the Toronto Sun on the subway each morning.

If Wynne even wanted to neutralize some of the Ford Nation vote, she never would have fired Lottery and Gaming tsar Paul Godfrey. Paul wanted a casino in Toronto and he was the one person who might have made it happen. Wynne crippled his efforts by ordering that there would be no special deal for Toronto and then fired him because he could not do his job. Paul hardly headed back to his duties running Post Media to pout.

The Toronto Star recently helped Kathleen Wynne celebrate her first 100 days as premier. The newspaper thinks she has done a pretty good job so far. The Toronto Star has been wrong before.

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Premier Wynne: Hiding in plain sight.

May 30, 2013 by Peter Lowry

Tell us more about Premier Kathleen Wynne. During the current fiasco at Toronto city hall and the Senate scandal in Ottawa, the Premier of Ontario has been getting a free ride. That is cause for concern. And an even greater concern is that we have absolutely no idea what she stands for or what she hopes to achieve as Premier of Ontario.

And what is particularly disconcerting is that when she wants to hide in plain sight, she does another photo-op at a day-care centre. There are two million stories in the big city and Kathleen Wynne’s is just one of them.

After listening carefully to some of her speeches, it is still impossible to tell if Kathleen, the politician, is right wing, left wing or simply confused. The Toronto Star labels her as left-wing but there is very little whole cloth on which to sew that label. Her riding voters know her as reactionary. It is what brought her to their attention. She has done little to change their attitude.

When she celebrated her first 100 days as Premier last week, Wynne pointed to the teachers’ unions as an accomplishment. She might want to give that relationship time to heal before testing it. It is not like the negotiations with the Ontario medical Association, as we still have no idea what peace in that territory cost.

We already have an apology from Wynne for the close to a billion dollars that buying off the gas-fired power plant NIMBYs cost in Mississauga and Oakville. Wynne might have a reputation as a negotiator but it must be fun going around with her pockets full of our cash with which to negotiate.

Wynne is no farmer’s daughter but she has made her first inroads with the farmers by restoring some our funding to horse racing. It is interesting to note that some of the provincial farmers’ organizations are giving her the benefit of the doubt. She is finding a receptive audience to her talk of restraining the proliferation of wind turbines.

Where Wynne might be failing is with members of her own political party. And if New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath ever grows a backbone, a weak, unenthused provincial Liberal Party in Ontario will not save Kathleen Wynne’s new job. She won the job by manipulating the inner workings of the party. She has no real mandate from Ontario’s Liberals. They might not give her another 100 days!

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The creative vacuum at Metrolinx.

May 28, 2013 by Peter Lowry

Would someone please put the appointees to the regional planning group Metrolinx out of their misery? These sage advisors have combined their wisdom to tell us not only how to solve Toronto’s gridlock but also how to pay for it. They gave it their best one-two punch. It is now time for them to go. Their job is done. They have failed us.

Without truly creative thinking, the taxes proposed by Metrolinx will become the noose that hangs the Wynne Liberals at Queen’s Park. The buck stops there. The opposition are chortling. Nobody can sell these new taxes.

Look at the suggestions. They are a mish-mash of guaranteed failure. Hike the Harmonized Sales Tax they say. Add parking taxes in Toronto. Throw more taxes on gasoline. Pay for parking at GO stations. Add to land taxes on GO lines. And then there is that old favourite, tolls on HOV highway lanes.

Hudak’s hypocrites on the far right are sanctimoniously condemning these taxes without question. They offer the old chestnut cost savings as the panacea. Last time that was tried, they killed people.

Horwath’s left says tax the corporations. What else is new?

And the axe falls on Finance Minister Charles Sousa. Say what you like about Charles but leave out the word ‘creative.’ That, Charles is not. People knew he had lost it when he first suggested using the High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) lanes on nearby highways to generate revenue from drivers in a hurry. He would clog those lanes so badly that they would have to bar high occupancy vehicles.

Charles does not want to take the blame for his first budget. He calls it his New Democrat budget. They wrote it for him. They had to agree with him. Nobody told him that if the voters wanted an NDP budget, they could have got it by voting for that party.

One little tidbit in all these taxes is that there is a proposal for a mobility tax credit. These people think if the government screws you out of hundreds of dollars for transit, you will forgive them if they give poor people back a few dimes on their taxes. And, of course, by then, we will all be poor.

Metrolinx chair Robert Pritchard is not held back by his voters. He has none. He thinks the people of Toronto will really appreciate what these new taxes buy for them. Maybe he should run for election and ask them.

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Leadership in a dark place.

May 27, 2013 by Peter Lowry

For three days in a row, this blog wanted to explain crisis management in less than 500 words. It cannot be done. It is not only a very complex subject but it still requires leadership. Without leadership, the political ship drifts in the shoals, an easy target for the land-bound detractors and sceptics. In the City of Toronto, at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa, we are in a dark place and there is little succour in sight.

In Toronto, the city’s warring forces are in full cry. You have the Fords with their vacillating right wing, the militant left with their sometimes camp followers and the rampaging news media, all confusing the public. What is today’s truth is fleeting and stay tuned for tomorrow’s episode. And where is the leadership? What leadership?

They take a survey and tell us that if Olivia Chow runs against Rob Ford, all will be corrected and the sun will shine once more on city hall. And those who know Olivia Chow’s record at city hall are wondering where this sudden leadership is to come from?

The ownership of Toronto’s problems belongs at Queen’s Park. The problem is that the Ontario government is like a bear beset with dogs set on bringing it down. And the dogs will eventually win. Leadership at Queen’s Park is a compromise on top of a deal made by strange bedfellows. Premier Wynne has had her chance to be a new broom, a fresh face and a new direction. She stalled and can hardly fight on all the fronts facing her administration. That takes leadership.

And then there is Ottawa. This is Canada’s compromise in leadership. It took Stephen Harper’s Conservatives three elections, attack ads and robocalls to get a majority. We already knew how bad a leader he could be. We were offered no alternative. He could only pass Michael Ignatieff by destroying him. And Jack Layton was just another pawn.

The new Liberal leadership in Ottawa is a glimmer and still in the chrysalis stage. It has yet to take wing. The need in this country is for a leadership of change, a leadership of challenge and excitement. It can happen in an open party, a party that accepts its responsibilities for policies, new candidates, funding and new structures. It can happen in a party that says to Canadians that the options are open to the type of country we all want. It takes leadership to make that happen. The potential is there. It will take all of us to make it happen.

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Is Mayor Rob Ford the problem in Toronto?

May 25, 2013 by Peter Lowry

Sure, blame Toronto Mayor Rob Ford! You need to understand that even if you remove Rob Ford as mayor, Toronto’s problems will not go away. You will still have a dysfunctional city council and a badly run city.

But no city of its size or larger seems to be run much better. Have you looked at New York’s problems? And do you really want to be like Chicago? Montreal has a construction probe in progress that is delving into levels of corruption that are even surprising the crooks.

You have to think of Toronto’s problems at city hall as former Premier Michael Harris’ gift to the citizens of Canada’s largest city. And no provincial political party will rush to fix the problems he created. When Mike Harris finally amalgamated the city, it remained less than the sum of its parts and Queen’s Park was in control. The large size of the city council that Harris provided practically guarantees a lack of cohesion on council.

Party politics is not there on the surface in the city but it exists in fact. Many councillors use party politics to get elected and then act as independents. Alignments can be a temporary convenience but can shift with the issues. The left-wing of council has an advantage with the strong New Democratic electoral district associations in the downtown. The suburbs have Liberal and Conservative strengths. There are a few councillors who are not members of any party but they often align themselves with the right or the left of council.

Many citizens do not seem to realize that the mayor has just one vote among the council of 45. The mayor has an advantage in being able to work with a like-minded executive committee and set the agenda for the full council. As was noted last week in the casino vote, the left-wing of council got the 23 council members needed to overturn the mayor’s decision to take the casino off the agenda. The council decision on a casino was more of a rejection of the mayor but it still made council look ignorant and prudish.

While Toronto has had some bad experiences with both municipal-only and traditional parties at city hall, the only solution is to end the hypocrisy and put together parties that could then select their own mayor. The voters need to know who they are voting for, what the agenda will be and who is responsible. Until then, you can enjoy the funny farm.

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Dull, stolid, top heavy, another Liberal logo.

May 21, 2013 by Peter Lowry

There was going to be a first in this blog. It was going to include a graphic of the new Ontario Liberal Party logotype. Well, maybe not. If and when we learn how to put pictures into this version of WordPress, we will do it. In the meantime, you will have to imagine a big red solid “L” for Learner and a red line and then a solid word “LIBERAL” and then a lighter word “ONTARIO.” And this is supposed to be creative!

Having been involved in the production of numerous logotypes over the years, you find that each one tells its own story. Every new leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario seems to want to make their personal imprint and obviously Kathleen Wynne is no exception. It is too bad. This one seems to say more about her and the party than she intended.

They should have tried the logotype so that it read as Ontario Liberal. Liberal should be a foundation for the province, not something for the province to hold up. The typography puts the weight of the party on the province.

It is not a bad design for a fence. It is unconsciously defensive. We wonder just who it is designed to keep out.

It is a logo with absolutely no motion. It is not going anywhere. It gives you the impression that neither is the party.

It is visually top down. So is the party. It is a party that is unabashedly run from the top. The party leader is the boss. The party leader’s people pick the candidates, run the party, choose the policies, pick the party officials, hire the party staff and tell party members what to think, what to do and when to do it. Not that they really need those pesky party members anyway.

The only thing the Ontario Liberal Party has going for it is its opposition. It has an opposition that would keep Attila the Hun in power. The only thing that the Conservatives have not tried yet on Tiny Tim Hudak is a personality. New Democrat Andrea Horwath just needs to accept her personal trainer as her saviour.

But, as far as the logo is concerned, Wynne and her friends would have better spent the money on some relationship training. The first people they need to get involved in where the Ontario Liberals are going are the members of the party. They also have a stake in it.

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Casinos and the Pope’s rules.

May 20, 2013 by Peter Lowry

It is supposed to be an Italian saying about the Pope and birth control. It is that people who do not play the game should not make the rules for those who play. Having a rule such as that would also certainly save a lot of time tomorrow when Toronto City Council debates casinos. Based on everything we have heard to-date, it will just be the ignorant leading the stupid. People who have never been in a casino in their life will tell you what they believe.

Say what you want about our former provincial gambling tsar but Paul Godfrey knows casinos and likes to gamble. He used to go on weekend junkets to Las Vegas. He has proved that he gambles as a politician and as a businessman. He bought the Post newspapers when all the smart money is going to the Internet. He is gambling on his newspapers being able to transition to the Internet.

And when Paul’s entire board of Ontario Lottery and Gaming resigned in protest over his firing, it was a deliberate kick in the teeth for Premier Kathleen Wynne. In this day and age, that is a rare show of solidarity.

But what we will see tomorrow at Toronto City Council will be the furthest thing from solidarity. The only event that could get that council working together would be Mayor Rob Ford’s resignation.

The major problems for any discussion at City Council are the demands that city staff think the politicians should ask of any casino complex. The demands are unreasonable, a very bad business model and a guarantee of the failure of any negotiations. It is as though city staff planned it that way.

In a more perfect world than that on display at Toronto Council, the result tomorrow should be approval of Woodbine Entertainment getting the casino table games the organization has always wanted. That will leave Markham and maybe Mississauga free to fight it out for a full-fledged casino complex down the road. It would create an entertainment and convention centre for either municipality that would soon be the envy of their poor cousins in dreary old, bluestocking Toronto.

And as for Premier Wynne and her cabinet, they have to get some people at the helm of Ontario Lottery and Gaming who know something about the subject. There is no learning curve allowed.

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