Provincial Politics – Page 17

The Tax Credit Con.

August 12, 2022August 11, 2022 by Peter Lowry

This is not exactly a love note to Ontario premier Ford and his pathetic finance minister. The wife and I are seniors on a fixed income and these idiots are offering us tax credits. Typical conservatives, offering tax credits instead of real money.

Tax credits are a bonus for people who have money. They have to already paid for something and can wait as much as a year for the government to give any back. That is what a tax credit means. And, if you do not owe the government for taxes, you do not get any money back.

Reading about the low-income individuals and families tax credit (known as LIFT) that is ballyhooed by the Tories as a break for 1.1 million Ontario residents is nothing but BS. Maybe by raising the “low income” limit to $50,000 or less, they might find a few more who can take advantage of the maximum tax break of $300. Wow!

And as much as the wife and I would love to take a staycation in Ontario, it is hardly likely we would spend $2000 or more on a hotel or cottage rental, just to get $400 back a year later. The finance minister claimed this was going to cost the government $270 million. If you want to check with the provincial auditor, a year or so from now, I would be damn surprised if the program cost half that amount.

This is just one more reason why governments are never spending as much as they claim they will. They lie, you know.

Where the Ontario conservatives lie the most is with programs such as the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). It was four years ago when they came into office and actually cut the program back to a basic $1169 per month for a single person. There are people in this province spending more than that per month on their pet.

Think about it. Try this little exercise: could you live on $1169 today? What would it cost you for a room—with a common toilet down the hall? What would it cost you for food for 30 days? And we are obviously not talking a healthy diet. Could you afford a phone? Could you afford to ever buy clothes? Or a tube of toothpaste? Even if you were haunting food banks and charities, is this a life, you could live?

The answer is that all the experts are quoting about $2000 per month as a possible amount for one person to survive. The Ontario conservatives just raised that $1169 by five per cent.

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Nostalgia Time of Year.

August 9, 2022August 8, 2022 by Peter Lowry

What came to mind this morning was stimulated by a full-page advertisement for the Ontario government in the Toronto Star. It reminded me of the more than 60 years ago, the first time I went through those elaborate bronze doors at the front of the Globe and Mail. The Globe was still at the corner of Toronto’s King and York Streets back then. I was a young national advertising salesman.

While the advertising domain was the fourth floor, I was soon haunting all floors of the William H. Wright Building, learning about the newspaper business. Instead of being lectured about staying where I belonged, I was soon given the special assignments from the publisher’s aerie to the back street where the bundled papers were thrown on the trucks. I even managed to be banished for life twice by the typographers for touching type in violation of their rules. I evened it up though when they went on strike and the publisher gave me all the typesetting machines in the ad alley to play with. We produced some funny ads in the early days of that strike.

But if the price of a full-page ad has not changed too much in the passage of time, I wonder about that ad for the ministry of education. I think it fits the definition of B.S.

What worries parents is how much education, their children have missed. They have good reason to be concerned and an expensive advertisement proves nothing.

It promises tutoring support. I wonder ‘by whom?’ It even promises sports, clubs and field trips. I wonder who is heading that activity?

The ad explains that the ministry is preparing students for the “jobs of tomorrow.” I wonder when the people approving this ad last read Plato’s Republic?

The ad, of course, promises more money will be spent. That is just typical conservative BS. They always promise to spend more—and then forget to spend it. The government’s own auditors have been wondering about that for some time.

And the ad even includes a promise to help students with their mental health.

Too bad we are not allowed to check out the minister’s mental health!

I think parents will be more concerned, come September, if there will be any school openings. Opening the schools will require the willing help of teachers. The expensive ad forgot to mention them. Maybe the ad is promoting private schools?

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Only Heroes Need Apply.

August 8, 2022August 7, 2022 by Peter Lowry

We need some heroes. Wannabes and also rans don’t do the job. We need an effective opposition for Queen’s Park. Both the liberals and new democrats need new leaders. We are going to get behind the one who shows that he or she can oust Doug Ford. The prize is the premier’s office.

The last two leaders of those parties showed us what losers look like. Voters of Ontario want to have a winner. It doesn’t hurt to be modest but that is a long way from looking like a loser. A leader inspires confidence in the caucus. A leader inspires confidence in the electoral districts. A leader shatters the myth that the conservatives own the farmers. A leader shows confidence. And effectiveness counts for more than numbers.

And a hero is a progressive. Conservatism kills progress. Voters tire quickly of those who only help their friends. It takes imagination, knowledge, experience and confidence to lead. You are not selling sticky labels here.

The new democrats are in the most trouble. Since the early days of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and into the days of union involvement in the new democrats, the party has been looking for substance, for a dialogue and for a future. Through many leaders and various iterations of the socialist creed, the new democrats have been searching for the positioning that could move the party forward.

The new democrats need someone with the zeal of a Tommy Douglas, the confidence of a David Lewis and the communications competence of a Thomas Mulcair. That would give the party in Ontario a base in which to look at the future and to step forward in recognizing the needs of our citizens.

The liberal needs are not quite the same. When the province puts so much of its funding, emphasis and training into education and healthcare, that becomes the foothold on the future. The liberals have the edge on that side of the street. Excellence in education is only the start. We have to improve on the basic research we are already undertaking. We have to drill down on areas of opportunity. Besides free dental care and medicines, we have to ensure that higher education is available and free to all. These are all compatible objectives.

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A Man of No Letters.

August 7, 2022August 6, 2022 by Peter Lowry

It is amazing how the human mind can wander. I was reading the other day about Ontario premier Doug Ford’s reluctance to release the mandate letters he is reputed to have sent his cabinet ministers. Why the news media want to embarrass a man who obviously cannot write, or dictate anything substantive, seems to be a waste of time and money?

And that is not a cheap shot at the premier. It just might be next year before he remembers what he wanted the minister of justice to do for him. He has publicly stated that he thinks our education system is to train people for jobs so I have no idea what he would tell that private school kid that he appointed minister of education. Ford has four more years to cause trouble for us. Best we treat him with caution.

I honestly do not think the premier is of limited intelligence. He is a natural sales guy. I know why he is in politics but I must admit, he does a lousy job of it. I wonder if he has ever read a book?

I understand this because I come from a family of six kids. We were a reasonably bright group but just two of my brothers have post graduate degrees. My sister and oldest brother had professions. And there was my late brother John Lowry, who confessed to reading one book of fiction in his lifetime, and he made millions. He was always getting me to write for him. All of his inventions came about because he asked “What If.”

John showed America’s NASA how to get good television pictures from the moon. He solved problems for satellite broadcasting. We had fun with gyroscopes getting them to stabilize television cameras on helicopters. He brought colour to old movies through a computerized process. The American Academy of Motion Pictures gave him a posthumous award for his work on improving the quality of modern motion pictures with something that is now called the Lowry Process.

I mention this, not that I think Ontario’s premier will ever do anything particularly brilliant. Each of us, in our lifetime though has the opportunity to help others and that is the greatest challenge of all.

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Is Doug Ford ‘Getting it Done’?

August 5, 2022August 5, 2022 by Peter Lowry

The silence from the Ontario premier’s office has been deafening. Hallway medicine is still practiced in Ontario. Do you remember when the jerk told us that it would not be allowed in Ontario? The situation is so bad, hospitals are shutting down their emergency departments. It is so bad that the news media has tracked down Ontario’s new health minister. She says there are no quick fix to Ontario’s health care mess.

And where has the incompetent been who has caused this mess to grow and fester? Has he been busy scaring the fish up on the Muskoka Lakes? Has he been taking an underserved summer holiday at his Muskoka cottage?

But when do our healthcare people get a break? They can’t even get paid properly for their efforts. Stupid tells us that they are great and he won’t even give the nurses a raise in pay. Yet he gave them a bonus payment to stick around. In the midst of inflation hitting over 10 per cent and oil companies and grocery chains are making unconscionable profits, our premier says that our nurses are not worth more than one per cent more in pay.

You know what people do when they cannot get paid a living wage? They change their profession. We are talking to too many skilled nurses who are leaving the profession. They are making more money in sales. They are taking nine-to-five jobs in offices. We have no idea how many have already left the province.

So, what is this government going to do? The health minister in this inept government tells us that they are easing the regulations for foreign-trained nurses to be allowed to work in Ontario. That raises questions: Were we too fussy? Are we compromising our standards? Are we creating another level of standards? And, what is the long-term solution?

And what about teachers? If you think there is a problem with nurses, you haven’t seen nothing yet! The various teacher’s unions are lining up to scalp that twit of a private-schooled education minister. If he lasts through just the first two union negotiations, Ontario residents will be surprised.

Ontario is still going through the serious challenge that the pandemic caused for healthcare and for its residual effects on our citizens. The Ford government was a poor choice of government to address these issues.

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Ford is Cock of the Walk.

July 27, 2022 by Peter Lowry

He sure showed them all. He quit university to get out there and sell for his dad. He took the show on the road and tried to open the market for Deco Labels in Chicago. Salesman Doug Ford then followed younger brother Rob into Toronto city politics. It was four years of surprises and heartaches. Doug had not yet found his niche.

But he is convinced he has found it now. Doug Ford is in his second term as premier of Canada’s most powerful province. He is cock of the walk.

And the cock of the walk can get that bus with a bed, he so foolishly asked for four years ago. He now knows how. The cock of the walk has his way.

Ford has an agenda. He can finish the Bradford Bypass during this term. What else was it he ran on? “Conservatives get things done.” He can maybe get started on Highway 413. It runs from nowhere to nowhere but his developer friends are excited about it. They can pave over the wetlands.

But how do you pave over the ruin of Ontario’s healthcare system? Blame it on COVID. Blame it on Christine Elliott. Blame it on the federal government. You can always blame it on others when you are cock of the walk.

And what about Ontario’s vaunted education system? If the cock of the walk thinks that young guy with private school education is going to pull that system back together, he has a surprise coming.

There are many surprises in store for someone who thinks they are cock of the walk.

First, you have to realize how you got to be cock of the walk. You had no opposition. Neither the NDP nor the liberals had a leader more colorful or known than Mr. Ford. The conservatives ran the longest campaign before the election was called and the shortest after the election was called. The opposition never got off the ground. Ford ran circles around his opponents in a well-funded campaign. The election also showed the poorest turnout of voters in Ontario’s history.

And the cock of the walk needs to remember: you can fool some of the people, some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

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As Good as it Gets in Alberta.

July 20, 2022July 19, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Oh, to be in Alberta when the politicians are in heat. There is nothing more galvanizing than when all those narcissists come out to play. Once again, we have a competition between the libertarians of the united conservatives and the libertarians of the Wildrose. And the enemy of all resides in Ottawa.

The most disconcerting situation for the united conservatives is that the candidates who are stealing all the air in the contest to replace Jason Kenney are Wildrose retreads. While these wannabes are blaming Ottawa for bleeding Alberta dry, they sure have a lot of spit left. And Jason Kenney has not even left the province. And who will deliver his eulogy?

And how hollow will be the blame game in Alberta be when the province reaps the rewards for the rapacious price of oil? The province is going to get more than $10 billion in windfall profits from the greed of the oil barons this year. Yet they vilify Justin Trudeau who loses more and more support in the east every day for pouring $21 billion into an expanded bitumen pipeline, across the Rockies, that will bring even more environment destroying profit to a greedy Alberta.

Can you believe the colossal stupidity of the leading contender for the leadership of the Alberta conservatives, Danielle Smith? The former Wildrose leader who crossed the floor of the legislature with most of her Wildrose caucus to join the conservatives is now the love child of the “Free Alberta” lunatics.” These are the people who want to fire the RCMP and have an Alberta provincial police and their own pension plan to invest more of their money in exploiting the tar sands. The only problem is that these ‘constitutional experts’ think they can pass laws to refuse federal transfer payments and ignore any federal law that does not please them.

It was the fond hope of some Alberta moderates recently that well-respected MP Michelle Rempel Garner would bring some common sense and trust to the UCP leadership race. It seems that she looked over the field and decided it must be a race between losers and lunatics. She headed back to Ottawa.

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Alberta’s Angst.

July 17, 2022July 16, 2022 by Peter Lowry

It was a long time ago, that as a teenage member of the Canadian Air Force, I drove from North Bay, Ontario to Cold Lake, Alberta. It was part of my right of passage to adulthood. While as an adult, I spent more time in Calgary and Edmonton, I have never forgotten those early days at the base at Cold Lake. That was when I met the native Canadian and the early settlers of that part of Canada. And it is balancing that knowledge with the acquaintances in the cities that helps you understand the cross talk of the politicians.

And you have to admit that Alberta has suffered some unusual politicians over the years. In the land of ‘Bible Bill’ Aberhart, the demagogues come and go. The most unusual of these politicians is not the departing Jason Kenney but the distaff side in the person of Danielle Smith. When all the talking heads in Alberta politics, thought the woman had gone to watch the grass grow in Southern Alberta, they are starting to realize, she might just be the winning combination in the current race to replace Kenney.

For someone who might replace Kenney, Smith is likely to cause far more trouble than Kenney ever did. And for a party that calls itself the United Conservative Party you wonder why when it has all those libertarian members. Quite frankly both Smith and former Wildrose leader Brian Jean are better described as libertarians than conservatives.

And they really do call a spade, a spade in Alberta. An Edmonton writer the other day reported that Danielle Smith is running her campaign—not just as “anti-establishment but anti-science, anti-vax, anti-law and overall anti-reality.” Her promise to support the screwball “Alberta Sovereignty Act” to override federal law, should be enough to preclude her being assigned to run anything more complex than a lady’s washroom.

Just like the way Calgary-born Pierre Poilievre is dominating the current federal race for the conservative leadership by pitching to the angry, foolish and juvenile, we have a similar situation in Alberta. I thought two years of pandemic was nature’s way of remonstrating us for mistreating the environment.

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Ford Among the Big Kids.

July 15, 2022July 14, 2022 by Peter Lowry

Ontario premier Doug Ford was out west this past week hobnobbing with the big kids. Canada’s provincial premiers and territorial leaders were doing the annual medicine dance to convince Ottawa that they should call the shots. It is called the Council of Confederation and if these premiers had their way, there would be very little federal government and the premiers would be running everything.

It really is painful to think of Doug Ford telling anybody how to do their job. He still needs lessons in how to do his. For example, asking the feds to find nurses to come to Ontario because of a shortage in Ontario would be a waste of time. If Ford treats these immigrants as badly as he did the last nurses, what is the point? I have talked to a few former nurses now and it makes you realize how serious is the loss. These are the people who worked long hard hours caring for the sick and dying with COVID. They were undervalued and miss-treated by the Ford conservatives. Why would he treat any new nurses differently?

What is most disquieting, about this annual event is that the premiers use it as a forum in which they can gang up on our federal government. The sessions make no contribution to the future of Canada. They are sure as hell not making any contribution to the concern for climate change.

The annual argument over money all comes down to the pathological fear of Canada’s politicians of being guilty of raising taxes. They all seem to think that if they just run a few deficits, the tax income will catch up to the tax expenditure. It is not only bad economics and bad for the country but it has guaranteed us ballooning deficits now for decades. And the conservatives are just as guilty as the liberals and neither has the right to point the finger at the other.

This deficit problem got totally out of hand during the pandemic. Mistakes were made on the side of the government being generous. Demagogues such as conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre had a hay day in making stupid and irrelevant charges against the liberals over the mistakes that might have been made. All Canadians can be pleased that the liberals were in the driver’s seat during the pandemic and not the penny-pinching conservatives, who only look after their friends.

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Is It the Canada We Want?

July 13, 2022July 12, 2022 by Peter Lowry

It’s an annual event. The provincial and territorial leaders gather to dine and feast on the supposed failures of the federal government. It is a blame game and it proves nothing and solves nothing. They all know there is only one taxpayer and every level of government wants a bigger piece of that pie.

But they all play the game anyway. It is like playing pickle ball under 13 different sets of rules. It all depends on which province is placing their claim. Even this year’s host, the retiring B.C. premier John Horgan, is arguing with federal affairs minister Dominic LeBlanc over who pays what to whom. Nobody seems to realize that it matters little to the taxpayer whether the feds pay 22 or 33 per cent of the cost of Medicare in the provinces. It is the quality of that health care that matters.

And there is little sympathy for Ontario’s premier Ford. That incompetent ass has driven the Ontario healthcare into the ground throughout the pandemic. Nobody was surprised when his minister of health, Christine Elliott, quit rather then run again for that thankless job. In his nickel and dime election campaign, Ford threw pennies to the masses and luckily had no real opposition.

And now Ford is blaming the feds that Ontario has non-functioning emergency departments throughout the province, long waiting lists for emergency operations, and the hospitals themselves on life-support. Despite the healthcare needs, Ford is also asking the federal government to give his government control of immigration in Ontario. They do such a good job on everything else.

Federal conservative leadership contender, Jean Charest, dropped into the Calgary Stampede the other day and told Calgarians that he was the conservative leadership contender that can give them what they want. He promised freedom from carbon taxes, more pipelines and more freedom for the provinces to do their own thing. He told his audience in Calgary that he knew how to do that because he is from Quebec.

And the good news in all of this is that the provincial and territorial leaders all think they have conquered the pandemic. They are meeting in person in B.C.

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