Provincial Politics – Page 80

Creating conflict for city and province.

May 5, 2017 by Peter Lowry

They really cannot be doing it to ‘sell’ newspapers in this day and age. The Toronto Star has been busy building a supposed conflict between Mayor John Tory of Toronto and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. It is based on the recent Ontario budget that did not mention more funds for Toronto’s subways and other infrastructure needs.

This is a sadly silly scenario. We have seen photo opportunities, television appearances and headline stories of the mayor and the premier and even with prime ministers assuring Toronto that they will have funds. So much has been promised over the past ten years, you would expect that Toronto would have about three more subways besides that light rail line it has been digging across town on Eglinton Avenue for the past four years.

Frankly the Toronto Star is not helping people understand what is going on in their city. You would think the paper could keep a tally of all of these offers of money by the feds and province and remind the various treasurers that some funds are due. The poor mayor should hardly have to always be going around with a tin cup.

And he could hardly be expecting to do any better with that putz Patrick Brown in the premier’s chair. That is the same guy who tried to convince Wynne not to let the mayor charge tolls on the city’s portion of the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway. It was only when Wynne was convinced of the heat she would take from the Greater Toronto Area voters that she told Tory to forget road tolls.

And based on the average selling price of Toronto homes these days, Toronto could be collecting far more taxes. It might be tough to get a third more but when the average house can be sold for about $900,000, we know the city is getting a cut.

Mind you the unwieldy structure of city council makes it extremely difficult for the mayor to build any kind of consensus or consistency of direction. No provincial party has ever brought forward a workable plan for the city and would hardly ask for any suggestions. Keeping the city in short pants and under the provincial thumb is key to many seats in provincial elections.

The Toronto Star always seems to ignore this issue. Why? We will leave that discussion for another time.

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The piecemeal processes of Premier Wynne.

April 30, 2017 by Peter Lowry

“Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages: Let me draw your attention to the left ring of our three-ring circus. Here for your entertainment and edification is our finance minister who has just passed the miracle of a balanced budget. Charles Sousa will now amaze you further by proposing a new pharmacare program to swamp the proposal of the NDP.”

And he did. In his geared-for-election budget, the Ontario finance minister proposed a piecemeal pharmacare program for Ontario residents under the age of 25. It is the same drug benefit program that applies to seniors and people receiving provincial support. The difference from what the New Democrats proposed is that it applies to the gamut of 4400 listed drugs as opposed to the more restrictive list of the most commonly used 125 prescription drugs as proposed by the NDP.

All it does though is remind Ontario voters of the penchant of the Liberal government for doing things piecemeal. When their banker advised them to sell off the electricity distribution system in Ontario, they broke it into small lots and started selling off a bit at a time. It helped remind Ontario voters each time that they will end up contributing to the profits for those buyers.

It was the same when the province’s banker advised them to sell wine and beer in grocery stores. They thought that was such a great idea that they announced it several times, added hard ciders for another couple media events and spaced the selection of stores over a couple years so that they could have lots more media events. And in the meantime, nobody knows which grocer is selling beer and which is not.

It is as though the Wynne Liberals have decided that if anything is worth doing, it can best be done many times. That will leave the final stage of having pharmacare for those between 25 and 64—that we should have had since the beginning of Medicare in Canada.

Since Ontario has 40 per cent of Canada’s population, the federal government will get into the act at some stage and make it universal in Canada.

Mind you, that genius Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown complained about this program needing a means test. It will be interesting to see how he will apply a means test to children. He should hardly be concerned about the parents paying for them. They will anyway in their taxes but it will be much less because of the buying power of the government and the fact we will have healthier kids, more likely taking their prescribed medicines.

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On being bullish on Brown.

April 29, 2017 by Peter Lowry

There is lots of laughter at the current argument among Ontario Conservatives about whether their leader Patrick Brown has policies. Some Conservatives think it would be nice if they knew where their party is headed. Others think policies should be kept secret so that the opposition does not belittle them.

They would if they could but Patrick Brown would not know a good policy talking point if it bit him on the bum. In more than 13 years in politics, this guy has never had a hint of an idea. Watching him over the years, you get the impression that the last person he talked to had the best ideas.

It was amazing in the last provincial election at a meeting at the Barrie Country Club in Brown’s riding, to see him strongly applaud a speech by then leader Tim Hudak. He jumped up after the speech to be the first to congratulate the then provincial leader for his brilliant new policy. It was the promise by Hudak to fire 100,000 Ontario civil servants. It was also the promise that cost Hudak the election and the leadership.

It reminds us of Michael Harris’ style when he was Premier of Ontario. The province endured a litany of bad policy and ill thought-out ideas under Harris. He was like an earlier less-urbane version of President Donald Trump in the United States—incompetent, erratic and dangerous. Harris might have been a golf professional but we always had the impression he might have done his best work on the 19^th hole.

Patrick Brown trained as a lawyer. He even managed to pass the bar in Ontario. He is not the type of lawyer you would want representing you in court. He is a backroom schemer. He made his mark in political organization. He is no leader. It is unlikely that he even likes people.

It was amusing recently to read that Deb Hutton has defended Brown’s lack of policies. As former chief of staff for Premier Harris and the wife of former Conservative leader Tim Hudak, she must know a lot about ignoring common sense. She thinks Brown should also ignore policy.

And come to think of it, he has survived this long with never having an idea. If Kathleen Wynne and her Liberals keep screwing up, maybe he will not need any policies.

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The myth of being Liberal.

April 25, 2017 by Peter Lowry

One of our respected progressive bloggers from British Columbia wrote recently something less than a paean (song of praise) about the Liberals in that province. His thesis is that B.C. Liberals are just Conservatives in sheep’s clothing and now the federal sheep have joined them. He insists that the Liberal ideal has vanished from Canada.

His is the logical conclusion. Canada’s three largest provincial governments have governments that are Liberal in name only. The Quebec Liberals are the successors to the right-wing Union Nationale and are interchangeable with the federal Conservatives. Ontario’s Liberals might pose as left wing but are hard-nosed and conservative when it comes to economics. They operate under the direction of Bay Street. The B.C. Liberals are in turn bought and paid for by business interests who see the beauty and majesty of the province only in terms of exploitation.

And each of those provincial governments are crumbling. British Columbia goes to vote soon with signs of switching governing parties. It will, hopefully, be to one that does not exploit the land for business interests and does not constantly leave itself open to possible charges of corruption.

Ontario will be next in the spring of 2018. The problem there is the leadership. Premier Wynne has lost support from voters and from within her party. The premier of Quebec probably thinks he is lucky to have no real opposition at this time but it will come.

The problem with the federal Liberal Party of Canada is that it no longer exists as a viable political party. There is a façade registered as a political party by that name but it has no paid-up membership. Instead it has a list of people across Canada that it can constantly pester for financial support. There is no real hands-on relationship between this list and any rights of party membership. Instead of policy, it uses a cult of personality in the person of the leader. The list has no rights or reasons to meet. Local liberals are denied the selection of their candidate for parliament. They have no real say on party policy. There is no future for federal liberals in Canada.

But the need for liberalism continues. Liberals have to be progressives, they have to support the rights of the individual in society as well as the need for dignity and freedom. Liberals seek cultural, economic and personal growth for all in a non-judgemental society. Life on this beautiful planet is a wonderful gift. We should leave it a better place for our having been here.

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Something borrowed, something blue.

April 24, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Watching the news conference events last week at Toronto’s Liberty Village, you could not help but note what a modern setting it would be for a wedding. This must have been just a rehearsal though as Premier Kathleen Wynne and Finance Minister Charles Sousa delivered their promises. They even had something borrowed to tell us and they both looked blue.

The premier and her treasurer were there to attempt to cool the rapidly rising prices in the real estate market in the Toronto area. They had a potpourri of solutions ranging from one borrowed from Vancouver and rent controls for income properties. What they did not have was realistic solutions for the Toronto area.

It hardly seemed to matter that the situation in Vancouver was quite different. With as many as 60,000 high-priced properties sitting vacant in the west coast city, these properties had become targets for vandalism and salvage. When a 15 per cent foreign-buyer tax was imposed by the province and the city increased real estate taxes for vacant homes, foreign buyers switched their interest to the Seattle market. And Vancouver is not sure how much home prices will go down, if at all.

The difference is that in Toronto foreign investors might be just under five per cent of the market and are hardly a major problem. The tax will unlikely earn much for the province. Nor would an additional city vacancy tax earn much for Toronto.

In all their plans, these politicians had no comment on the real estate flipping that is a constant headache in the Toronto market. Maybe there are fewer at current prices but the people who can buy cheap, put some lipstick on the property and then sell for a healthy profit are still a major cause of prices going up 33 per cent year over year.

While it would be difficult (and boring) to cover all 16 points of the Ontario government’s proposed program (that have yet to be passed in the Legislature). The only other important change will be the extended rental controls. These have now been extended to all rental properties in the area around Toronto.

These changes will limit landlords to a 2.5 per cent increase in rentals (which can be routinely applied every year). Owners will also be able to pass on the costs of major property improvements.

To allay the usual complaints that rent controls are a disincentive to developers, the province will be passing a number of tax incentives for developers and funding a $125 million worth of incentive payments. How long that will last, we do not know.

What probably makes the politicians blue is that they have caused havoc and confusion to the spring sales for about 45,000 real estate agents during their busiest season. They should have more political smarts.

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You can call it a ‘Wynne Win.’

April 21, 2017 by Peter Lowry

Ontario’s political pundits are all running with scissors these days forecasting the resignation of Premier Kathleen Wynne. Quite properly, she is scoffing at these rumours and promising to carry on. It could be the death knell of the Liberal’s dynasty of the last 14 years.

But is it? In a few days, we will be hearing the final plea of repentance from Charles Sousa in his guise as finance minister. He will balance the budget to please the people who worry about debt. He will offer the goodies for the people whose votes can be bought with their own money. He will bring more sunshine to our spring. He will then have a year to show that his promises are real.

But, is that a winning formula? Do deathbed repentances work? Can you really recover from arrogance? Does it really justify slavishly following the apolitical advice of a retired banker? He told the premier to sell off the hydro distribution system in Ontario. She did and angered voters across the province. He told her to add beer and wine to grocery stores and do it piecemeal to piss off the voters who both wanted it and those who did not.

Nobody denies that Wynne is a poor leader. Her cabinet makes little traction with the voters and the backbenchers are a mix of those who need experience and those who need retirement. (Those speaking up must be those intending to retire anyway.)

Wynne got her job through manipulation and political theatre. She took pride in being the first lesbian premier of Ontario and then found nobody cared. Her cabinet are mostly self-serving retreads who have little to offer. Wynne thinks of herself as some kind of progressive but she has never done anything that was neither reactionary nor manipulative. She seems to think you can replace leadership with panels and studies.

Wynne’s obvious plan for the election next year is to show up her opponents as feckless and incompetent. They are but that does not excuse her shortcomings.

The anomaly in all of this is the Ontario economy that is improving every day. It is hardly to the credit of the Ontario government that Ontario is picking up the slack for the foolish tar sands economy of Alberta.

But it might account for a write-off of the New Democratic Party’s chances next year. And by next year, Ontario voters will have learned that Conservative Leader Brown is a useless putz. It seems to be unfair to offer them three such useless leaders but it says a lot about the state of politics in Ontario today.

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Trump’s ‘Milk of Human Kindness.’

April 20, 2017 by Peter Lowry

“Once again unto the breach” (sorry Mr. Shakespeare) President Trump jumps into a situation of which he has absolutely no understanding. He is making a habit of it and this time he is trying to skewer the Canadians. He has pitted the free market, unfettered Wisconsin dairy farmers against what Trump calls the ‘unfair’ position of Canada’s farm marketing boards.

That must be what you get when you do something decent for people. The milk marketing board in Ontario is probably always under fire for its trying to balance the cost of production with the price at the farm gate for milk. What it is trying to do is to keep farmers producing while keeping the price to consumers at a reasonable level.

Americans should not knock it until they try it. Under the Canadian boards, a company that unilaterally cut off 75 farmers because it wanted to switch to lower world milk prices would be out of the milk-related business. A Canadian board would not allow that kind of disruption in the market.

But President Trump is telling the farmers in Wisconsin that we are just unfair. Tell that to the soft-wood lumber people in British Columbia. He really does not understand that you cannot have free trade agreements with other countries and then demand that federal and state governments buy American to the exclusion of your free trade partners.

What Trump does not understand is that the highly integrated North American market demands open borders to speed commerce back and forth. Canada exports far more raw materials to the United States for processing than the U.S. sends to Canada. We are probably America’s most reliable supplier. We are also the best customer that America has ever had.

Cooler heads in Washington had better start thinking seriously about where Trump is taking them. If he really starts building walls between countries that are his neighbours, he is liable to start something he cannot control. His approach to these concerns could throw North America into an economic tailspin that could ultimately create a world-wide recession. Will anyone want to ‘buy America’ then?

Donald Trump should start getting his information straight or shut up.

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“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

April 18, 2017 by Peter Lowry

William Shakespeare is a writer for most human experience. You could not help but think of that line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream the other day reading a commentary on guaranteed basic income. Who the writer was is not important. The approach was serious. He wrote of a guaranteed basic income as being charity. That is the most destructive statement he could make. Should the attitude fester, a critical step forward for our society could suffer further delay.

But in the article, the commentator goes on to talk about another subject. It was a hatchet job. The article offered no insight into the subject of guaranteed income. There was no argument pro or con. There was no proof offered. It was as though a passer-by suddenly threw a brick through a large window and calmly continued to enjoy his otherwise uneventful stroll.

You could test the concept of guaranteed income forever and you will never know until you do it what it will really cost. And similarly, you will never know just how much it will save.

We are talking considerable savings in healthcare, education, support as well as welfare. Guaranteed income payment replaces many piecemeal programs run by government that always left the recipients scrambling for more. These programs were never charity—they were a necessity.

We live in a society that demands compassion and understanding. We live among some of the most charitable people in the world. They are educated and caring. They welcome the newcomers who contribute so much to our society. They are demanding of government to do the job for which it is elected. They contribute their time and money to charity and make a fairly clear distinction between the role of government and the role of charity.

In health for example, it is the government that provides facilities and funding for basic research. It is the charities that seek the funds to direct the researchers to specific health concerns of our society.

A guaranteed basic income is exactly what the words imply. It is to keep the recipient fed, clothed and provide adequate shelter. That looks after the needs of the body. There are also the needs of the mind and spirit of the individual. They are part of our society and need to be able to partake in what our society offers. To assume that bare necessities will suffice is wrong and cruel. We have to make the individual part of our society.

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The bafflement of blow-hard Brown.

April 13, 2017 by Peter Lowry

It is probably for the best that the Ontario Progressive Conservatives have a schlemiel such as Patrick Brown as their leader. They will be relieved when he goes. And here is the poor guy trying to explain the difference between carbon taxes and Cap and Trade to a political party that is determined to tolerate neither.

Brown is Ontario’s political poster boy for “Loser.”

We once wasted one of our commentaries on explaining the difference between a carbon tax and Cap and Trade. The simple answer is they are what they say. A carbon tax relates to taxing the amount of carbon you are spewing into our environment. As a tax, it is open to audit and to explanation as to where the money went. It is a system that is easy to follow.

Cap and Trade is not. And that is why Patrick Brown—after flip-flopping as usual—came down on the side of the more hidden money trail. And that is where Ontario and Quebec are anyway. Canada’s two largest provinces are linked to California with a population almost as large as Canada in keeping their supposed Cap and Trade system obscure and under wraps.

And that seems to suit Ontario Opposition Leader Brown as well. What good the federal carbon reduction targets and taxes will be when Ontario and Quebec are tied to some vague promises in California, is a good question.

It is regrettable (for Brown) that he is not old enough to even be aware of the abilities of previous Ontario Conservative Premiers such as Leslie Frost, John Robarts and Bill Davis. He could have learned so much.

The problem is he would have to be in his 80s to remember Leslie Frost. That man never met a political problem that he could not obfuscate while sweeping it under the rug. John Robarts was the chairman of the board and he brought in a new era of industrialized Ontario. And then there was that smoothie Bill Davis. Everybody likes Bill. And the guy actually has a conscience. How can you compare any one of those Conservative gentlemen to a klutz like Brown? His heroes are former Premier Mike Harris and former Leader Tim Hudak.

And Brown has absolutely no idea how he would do anything better.

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Morning Line: B.C. Provincial Election – May 2017.

April 12, 2017 by Peter Lowry

This morning line is not up to our usual standards. We simply lack the complete information needed to assess the public mood. All we can do is provide a baseline for betting based on what stats and performances are available. And there is no getting around the fact that B.C. voters have fooled us all at one time or another.

BC New Democrats: 4 to 1

With an untried leader and the current situation, we would not bet the farm on this one. John Horgan and his team need 44 seats in the legislature for a majority and that might be hard to do with the way the votes might split. It all depends on the support for the Greens. A strong Green Party showing will hurt the NDP—and keep the Liberals in power.

BC Liberals: 6 to 1

A minority would not work for Christy Clark and her business-oriented Liberals. For them it is 44 seats or bust. Most of the advice we are hearing is that Clark and team have run out of rabbits to pull from the hat this time.

BC Green: 15 to 1

With only one seat in the legislature, we are wondering why all the optimism from our Green friends. While we have been seeing some drift of NDP support to the Greens, we think they might drift back when push comes to shove. If Ms. Clark sees enough of them wandering off from the NDP, she’ll be dancing a jig through the election.

BC Progressive Conservatives: 50 to 1

We know they are out there. The problem in B.C. is that nobody can tell the difference between a provincial Liberal and a provincial Conservative. And as of this date there are more Libertarians nominated than Conservatives. It does not look good for either party.

Corruption: 2 to 1

This is a special category of the Morning Line. Our readers across the rest of Canada will be surprised to hear that there are virtually no limits on political contributions in British Columbia. Last year, in a non-election year, Christy Clark’s government is reported to have raised over $12 million, two-thirds of that from business and about 10 per cent from outside B.C.

It is reports that Clark not only gets her premier’s pay from the legislature but also takes additional payment from these donations that amazes this politico. If the premier of any other province in Canada did that there would be serious calls for impeachment and/or criminal charges

Here we thought we were aware of most possibly corrupt practices in politics and this one blew us away.

We are pleased to note that the provincial NDP has promised to put an end to this practice. It might help bring B.C. politics out of the middle ages.

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