There is something wrong here. We hear that the Ontario Liberal government is concerned about Tiny Tim Hudak’s negativism. We are told by Dalton McGuinty’s people that Timmy’s Conservatives should be helping keep the Whigs out of the clutches of the rapacious New Democratic Party (NDP). How did the world get turned so backwards in this province?
There was a time when we liberals demanded of David Peterson’s people that they negotiate immediately with the NDP to end the threat of a Conservative minority government. It was 1985 and we issued in the first Liberal government in Ontario since Liberal Premier Mitch Hepburn went back to Elgin County in 1942 to watch the grass grow. (The Conservatives soon defeated his replacement, Harry Nixon.)
As Premier, David Peterson never had much chance to figure out where he was in the political spectrum but he never felt he had to apologize for making a deal with the NDP. Yet here we have McGuinty complaining that he would rather make a deal with someone as ignorant as Conservative Tim Hudak than make a deal with Andrea Horwath of the NDP. This is enough to make a real liberal want to cry.
What Dalton McGuinty does not understand is that Ontario does not want or need two right wing political parties. If he even knew where the middle ground might be, he is a long way to the right of it. Ontario Liberals should not have to hold their nose when voting for provincial Liberal Party candidates. McGuinty has got to go.
Nothing makes that clearer than the fight Health Minister Deb Mathews is currently having with the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). As the purported saviour of the political playpen of Ontario health services, Mathews is actually arguing with the OMA over whether we need more doctors. Almost a million Ontario residents cannot get a family doctor and she is refusing to pay for additional doctors. The OMA has made it very clear that they will accept a freeze on the doctor’s incomes if the money goes to new doctors. It could not be plainer that the OMA is trying to solve the problem of looking after patients and the provincial government only cares about the money.
As Ontario citizens, it is our responsibility to back the doctors. How many of those people making over $500,000 a year do you think are doctors? We should make the NDP wealth surtax at least four per cent. The doctors will not mind. They would consider it a direct contribution to good health care for the people of Ontario. After all, Dalton McGuinty does not give a damn.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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