It was just like another hockey season for the Toronto Maple Leafs. You are never sure if the players or the fans are more relieved that it is over. At Queen’s Park, nobody had expected much from Dalton McGinty’s Whigs and therefore nobody was disappointed.
Sure, we all had a good laugh at the posturing over a possible election next month. That had as much possibility as a metre deep snow storm this June. What really puzzled us was McGuinty’s complaint that Horwath’s people were amending Dwight Duncan’s budget in committee.
Excuse us, but is it not the role of the committee to consider amendments to legislation being reviewed by the committee? Yah, when you have a majority government, you can run roughshod over the opposition and block the amendments but when you are in a minority position, you have to act a bit smarter than that.
It was pretty silly for McGuinty to call media conferences to tell the gullible media people that Andrea Horwath was breaking her word. When would Mrs. Horwath have promised him that her MPP’s were not going to do their job? That might be a promise that Tiny Tim Hudak might make but his caucus does not include many PhD candidates.
The problem for McGuinty is that with the Legislature out for their summer holidays, the attention will be focused on the Ministry of Health. It is going to be a very hot summer for Health Minister Deb Mathews. For a very smart person, Ms. Mathews has really been fumbling the ball on this portfolio. The Ontario Medical Association has been running circles around her and if they keep it up, she will be the one going down the drain.
Maybe it is McGuinty’s fault for interfering with her handling of the situation but the doctors have had possession of the ball since the kickoff. It was obviously McGuinty’s ploy that set new schedules for some medical procedures. The government might have been saving money but it is the public that suffer from the fallout.
The doctors said from the get-go that they will give up any increase for existing doctors but we do have to have new doctors. With a million Ontario citizens without a family doctor, the Ontario Government has much to answer for. You would think that in a province bleeding jobs like an arterial wound, they would be willing to put a few more young doctors to work.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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