Maybe some of us are a bit slow on the up tick. An e-mail arrived the other day saying that Premier Wynne now had a way forward. It came from a policy input program on the provincial Liberal web site called Common Ground. If this is the best that the Liberal Party in Ontario can produce, the situation in Ontario is far worse that we thought.
In the past four months provincial party supporters made 1700 policy suggestions. These ideas generated about 10,000 comments and then the top(?) 20 ideas were ranked from 1 to 20. The weighting system was not explained but the top three policy proposals were not likely to be very helpful to Premier Wynne.
The number one policy from this process is Properly Funded Transit. The suggestion is to restore government funding to the pre-Harris levels and fund 50 per cent of the operation of public transit in Ontario. Obviously some researcher in the party office needs to do some research to tell Premier Wynne what this would cost and maybe suggest where the money for the proposal could be found. Frankly, this proposal might not register very high on the public applause metre.
The number two proposal is to Keep Our Hospitals Public. You would expect that if someone in the private sector could figure out a way to make a hospital profitable, they would be most welcome in the Minister of Health’s office. They might not be allowed to buy a hospital but they might find a ready market for some of their ideas. The public is very sceptical of private for-profit hospitals and we can count on them to support all efforts to keep Medicare operating for the public. As yet, it does not seem to be a concern on the voters’ horizon.
The third proposal is in regards to Great Lakes Protection/Clean-Up. Since Ontario is part of the International Joint Commission with the federal government, the U.S. federal government and the U.S. States involved, the Great Lakes are already of major concern. If the Commission is not doing its job, we should know about it. Until then, we should encourage the Commission to do its job. We have some concerns about the Harper government carrying its weight here but Ontario should let us know if the job is not being done. Again, there is no need to raise alarms with voters if the processes are working.
Now would someone please show us where one of these proposals is going to create jobs for Ontario workers? We need jobs that pay well. We need jobs that will help build our economy into the future. In this case, Premier Wynne asked her party for some help. They appear to have let her down.
-30-
Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]