It was Ontario’s turn this past week. How often do we get two Tory budgets at a time? On Tuesday, we had a laugh at federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver’s expense. And then, right on the heels, Thursday we had a budget redux from Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa. There was a new beer tax in Charles’ budget so he must be one of those tax-and-spend Liberals we hear about. Frankly, this liberal would not give you two cents for either budget.
Sousa betrayed Ontario Liberals when he agreed with Ed Clark of TD Bank to raise money on Hydro One—and on the backs of hydro users. Mind you Premier Wynne told Clark to do that and who complains when a banker does what he is told? What Wynne, Clark and Sousa failed to do was put beer in convenience stores where it would be more convenient for the purchaser. They also failed to sell off the Liquor Control Board that would have made much more money for the province than Hydro ever could.
But to follow on the federal budget’s long-term proposals, Sousa had his own ten-year plan for infrastructure. If it had been a 20-year plan, it could have been the most expensive ever. The only problem is that the voters are getting weary of the same-old, same-old promises. The Queen’s image on all those bills is fading badly.
In neither budget was there any help to get our young people working. Promises on the never-never plan are just not winners. What Joe Oliver and his friend Stephen Harper do not understand is that you need to have income to get benefits from tax credits and cuts. Now that Joe and Charles have told us what they are doing for the one per cent, maybe they can give some consideration to the rest of us.
And why the hell, would Charles Sousa decide that the only tax he wanted us to impose was on us beer drinkers? How much tax did he levy on himself and the rest of the Scotch drinkers? This is discriminatory and unfair and we still have to put up with those rotten, smelly, over-priced Beer Stores. Oh sure, now we can pick up a six pack along with the weekly groceries but who is going to take the time to go into a huge grocery store just to get a case of beer? It shows how little the Ontario Liberals know about merchandising.
What we have are two levels of government so out of touch with reality that they fail to pay attention to our real needs. They are offering us nothing but ideology in budgets that are supposed to be about the current tax year. Sure a ten-year plan helps the big plans but if it is vague enough, who knows what they are really doing?
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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