Have you dug into Doug Ford’s ‘fully-costed’ plan for Ontario? I trust it has satisfied your thirst for knowledge? It reads like a used-car salesman’s figures done on the back of an envelope. And the figures never add up.
But that is the problem we have always had in working with one of the Ford brothers. They see a desire for negotiation as a sign of weakness. You just bought a Ski-doo trailer to hitch to your used car.
What amused me in learning about how Doug Ford had costed his plan, the person handing out the plan to the news media reminded me of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Donald Trump’s hillbilly press secretary. The attitude about the conservative plan was ‘What you see is what you get.’
The trouble with the entire list is it is a series of pipedreams. This is not a program. This is a ‘shut up’ list. You ask for it and Doug Ford declares you can have it—in your dreams.
Did you see the figure for a 20 per cent reduction in provincial tax for the ‘middle class’? If you define middle class as the second tax bracket for Ontario taxpayers, the Tories are offering you a break that will cost the government $2.6 billion. Maybe you were unaware that this tax break—that you cannot collect for another four years—and maybe you will remember to vote for the conservatives again!
If you have been listening to the gasoline gurus, you will have heard that the price of regular gas will be over $1.50 a litre by the end of the summer. How much do you want to bet that the oil companies will beat you to any five-cent drop in gas taxes? And who benefits if the Tories can really axe the liberal cap and trade system—and then go to the Supreme Court to try to keep the federal government from putting in a carbon tax?
What is really amusing in these crack-cocaine type dreams over conservative plans are the hope to save $270 million in corporate welfare(?) while cutting business taxes by 20 per cent.
But the real nightmare would be if the conservatives win a majority government on June 7. Canadian conservatives in recent years have been more noteworthy in what they do not do, rather than anything proactive.
-30-
Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]