A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large publisherDoug Draper
I woke up this October 9th promising myself that I would stay away from the pornography around Ontario’s Liberal government pulling the plug on two gas-fired energy plants in Oakville and Mississauga – an act we should all now know has cost all of us who live and pay taxes in this province up to a billion or more dollars.
Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak on the attack
But when Ontario’s Conservative opposition leader, Tim Hudak, who expressed just as much interested as we now know the Liberals did in the months leading up to the last October 2011 provincial election in cutting the chord on these plants, now says that if his party wins the next election and he becomes premier, he will launch a “judicial inquiry” into this whole mess, it is hard for this commentator to stand down.
Hudak, a Niagara, Ontario area MPP who is probably facing his last battle as Conservative leader if he doesn’t lead his party to what it feels it is its just reward this time, can almost always be counted on to be the first to circle in for the kill if he thinks he smells some Liberal blood in the water.
Now granted, there is a lot of to thrash away at given the disgusting mess former Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty has left for his successor, Kathleen Wynne, not to mention the rest of us to clean up. And I hope I made my disgust over all of this clear in posts on this site this October 8th with the release of an auditor-general’s report, documenting the obscene amounts of money McGuinty caused us to spend because he wanted to pull the plug on those plant proposals to save Liberal seats in Oakville and Mississauga in the 2011 election.
But a judicial inquiry if Hudak gets elected premier? Why?
“The only way we are ever going to get to the bottom of this scandal is to change the government, and then hold a judicial inquiry free from political influence,” said Hudak in a media release circulated this Ocober 9th.. “If it means someone going to jail, so be it. But someone beyond the taxpayer must pay for this.”
Someone beyond the taxpayers certainly should pay for all this Tim, and it certainly won’t help if you were to become premier and launch a judicial inquiry that could end up costing we, the people, tens- if not hndreds of millions of dollars more for a circus that will likely turn out to be nothing more than a feeding frenzy for lawyers, consultants and the other usual suspects that make a windfall on these things.
Hey Tim, why not just have the Ontario Provincial Police or other police forces do what they would most probably do if one of us squandered or misappropriated huge amounts of public money. Let them investigate and lay criminal charges if they can.
After all, why should it be a criminal investigation by the police for the rest of us and a judicial inquiry that will likely lead to nothing coming close to the kind of punishment we might face if we flushed away that kind of money?
A judicial inquiry? Give us a break Tim. You and your party were on record prior to the October 2011 election, pandering to people in Mississauga and Oakville who did not want those plants in their backyard with promises that you would pull the plug on them to. So please move on to something else. The last thing we need is another free-for-all government inquiry for lawyers.
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How about I just send the provincial and federal governments my pension cheques and I’ll sell pencils on a street corner.
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Right on the money Doug! Hudak continues his mad scramble to try to tell voters what he thinks they want to hear. He would be better off listening to what the voters want …. not what he thinks will help him.
I have said right from the beginning that the entire cost of this debacle should be borne by the Ontario Liberal Party. If it bankrupts them financially, so be it. They are already bankrupt morally.
But then again, so are the conservatives under Hudak.
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Ahhhh yes….. the judicial inquiry strategy…..
I agree Doug a waste of money indeed! Bring in the OPP, RCMP whoever. We don’t need this issue to cost us even more than it already has. Lord knows we spend enough for OPP and RCMP services that they should be able to complete this investigation.
Gross Breach of Public Trust should be the charge. The penalty JAIL TIME! A year for every MILLION dollars misappropriated. The same kind of penalty that would be applied to taxpaying citizen of this province/country if they were responsible for the misappropriation of public funds for the purpose of serving their personal purposes.
If I could lay a charge for being just plain stupid I would charge the entire Provincial Liberal Executive. In case you don’t know, it appears per the CBC that we were not even responsible for the cancellation costs and that the Liberals paid the cancellation fees/costs unnecessarily. The penalty TAR AND FEATHERING IN PUBLIC and YOUTUBE followed by JAIL TIME.
When you think about it, I am going light on these jackasses. A hundred years ago or so, the penalty would be getting dragged behind a horse for a mile or two before being strung up from a tree and left there to rot. Ahhhh the good old Days!
Maybe with penalties like these, self-serving politicians would go the way of the dodo.
Just sayin……..
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This needs a full investigation and forensic audit. Unless something is done this intolerable conduct will continue. Elected officials have got to learn their activities have consequences.
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I don’t recall Tim Hudak ever asking us, the unwashed and gullible voters for an opinion on what needs to be done in this now barren of money, Province of Ontario, He makes frightening announcements that scare the hell out of the voters, and that makes the electorate, cling to the now sinking Titanic, called the Liberal Party of Ontario. Tim’s attitude has to change, or his leadership bid is dead in the water, what should be a slam duck and a cakewalk for the Tories, is a turn off and kills any chance of them forming a Government.The Greens or the NDP is all that’s left of our choices.
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