A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
As the polls closed for two Ontario by-elections this February 13th and ballroom in a Niagara Falls hotel was filling up with NDP supporters, a few party insiders told me they heard that the province’s Conservative leader, Tim Hudak, had already positioned himself in the Toronto are riding of Thornhill this night.
Tim Hudak’s old Tory boss from the ‘Common Sense ‘ Days, Mike Harris, leads him on in this file photo.
That just about said it all for any chance that Hudak’s old Mike Harris ‘Common Sense’ manifesto comrade Bart Maves had of winning a Niagara Falls Riding – a riding that includes Hudak’s native town of Fort Erie.
Why would Hudak want to be seen in the media, licking his wounds over a loss in his own backyard, when he could strategically locate himself in a riding his Conservatives were expected to win, given demographics, etc. that favour his party there.
The winner in the Niagara Falls Riding, you might very well know by now, is the NDP candidate Wayne Gates, who was a target of some pretty ugly attacks by the Hudak/Maves camp.
In the final days of the campaign, the Hudak/Maves/Harris Tories posted mud-slinging pieces linking Gates, a long time, leading auto union activist in Niagara, to an interview he once did with a “Communist” newspaper, and then there was the post from the Maves bunch that Gates has an agenda to see unions “infiltrate “Queen’s Park.”
This is retro-American 1950s Senator Joe McCarthy blacklisting shit that should have nothing to do with an election in Ontario, where the concerns should be over jobs, and what we can do to make the best life for our seniors and young people, in the 21st century.
When Ontario Leader Andrea Horwath during Gates’ victory night that “our opponents started throwing all kinds of mud on him, but the people (in the riding) could see right through it, she was absolutely right.
Wayne Gates is about as honourable an individual as you can find in politics these days. He is a salt-of-the-earth, working class Niagarian who has always stood up for fairness for all his fellow citizens across this region, whether they belong to a union or not.
For Hudak to continue to come out, following Gates’ victory, and say he won because a “union coalition” or “union elites” helped him shows how out of touch he and his Tea Party-like extremists are with the rest of people in this province who are struggling to survive as the gap in wages between the 99 and upper one per cent grows, and young people in Ontario wonder if there is any promise of a decent future for them.
As Gates thanked voters in the Niagara Falls Riding this February 13th of putting some trust in him, he said; “We have to put people back to work and we have to put younger people back to work. … We have to make sure our kids have the same kind of future we had …”
As a parent of a 22-year-old who wonders if she will ever have the start her parents did back in the 1970s, this was some promising music to my ears.
Hudak, on the other hand, seems to promise little or nothing than more of the same tax cuts to corporations that so often respond to that generosity from their Tory government friends by taking their business to sweatshops off shore, and to those corporations that oppose any increase in the minimum wage and want “red tape” cuts so they can do whatever they want, regardless of how much they poison our lives oor the environment we live in.
In that regard, Hudak – a child of an extremist Mike Harris ideology from two decades ago – is out of step with the times and my guess is that the next general election in Ontario, which may come as soon as this spring, will be fought between NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne. Hudak, who ironically has two teachers as parents who benefited from a union that provided them decent wages and benefits, is a relic of the Joe McCarthy/Ronald Reagan/Margaret Thatcher age.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
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Unions have already infiltrated Queen’s Park. Why else have we been held hostage by socialist parties for the past 11 years?
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Dead on Mr. Draper. Labour is like the skeleton of the human body. Without it, nothing stands and like the social fabric of our society, business would not stand either. It seems to me counterproductive that an economy can thrive without people doing the work and purchasing the products they create. At the end of the day, do we want our democracy to benefit people or just corporate interests? Are corporate interest for the good of the population or is it just for the good of corporations? There was a reason why unions came into being and those reasons have not disappeared. If the machinations of a society is seen as only benefiting the few, then why have a democracy at all. After all, corporations abhor democracies. The Mike Harris and Tim Hudak’s of the world do not want Ontarions to grow. They want themselves to grow at the expense of everyone else. Where did Harris end up again? Ah that’s right. Making millions sitting on the board of Magna International. Wonder how he got that job.
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With all due respect, I would prefer Socialist leaders to fascist leaders, which is what we currently have. Fascism is defined as far right policies, pseudo religious bigotry, AKA Emperor Harperius & dominance by a few over the many. The only aspect of a fascist state that is missing is blatant militarism.
If anyone here uses public transit, collects any kind of social benefits, goes to a library or uses any government provided services, you are, in fact, benefitting from socialist policies. If you have had surgery or gone to an ER or to your family doctor without the need to pay up front in cash or deal with an insurance company for a doctor’s visit, you have Socialist policies to thank. Sure our health care system isn’t perfect but try the US one where, if you can’t pay, you’re SOL. Unemployment insurance?…due to Socialism…Canada pension?… due to Socialism.
As for the unions, which Hudak so despises, how many here work 16 hours a day or work 6 or 7 days a week? Is there still child labour or are there sweat shops like Pakistan? No, that would be because of unions. Was Hudak’s grandfather a union member & leader in SW Ontario? The answer would be yes. Hudak has also avoided private sector employment all his life & has lived off the public teat, employment wise, since he could walk. He is going to create “One million jobs”, he just doesn’t say how or what they would pay in his “Right to work” province. Does anyone here follow events in the US “right to work” states? The jobs created are minimum wage just as soon as they are able to break the unions. Who benefits? The CEO’s who add a few more millions to their incomes while their employees eat dirt.
Sure Gates is a union man but unions, as Gerry said, were created FOR A REASON. Labourers were being exploited. Now they earn a living wage. Sure, they can get out of hand but destroying them only benefits the CEO’s on Bay Street, not Joe Blow on Morrison Street.
If anyone here is against Socialism or unions, my suggestion to you is put your money where your mouth is. Turn down all the benefits they have provided like health care, 40 hour work weeks, overtime pay & pensions. Save for your own retirement & pay for every hospital visit & Rx. Same with benefits you get from the government like welfare, UI, disability & Canada pension. If you are against unions & the few Socialist policies we have & continue to accept such benefits you are a HYPOCRITE. Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk. How many are willing to do that? If not, as they say “Forever hold your peace”. A polite way of saying “Shut up”.
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An added note, this one about the Liberals – They reinstated the spring bear hunt in Ontario. This kills the sows leaving orphaned cubs to starve. How nice. They also promised to reopen the Fort Erie race track that they just closed as soon as the election was called. They can reverse that just as easily & quickly.
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Excuse me! Laura Griffin, your comments are so far out there that some might want some of whatever drug you have been taking!
I retired from the provincial civil service three years ago. I can assure you, there are a hell of lot fewer unionized employees now than there were when I started with the government back in 1991. Many of the reductions were at the hands of the NDP!
The Liberals, currently in power but only barely, are NOT socialist! They are opportunist, narcissistic, untrustworthy, self-serving, {insert your own derogatory adjectives here} and deserve to be turfed out.
I happen to be a small-c conservative and when I see comments like that posted by Laura Griffin, I start to understand where Hudak’s support comes from. It sure as hell isn’t from Tories like me! We want to see him tossed out on his ass ASAP so a decent leader, one with a heart beating in his or her chest, one with a social conscience, take over.
I know Doug does not like us making personal attacks on others, but Ms Griffin needs to understand the problem is not the NDP. The problem is Tim Hudak!!!!!
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I am delighted in the election results and Gates /NDP win . Proud to be a supporter!
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Great article, and I hope it’s a good indicator of the actual situation in ontario. Out here on the BC coast, we see ontario as an extension of the republican tea party, especially since ford and his comedy act, but I remember the days of the NDP in power in ontario fondly, and would love to see a move away from corportism and koch-inspired rhetoric, and towards social democracy again. The pendulum needs to return to the centre, in which canada sees itself as a democracy, sees its taxes used not for corporate scamming, but for social programs, and sees its corpooratist politicians jailed for election fraud, bribery, corruption, and collusion EVERY time it occurs. Just because someone’s money and power comes from corporate scammers and “lobbyists” does NOT put them above the law, nor does it authorize the creation of a fascist state by legislation.
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The problem for Hudak is Harris. When he saw that Hudak had a chance, Harris interfered with the election in 2011, Hudak seems to be controlled by the Harris Greed for Power.
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I do not know Wayne Gates at all, and I am sure that he is a really nice person, however his comment, “We have to put people back to work and we have to put younger people back to work. … We have to make sure our kids have the same kind of future we had …” shows that he is a man of good intentions, but who is also a bit naive. Our economy today is nothing like the one that he was referring to. Back in the 50’s through the 70’s the economy boomed from the money spent into circulation from WW2. The thing that few people realize is that Canada did not come out of the war in debt, rather, Canada came out of WW2 with only a few billions in debt – WW2 was financed with debt-free money provided by the Bank of Canada that made the economy to explode. Today we suffer from massive debts because Canadian governments (at all levels) borrow money from private financial institutions that charge massive amounts of interest.
The problem becomes, how can you, personally or nationally ever hope to get out of debt when nearly every dollar that comes into our economy comes as a debt. The answer is we never will get out of debt as long as we live under today’s present economy. Back to Mr. Gates’ comment. Wonderful intentions will never today’s children a hope to have it anywhere as good as we had it several decades ago.
This will explain how Canada spiraled into debt and the economy went forever down the toilet. http://pushinback.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/the-chart-that-shouts-out-of-the-silence/
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Will, I am with you in part. In the past I have voted provincially for PC, Liberal and NDP. I did not have any problem with any of them until Harris and the Hudak. Then everything changed. So too with federal politics when Harper came to power. Nor do I place undue reverence to the leader of the party. What I do place an interest in is their mind set and purpose. If I see their platform as divisive, secretive, closed to scrutiny, unable to speak to the people that elected them, driven by ideology alone, then I worry. I agree with you that Hudak has an agenda which requires no heart or no social conscience. I fear it will take some time to get the PC’s back to their original roots if ever. And it is a darn shame because they had some great leaders and positions in the past. I think Ontario and Canada needs to take a long hard look at what other countries and regions are doing and pick what is good about them and begin to implement those ideas. And there are plenty of ideas out there that seem to be successful. On the other hand, we have people like Hudak who would suggest those other countries, even though they are successful, are communists.
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Hudak’s comrades at the federal level (with Lib support), are selling us out to communist China as we speak.
http://rabble.ca/news/2013/08/hupacasath-first-nation-shines-light-on-secretive-canada-china-investment-deal
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Mark: I have been against this agreement right from the beginning. As the article your comment points to, whenever corporate interests supersede the interests of the nation we no longer have a democracy but corporatocracy. Being on the Liberal discussion group, I can tell you that most do not agree nor support it. However, given your belief that the Liberal party does, I will make sure it is discussed further. I suspect, if they agree to it, that they do in principal but not all the specifics.
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Back in the day , there used to be pages and pages of corporate entities donating many thousands of dollars to both Liberal and Conservative war chests at election time. Those connections , alliances run deep , so some of you may not support corporate interests that supersede the nations , but there sure has been no shortage of those companies who benefit from their political friends. You need not look far.
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Gerry, I hope they re-consider …
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The connecting of the dots….A few short years ago a farmer, from southern Saskatchewan and a Progressive Conservative, David Orchard attempted to warn Canadians of the pit they were digging for Canada with the signing of the “First” trade agreement with the United States. His voice was muffled by the Corporate owned media as propaganda swirled about how we Canadians would “all” see our bank accounts grow like weeds in a lush garden. If you will,…. remember the Progressive Conservative Party was almost wiped out in a future election and a leadership convention was called. At that convention one of the candidates from Nova Scotia needed the support of “David Orchard” (also a candidate) to win and become the leader of this old and venerated party. David, by no means a stupid person, agreed to support this person but only if he signed a “witnessed agreement” that “HE” when elected would not merge the Progressive Conservative Party with Harper’s (Whatever it was called then) gang. Well!!! This is now but history…BUT…..
No sooner was “HE” elected when he jumped into bed with HARPER and this act of JUDISM completely ELIMINATED the Federal “PROGRESSIVE Conservative Party” a party that many Canadians once respected and supported.
I have not mentioned names but recently a media article was touting the person as a VIABLE candidate to take over when Harper left….This in many peoples mind including David Orchard would be the final straw in a very sick complete take over of Canada by “Corporate Interests”.
P.S,. I wonder if David was ever able to secure money given to his campaign by his “Progressive” Conservative supporter after the Harper’s gang took over….I do know but they tried to keep this money even though it was not given in support of Harper and his “New” Party? I know this because I was corresponding with David at the time…..
just wondering
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Well put Linda McKellar! It’s refreshing to see that mud slinging politics are finally becoming ineffective. It’s a cheap way to hide behind not having a real solution. I would have thought Hudak would have learned his lesson on that, but apparantly not.
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Mark, I did bring up this FIPA agreement. Their answer was more or less like this. The Liberals agreed in principal to discuss this agreement. According to them, JT did not agree with the agreement and felt discussions should be had since it would impact all Canadians. I wasn’t really satisfied with this answer but now everyone is gone to the Liberal Convention so very little discussion can be had. I will bring it up during the convention discussions.
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Ww wouldn’t have a sunshine list as long as……. if it were not for unions! Simple! A 6 digit salary for passing out speeding tickets is in my opinion more than a living wage! And those extravagant perks and wages are a drain to our wallets as well as our economy. As it did in the private sector particularly auto, this has to stop and stop NOW!
Having a Union supported government (Libs and NDP) is not the way to go. That sunshine list is only going to get longer and frankly we are at a tipping point on how much us NON-UNION citizens can afford to pay all things considered.
Am I the only one that thinks $3k per year in property taxes is too much to pay for a modest bungalow? Thank the NRP, Fire department, teachers, regional, provincial employees and health employees unions for that!
That’s not to say executive public salaries don’t need to be dealt with as well, but ….come on!
On the private end of things, we have unions to thank for our lack of competitiveness because if they were not so greedy, it would be less profitable to ship products half way across the world to sell here at home. It is just heartening to see that in the private sector they finally clued in and realized that $40 per hour to work half hour on half hour off was unsustainable!
Just sayin……
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The sunshine list has not been upgraded in 20 years so the use of this list is ridiculous. To suggest that union shops take lesser wages flies against what is happening to corporations with their unheard of profits that they are banking. While I do think a different way is needed, the use of our economic models based on pre-free trade deals needs revision. The fact that Germany is doing very well in spite of large unions is an indication that you’re idea is not only wrong but counter intuitive. What you seem to want is to have labour the fall-guy for all the ills of the province and country when the facts do not bare this out. What is needed are free trade agreements that take labour and social programs into consideration. Your way is to make everyone earn what the poorest paid countries earn leading to everyone suffering rather than raising all labour in all countries. Perhaps unions should go international or multinational like many corporations seem to be doing.
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Actually that is only partially correct Gerry. While I do lay blame to blue collar unions who demanded $40 per hour ++++, many of these in the private sector have clued in and realized that that kind of compensation for that kind of work was unsustainable.
I mostly lay blame to public sector union workers who I think we can all agree are compensated far too much and at the same time are the least productive. Come on…. anyone out there gonna deny that public sector workers aren’t lazy and less scrutinized when compared to their private sector counterparts!
I also lay blame to wasteful scandalous layers of government that WASTES its tax resources without discrimination. From the municipality to the feds. From the NDP to the Conservatives.
As for your trade deals that consider labour and social programs. Good luck with that!
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Your assumptions are all based on post free trade. Now let’s look at pre free trade. During that era, we had more than double corporate tax yet great employment. I have consistently shown that other industrial nations have many more unions, in some cases as much as 70% yet are doing well economically. You simply can’t compare the economics of a nation solely based on labour incomes. Your simplistic notion that all the ills stem from unions is just simply a sham and you known it. Now if corporations were doing poorly then you might have an issue. But as well all well know it, corporations, banks and investment institutions are all doing better than they have ever done. As for the waste in government, unless you were there or had independent people verifying such absurd information, your ideas are simply what the right have said since time immemorial.
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And I forgot the most important thing……. A living wage would be a lot less if we had less government cost, less government waste, less government wanton scandal and less government taxes! ALL THE WAY AROUND!!!!
Think about the taxes we pay on resources to eat, travel to work, heat our homes. Look at what is going to happen to electricity in the coming months and the impact that will have on EVERYBODY in this province!
The citizens (corporate and private) are taxed through the nose. That is the elephant in the room. When a person making $60k per year pays more than half their income in some form of tax that is WRONG!
These are the things we should all be talking about and how we are going to deal with them as towns, regions, provinces and a nation. Unfortunately I don’t hear a peep on this from ALL the parties or politicians at all levels from the municipality right through to the feds!!!! I don’t hear a peep about this from any of YOU!
If these obstacles were to be removed, then business AND john doe citizen would both benefit and THAT IS THE SAD TRUTH!
By the way the federal government in a blatant attempt to BUY votes spent over $100M on the Canadian Museum of Human Rights and will spend $25M each year for operations! Money that should have never been taken from the taxpayer in the first place. This is just the tip of the iceberg!!!!!
Just sayin……
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Hmmm while I tend to agree with you on some parts of your comment, I would vehemently disagree with you on other parts. It’s been said that the cost of civilization is tax. We do have federal transfer payments which tries to level availability of social and health programs across all provinces. Unfortunately, the federal government has seen fit to reduce corporate tax to a level of being the lowest of all industrial countries. The effect has been fewer taxes taken in thus leaving the population to shore up the lack of taxes. One could make the argument that the feds could just look after the military etc. and the provinces look after everything else. That would mean that Ontario would be a very wealthy province. The problem then would be that some provinces would be doing very well while others would be doing poorly.
In Canada we have come to the conclusion that similar programs would be available in all provinces thus the need for transfer payments from the feds. The idea of lesser tax is also problematic. A look at where Alberta is presently would tell you that the lower tax does not solve the problem either since their deficit on a per capita basis is larger than Ontario’s. So you either believe in free markets or you believe that market driven or capitalism is not working. From what I understand, your suggestion is more akin to communism where the state dictates how much each will earn. This in a nutshell is the predominant problem of our age when you have corporations not wanting to pay tax, multinationals having no skin in the game of nations other than plundering what it has to offer, where corporations all want you to buy their products but do not provide the means to make a decent living in order to purchase these products and where the few (and increasing) have the major share of the wealth. Something has to give or populations will rise up.
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