A Commentary by Doug Draper
Let me start this with a few predictions you don’t have to be any kind of a soothsayer to make.
Liberal elites Sandra Pupatello and Dalton McGuinty during better times for their governing party. Pupatello has announced her intention to fill McGuinty’s position as the province’s premier, and is also declaring that if she wins the top job, she will keep the doors on the provincial legislature locked until she wins a riding seat somewhere in Ontario. That could keep parliament closed for the better part of next year or more.
The first prediction is that there will be a provincial election in Ontario sometime in the coming year unless the governing Liberal Party can somehow weasel its way out of one by pushing its current and most arrogant and undemocratic prorogation of the legislature into 2014. And given the amoral, give-a-flick-of-the-finger-to-the-people-of-the-province compass the Liberals seem to be guiding themselves by these days, I would not be surprised if they drag this suspension of parliamentary democracy on that long.
Second, some of the scandals closing in on the province’s Liberal government will continue to metastasis whether the legislature is sitting or not. Most particularly is the scandal over the use of possibly hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to abandon plans to build gas-powered power plants in Liberal ridings in Mississauga and Oakville, for fear the opposition would harm the chances of Liberal candidates, before last year’s provincial election.
According to a story on the front page of The Globe and Mail this November 8, the governing Liberals allowed some $190 million of that money – our money to fall in the hands of hedge-fund manipulators in the United States and to financial fixers in the Cayman Islands were our money can make profits for them. For this reason alone, this Liberal government and everyone in it should be impeached as soon as possible.
Third, Sandra Pupatello, a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister until she decided not to run in the 2011 provincial election and a darling of the party by many accounts, has just announced her intentions to replace outgoing Dalton McGuinty as the party’s leader and the province’s premier. However, she noted in her announcement to run for the leadership that, should she win her party’s leadership, she would not end the prorogation or suspension of the legislature until she wins a seat in some by-election somewhere in the province. That, as CBC radio news reported this November 8, could put off any return to legislative democracy in this province until sometime into late 2013, if not later. And all so Pupatello can dawn what many party faithfully feel is her rightful crown. Yet I would predict that should Pupatello win and continue to allow the proroguing of the legislature until ‘her majesty’ wins a seat in the house, there won’t be too many Liberal seats in Ontario that are not up for grabs, big time. And that may very well include traditionally safer seats like the one Jim Bradley has held in St.Catharines for the past 30-plus years.
That leaves only two leaders and their parties that are serious contenders for forming a government in the next provincial election – Tim Hudak and his Conservatives and Andrea Horwath and the NDP. And on that score, the choice for Ontario voters could not be clearer.
Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak (right) and his former Tory boss Mike Harris (to the right) have been strong supporters of corporate tax cuts, claiming they will trickle down to more jobs in the province.
Over and over again, Tim Hudak has stressed that another cross-the-board cut to corporate taxes, combined with spending cuts, will create jobs for ordinary Ontarians and get the economy of the province humming again. He chooses to use the same terminology failed U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used and refer to all corporate business concerns as “job creators,” as if creating jobs would be their priority if only they received another cut in taxes.
Perhaps Tim Hudak and his party weren’t paying attention this past winter when the giant U.S. Caterpillar corporation decided to close its plant in the London, Ontario area even after it received generous tax cuts and subsidies from the provincial and federal governments, and after those who worked at the plant refused to agree to their wages being slashed in half and their benefits virtually gutted.
Then there is NDP leader Andrea Horwath, who at an economic summit held in Niagara this November 8, said she would give tax breaks to “job creators” too, but only those who are actually showing some record of creating jobs for people in Ontario.
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath says she will only offer tax credits to corporations that move to create jobs in the province.
“Companies that are committed to creating jobs in Ontario deserve to be rewarded,” said Horwath at the summit sponsored by the Great Niagara Chamber of Commerce. “New Democrats believe in targeted tax incentives for kick-starting the economy.”
Now the song Horwath is singing sounds more like the one that helped win U.S. President Barack Obama a second term in office this November 6.
Whichever positions you believe in – cross the board tax cuts for all corporations or targeted cuts for those demonstrating an effort to create jobs in the province – we are in for an interesting 2013. Fasten your seatbelts for the next 12 months. And please get engaged. Only the future for decent jobs for our younger people and others out of work, and the services we need to deliver decent education, health care and other programs for seniors and other at need are at stake.
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Niagara At Large 
I recall hearing her at a fundraiser for Jim Bradley, and she was clearly very engaging and smart. But she is no longer elected, and has taken her pension. So does she pay that back, or give it up, in running again? Just a question.
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Again, great commentary to get us thinking! Isn’t it great that there are long term seat holders in competing parties like Jim Bradley and {before he retired} Peter Kormos? Why are’nt there more in all of the parties? Beware of all the promises. Remember whoever you vote for in whichever party will have only a solitary vote when his/her promise arises on the floor and often the reason you voted the way you did can be overturned after a period of contemplation that results in the usual “we can’t go through with this because of the financial mess left by the previous party in power” excuse for rationalization. When I vote I always think I am voting with an informed mind because I truly do my homework and I have been convinced that the candidate honestly believes that he/she will be our best representative. Too often the answers become blurred after the election and though I have hoped for the best outcome I am mentally prepared for the too frequent letdown. It’s just plain sad that this no longer surprises me. All any voter can seem to do now is console themselves with the thought that maybe they voted for the least of the worst and perhaps a tiny bit more of what convinced them to vote that way will actually happen this time.
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They should be impeached, but that option is not available in Ontario, it is in British Columbia as they have done it, most US states have that option.Ontario is scared to put that option on the ballot, as many Mayors would get the boot ASAP.Why doesn’t the next party go to the Lieutenant General the Queens Rep, and ask for a dissolution of parliament or the right to rule.
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This is one of those rare times when I hate to say I agree with Doug’s comments. Usually, I am happy to agree.
Right now, Andrea Horwath and the NDP are Ontario’s ONLY hope. And, as I have pointed out in the past, I am a conservative – a red-tory.
Wall Street and Bay Street seem to have taken control of Canada and the United States in a way that is counter to the needs of the average citizen. With the intense focus on corporate profits, most businesses cannot develop long-range plans. There are too many hedge-fund bozos calling for new management when a company doesn’t keep doubling profits every three months.
Tim Hudak, like Mitt Romney and Stephen Harper, has bought in to the idea that tax cuts to big corporations will create jobs. The big corporations want tax cuts as a means to help improve their quarterly profit numbers so the senior managers can keep their jobs and big bonuses. Big corporations seem to have lost sight of the fact that the people who buy their products are, in many cases, the people they employ. They want to cut wages and ship production overseas to low-income areas in order to maximize profit. They don’t seem to realize that in the longer term, buy reducing incomes in North America, there will come a time when they will not be able to sell their products here because the public can’t afford them!
Until we have politicians who understand that PEOPLE must come first — not PROFIT, we will continue to face economic and social disaster in Canada and the United States.
Getting back to the original thread of Doug’s commentary, Sandra Pupatello has resigned her BAY Street job. That means she is part of the problem – she is NOT THE SOLUTION.
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Canada already has one of the lowest business tax havens in the world, according to the Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty corporations here, are already sitting on a huge pile of money, some 500 Billion dollars and are letting that money sit idle. the corporations like the Wall Street Banks are hanging on to the stuff. meanwhile the economy is stagnant. FDR the greatest President, the US had called the rich boys in to the White House, read the riot act to them and squeezed the buggars and told them to lend., Rockefeller for one started an edifice to the family name “Rockefeller Centre” and took the tumble down Williamburg. Virginia and rebuilt the place according to the original blueprints. That place is now number one tourist and historical towns in the whole USA.Who is going to take on Wall Street ? those men have corrupted just about every politician in the Senate and Congress.the old adage about ” power corrupts,” has never been truer.
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Hudak is an Idiot! A stooge for rich the and and for American interest groups.
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