A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
Okay, I’ll admit it. It’s looking like I was wrong about Kathleen Wynne.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, a few years back with her outgoing boss, the former premier Dalton McGuinty
When so many others warned as far back as the winter of 2013 when she was first sworn in as Ontario’s 25th Premier, and again in the spring of 2014 when she lead the province’s Liberals to a third consecutive term in government, that she was no better than her predecessor Dalton McGuinty – when the opposition Conservatives and NDP kept linking the names McGuinty and Wynne together with a hyphen every time they made a reference to her government – I was giving her the benefit of the doubt.
In commentary I posted her and elsewhere, I took a leap of faith which is always a risky thing to do with politicians. I called her a breath of fresh air and urged others to give her a chance to come out from under McGuinty’s shadow and put her own stamp on her party and the province.
And I thought there were some very real reasons to feel encouraged about Wynne on issues like public transit, for example, where she has been working far more than McGuinty ever did to invest far more resources in public transit than building more roads and highways to accommodate every more cars.
Then we find out this October, and only because the Globe and Mail newspaper dug like hell to obtain the documentation, that Wynne and her government have secretly agreed to give $2.5 million (that we know of) of our money to teachers unions this year to help pay their costs around negotiating new contracts for their members.
Wynne, looking up at McGuinty with a smile.
Then after a week of Wynne and company digging in their heels and standing by their Education Minister Liz Sandals, who should be removed from that portfolio for agreeing to hand this money to the unions without requiring them to produce receipts for their costs.
It was only this October 28th, after a week of being battered with pointed questions and charges by opposition MPPs, and God knows how many angry messages from constituents across the province, Wynne finally turned around and said the government would ask the unions for receipts – just as it would demand receipts from any of us, by the way, if we wanted some form of compensation from government.
And while this dance with union (which, we also recently come to find out, contributed generous sums of their members’ dues to the provincial Liberals’ last election campaign, is going on, the controversy over privatizing a big piece of Hydro One rages on.
We’ve already had several months of the NDP and Conservatives hammering Wynne’s Liberals for their plans to sell shares of Hydro One – the publicly owned distribution end of the old Ontario Hydro – to private investors for up to 60 per cent of what the utility is worth.
Wynne says her cash-strapped government is doing this to get money to invest in public transit and other infrastructure projects across the province and her government has been forging ahead with plans to do this despite all of the ongoing political opposition and polls showing that a majority of Ontarians don’t think selling off public assets to get some fast cash is a wise thing to from a longer point of view.
Then this October 29th, after months of the Premier insisting again and again that the scheme will be good for the province financially, and just a few weeks away from the first shares going on the market, the province’s non-partisan Financial Accountability Office, following a detailed review, concluded that the selling of shares would reap financial rewards in the short-term, “significantly reduc(ing) the province’s deficit in 2015-16.” But in the long-term, the enterprise could cost the province and its taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for years to come and begging the question – could this see our hydro rates rise even higher than they have over the past decade or so.
Members of Council of Canadians citizen group at Queen’s Park, protesting Hydro One sell-off
Following release of the FAO’s report, Wynne told reporters at an economic summit in Niagara-on-the-Lake this October 29th that plans to sell shares of Hydro One is “full steam ahead.” Despite the report and any and all public opposition, including calls for a province-wide referendum to give Ontarians a say in whether or not any piece of a public asset of such magnitude and so fundamental to our energy needs should be sold, “it’s going,” she insisted.
It’s a response from Wynne that smacks of the kind of stubborn arrogance McGuinty became so infamous for when he held the reigns of power in this province and it deserves as much push back as possible from NDP and Conservative critic, and members of the public who should remind Wynne that voters across Canada just got rid of a Prime Minister who was that dictatorial and intransigent.
It’s also a response that makes one wonder what deal Wynne’s government may have already secretly struck with Bay Street investors to go through with this thing.
Whatever deal may have been struck with suits in corporate boardrooms, what follows is my message to Kathleen Wynne, for what it’s worth.
Come on Madame Premier, do NOW what you should have done many months ago and pull the plug on this Hydro One scheme that you never had the courtesy to ….. when your Liberal Party was running for another term of government a year ago last spring.
Do it before those of us out here who still want to believe you represent a welcome change over your predecessor join the NDP and Conservatives in seeing you as nothing more than Dalton McGuinty in a skirt.
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