Tim Who ‘Dat?

Ontarians – from border to border, and from Hudson Bay to the Great lakes – are on the verge of going to the polls again.

How and who they vote for will shape the government of Ontario for the next 4-5 years, and that is no inconsequential responsibility: North America is pretty much three inches and a market fart away from falling back into an economic recession that will no doubt put further pressure on the unemployment safety net as thousands of workers are let go.

The province of Ontario is a very complex machine… and when a machine breaks down, you want the right tools in your hands to fix it, right?

Unfortunately, Tim Hudak is just a tool (in the most derogatory sense).

During the 2011 election campaign, Mr. Hudak has tried to paint himself with Mike Harris’ left over cans of Tremclad Rustoleum in the supposedly trendy colour of ChangeBlue™… but he’s failed to realize that colour has been out of style for more than a decade.

While LiberalRed™ is still the preferred colour of the Ontario electorate, they’ve also developed a hankering for Andrea Horwath’s truckload of LaytonOrange™ – at least in small doses.

Tim Hudak may be good at mugging for the cameras,  but he’s been overly terrible at public policy ideas – a failing that’s always terminal in a politicians’s case, and one that can make you a laughing-stock at what’s supposed to be your defining moment.

At the start of the campaign, everything was coming up roses for Timmy and his merry band of Harris leftovers because Ontarians thought that change would be nice after 8 years of Premiere Dad – and that’s bound to happen, no matter who’s been holding on to the province’s keys: people like change now and then.

Instead of always getting the pepperoni pizza, sometimes you go out on a limb and get the Hawaiian with extra pineapple.

After a week or so of glad handing voters around the province, Hudak firmly took his campaign off the rails by repeatedly saying the word “foreigners” – and in a province that only grows with the importing of landed immigrants from other countries around the world (because the Canadian birth rate is abysmal), that was just the wrong thing to focus on.

Suddenly, Tim Hudak was all about white guys – despite him looking out over Toronto sidewalks that skewed a bit more towards yellow and brown.

On top of that, the Progressive Conservative party – that’s led by Mr. Hudak – has always been the champion of big business.

So… Tim Hudak is all about rich white guys.

And yes… I’m using white guys on purpose since the PC party has never really been on board the women’s rights train – paying lip service to it when necessary, but always mumbling quietly about finding ways to outlaw abortions.

The funny thing about the “Foreigner” debacle is that, by and large, the immigrant population are the people most likely to agree with the PC platform since most of them have come from moderately- to radically conservative countries… which makes them more likely to drink the HarriBerry Blue™ Kool-Aid.

The idiocy of Hudak’s derailment is based on one glaring fact: they have no serious issues to grab the undecided voter’s attention.

Television advertisements paid for by the PC party have only harped on about taxes: Dalton McGuinty and his Fiberals are supposedly raising taxes every other week and twice on Christmas.

While it is true that taxes have gone up in Ontario, they’re not disproportionate to the rate of inflation… and there’s been a concrete need for any taxes implemented by the Liberal government over their past two mandates.

Evil Tax Number One a.k.a. The Health Care Premium: Do you have any idea how much money is needed to care for the rapidly aging Baby Boom generation?  To care for the existing senior citizens?  To battle health concerns like SARS and swine flu?  Billions of dollars… billions of dollars that can’t be completely extracted from the amount of money brought into public coffers through various levels of personal and retail taxation – so the government needed a way to continue paying for our universal health care without digging itself further into debt.

Evil Tax Number Two a.k.a. The Eco-Tax: More than a million metric tons of used electronics used to go into landfills across the province before the turn of the century, and many still do… but that’s changing under the auspices of the Ontario Stewardship (a program that was itself set in motion by the previous PC government as a way to boost their environmental credentials) – and the money that’s required to start complex recycling programs province-wide has to come from somewhere… and where better to get that money than at the point of sale for the widescreen LCD television that you will discard in the next 5 years? That way, you’ve already paid for it’s recycling long before it’s necessary… instead of the government having to dip into it’s already strained and tattered pocketbook.

Evil Tax Number Three a.k.a. The HST: I’ve already explained why the HST is a necessary evil in previous blogs, so there’s not much I can add here. At the end of the day, Ontario needed to have the HST so it’s businesses could compete with other business entities around the world in our Global Economy because other jurisdictions in Europe, Asia, the U.S., Mexico, and South America already had in place single-point or so-called “value added” tax systems that made paying corporate taxes easier and more streamlined… and therefore cheaper over the long run.

With that Evil Tax Trifecta, surely Hudak could have made a better case for lowering taxes for the masses, right?

No… he couldn’t – and didn’t.

The HST couldn’t be revoked without activating a ‘poison pill’ scenario that was inserted by Hudak’s Conservative cousins in the federal government: if the province of Ontario were to revoke the HST, it would have to pay back $4 billion dollars in equalization money that’s already been sent to majority of Ontario citizens by those four special cheques you found in your mailbox over the past year – which would immediately be added to the province’s debt load and sinking the S.S. Ontario further into the Sea Of Red Ink… and would necessitate a rise in income taxes.

The best Hudak could promise on the HST front (and to be fair, Horwath has said the same things) was a modification of items that were included on the list of items taxable under HST – mainly removing the federal portion of the taxes on heating oil and electricity bills.

I suppose that would be nice, but hardly practical since it would cause a headache for the taxation department – a department that would eventually find a way to make up the difference from some other way of taxing you.

Onto the Health Care Premium.

Has Mr. Hudak said he would do away with those?

Nope. In fact, he’s said – very quietly and far away from voters waving little blue flags – that he will keep those in place because they do what I said they did a few paragraphs upwards from this one.

At the end of the day, the only one of those three Evil Taxes that Mr. Hudak and the PCs could tamper with in any meaningful way – and the meaning wouldn’t be necessarily good – would be the Eco-Tax.

However, as I hopefully made it clear up above, that would simply be a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul – letting you off the hook at the point of purchase and then raising your personal taxes to maintain funding for the recycling facilities for your disposable iPods, Blackberries, flat screen televisions, and laptops… and to also pay for the water purification plants that remove the chemicals you put down the drain every day.

Outside of he Evil Tax Trifecta, Hudak doesn’t have a platform.

Healthcare? It can be argued that Ontario’s health care system is in the best shape it’s ever been in.

Yes… there are still crowded emergency rooms at hospitals across the province, but the wait times are getting better on the whole – especially for surgeries that can change people’s lives… or let them continue their lives as whole persons.

A few years ago, I was in serious bicycle accident and I snapped my leg in three places – something that would have been seriously debilitating in decades and centuries past…. even so bad that amputation would have been considered in more primitive times.

Guess what? The accident happened just after 1 o’clock in the afternoon… and I was in surgery to have a titanium rod permanently inserted down the middle of my tibia with attending screws and other hardware required to regain structural integrity – allowing me to walk on it again within several months – at 6 o’clock in the evening on the very same day.

So, I went from mangled to mostly fixed in five hours… and I didn’t have to pay a single cent – not even for the ambulance ride.

No… our healthcare system may not be perfect, but it’s still pretty damn amazing when you consider how much it has to struggle when it comes to finances.

The Progressive Conservatives, during their last stint as the province’s controls had taken a slash n’ burn approach to healthcare – firing doctors and nurses, and closing nearly twenty hospitals across the province… which caused such systemic damage that Ontario’s healthcare system was amongst the worst in the country, and it’s only now (2011) that it’s gotten back to the top.

Hudak & Pals don’t have any where to go with education, either.

The Liberals under Dalton McGuinty have made some radical improvements to public education in Ontario.

More students are sticking it out all the way through high school, graduating with marks that they can be proud of.

Smaller class sizes have helped students get the attention they need from their teachers, which means they get the help they need if they need it – either in that same classroom, or in more specialized learning environments.

The biggest change, of course, was the implementation of full-day kindergarten for all youngsters – which had two effects: the first being that children started experiencing a constructive learning environment sooner than most other children in North America… and it eased the financial burdens of working families that would have otherwise had to pay for daycare or babysitting services.

There’s very little to complain about when it comes to Ontario’s public schools.

In fact, there’s very little for Ontarians to complain about on the whole as the province simply works.

Compared to the Mike Harris years – an era where nearly every public sector union in Ontario was on strike – that Tim Hudak clearly yearns for deeply, Ontario is firmly planted in the Garden Of Prosperity.

Yes… there are many people across the province who are out of work because of the current global financial climate that isn’t particular to Ontario.

However, there are many people who’ve either regained or retained their employment because of programs that the current Liberal government forced into being with their majority… programs that cost many billions of dollars, but had very clear and tangible results.

Sure – the bailing out of General Motors and Chrysler (now owned by Fiat) was a popularly unpopular move… but it kept those two massive companies who employed thousands of Ontarians (either directly or through companies G.M. and Chrysler depended on to build their cars and trucks) alive.

The manufacturing sector in Ontario – and the world at large – has taken a beating as money becomes tight for consumers.

Companies that face certain peril if they don’t downsize their workforce have no choice to let employees go… and this is not the fault of the Ontario government.

It’s the fault of American banks and financial institutions who squandered and pissed away more than a trillion dollars in crooked investments and other equally worthless endeavors – actions that had a ripple effect across the entire world of stock exchanges and investment banking from New York to Tokyo.

The current hard financial times facing Ontario are not something that was caused in Ontario, and is most definitely not the fault of the McGuinty Liberals.

However, Tim Hudak has done his best to blame Dalton McGuinty for it… and in the end, the blame hasn’t stuck.

Maybe because the average Ontario voter is smarter than that… and I would really hope that’s the case.

However, I think the Ontarian electorate is sticking with the Liberals because Ontario is in a better place than a lot of jurisdictions in North America – and even the world.

Dalton McGuinty goes on television and shows you all the  good things the Liberals have done over the time they’ve been in charge – most of which I’ve discussed here.

…And Tim Hudak challenges McGuinty and Horwath to a BBQ cook-off.

If that wasn’t a sign of non-existent political platform, I really don’t know what is.

…

No, Timmy.

No you can’t.

Send In The Clowns: Death Of The Last Politician

Jack Layton is dead.

There is very little doubt that the 2011 federal election killed him.

Yes… I know that it was his last duel with cancer that actually took his life from him, but do you honestly think that flying/driving/riding/walking around this vast country of ours didn’t wear him down so much that the cancer made easy prey of him in it’s last, great push?

Perhaps it’s morbid to speculate at this early juncture, but when it comes down to the brass tacks, I’ll stand by my statement.

Anyhow… the country has lost it’s last great politician, and we should all feel the worse for it.

Jack Layton had a podium presence that none of the other federal leaders could touch – he was bold, brash, sure of his convictions, and had no traces of the wishy-washy/flip-floppy attitudes of the Conservative and Liberal leaders… who’s stances changed as often as the wind changed speed or direction.

It’s no wonder at all that he was able to do what no other NDP leader had ever done before: take his Big Orange Surfboard and ride the wave right into the Official Opposition’s seats… even if he had to vacate his chair barely months later and leave the NDP in care of The Fates.

The reasons for this were simple and best explained in the diagram below:

As you see, Canadians who wanted an actual leader had no option other than to jump on that Big Orange Surfboard and leave the rest of the country to vote for policy… which is why Stephen Harper is Prime Minister.

We’re on the eve of a state funeral for the most popular of the federal leaders – even if you won’t see any foreign heads of state attending… but this is more than made up with the thousands of ordinary Canadians who will travel from all corners of the nation to pay their respects to a man who managed to capture the public desire for hope.

However, I really think that Canada as a whole should mourn Mr. Layton’s passing – not just the NDP party faithful that made The Orange Wave possible.

As I’ve said, Jack was the last politician in the truest sense – he was the barn storming type of politico from days of yore… the type that would shake hands, kiss babies, address the masses from atop the biggest stump you could find .

When he was dealing with the public, Mr. Layton had the bravado of Don Cherry and a silver tongue to rival Sean Connery (well… maybe not, but it was close).

In comparison, Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff spent most of their campaigns on the bus or in hotel back rooms pouring over statistics and telephone polling results so they could change their speeches at the last minute in hopes of sounding less like a deflating balloon.

I’m not a foolish romantic – I’m sure the Layton team also did their fair share of electorate research as they toured the cities/towns/provinces of this great land, but Jack kept up the same tone throughout the campaign.

It may have not led to an ultimate victory, but there’s no shame in second best – and Jack proved that when he took the stage at the end of election night and brandished his cane like a mighty sword.

I salute you, Mr. Layton.

May you rest in peace.

Election 2011: Now That The Dust Has Settled…

The Big Election is over and done… quickly disappearing in Canada’s rear-view mirror.

Conservatives won the day, which was written in the sand from the outset – but they made out like bandits and secured themselves four years of (what they hope to be) uninterrupted rule in which they can sell the country out to American interests and continue to ignore the real social issues like poverty and the environment.

What’s that? I was on their side during my last political blog?

Yes… I was – but that was in the face of a floundering Liberal leader who couldn’t have won a butt-kicking contest with his own two feet in field of one-legged contestants.

I also came to the conclusion that the NDP would pick up seats in the vacuum that the Liberals were leaving in their wake – but I wasn’t in any way ready for The Big Orange Machine that steamrolled Iggy’s Grits and made it all the way to a 100+ seat Opposition… though I was quite happily surprised since it turns our venerable parliament on it’s head.

As the news outlets have said over and over, the New Democratic Party has never been the official opposition in the history of Canada – always an ‘also ran’ behind the Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc Quebecois… playing the role of spoiler/king-maker during the times we’ve had minority governments by placing their votes on bills and motions up for grabs in return for concessions from the ruling party.

However, on May 3rd, Jack Layton and his Merry Orange Band of NDPers woke up after the election and realized they were now Her Majesty’s Royal Opposition – which had turned out to be a both a boon and a curse: while they had gone from fourth place to second and boosted their national profile considerably, they had also lost any and all sway they had over the levers of power.

You see… being the Official Opposition comes with a set number of powers, and the only one that really matters is that they get the right to be the first ones to put the Government Of Canada (in this case, the Conservatives) on the hot seat during Question Period after Prime Minister Harper and his cronies prattle on about any given issue of the day.

While that may seem like a nice thing on paper, the fact that it means very little in practice is something that the inexperienced NDP caucus failed to calculate in their campaign: that they’ve gone from a place where the Harper minority government would listen to them and occasionally put items from the NDP wish list into the budget – to a position where they can scream/shout/bolster themselves up and needle the Conservatives all day long… only to have Harper blithely ignore them on all issues due to the Conservative’s 160+ seat majority that doesn’t need cooperative votes to pass legislation.

At the end of the day on May 2nd, it was clear that vote splitting had given the Conservatives their longed-for majority.

In a large number of ridings across the 9,984,670 square kilometers of Canadian territory, NDP and Liberal candidates were neck and neck in the polls – which would be exciting if it was a 2-player horse race, but effectively canceled each other out… leaving the inside lane free and clear for the Conservatives to storm their way to a commanding 1st place.

The fact that Michael Ignatieff – then leader of the Liberal party that had surged to power in 1993 and held on until 2005 – had failed to win even in his own riding was a bitter, bitter pill… one that the Liberal party executive council is still choking on this very minute.

Yet, even in his concession speech, Ignatieff seemed to be certain that he’d continue to lead the Liberals after he had torpedoed the party – clearly maintaining his lack of connection with reality that had hounded him and his closest lieutenant from the time he was named party leader in August of 2009 – before coming out the next day and telling the press that he was resigning the leadership effective immediately.

Since the Liberals have been mostly silent in the 6 days since the election, I’m forced to presume that as soon as Ignatieff had come down from the podium at party campaign headquarters in the early hours of May 3rd, he was promptly taken to a room far from the press’ omnipresent eyes and ears before being flogged/kicked/beaten by the Liberal executive for  killing “the natural ruling party” (a title foisted on the Liberals by opposing parties due to the arrogance that a string of back-to-back majorities had brought – and mostly assimilated by Liberal members over the years) and lacking the common decency to promptly fall on his sword during his concession.

Hell… even the leader of the Bloc Quebecois – a party determined to separate Quebec from Canada no matter what happened – had the sense to resign his post after securing only 4 seats out of 308, of which 75 are in Quebec.

As it is, only the Liberal party’s presumptive interim leader Bob Rae (himself once a provincial NDP member and 21st Premier Of Ontario before abandoning politics for a number of years in advance of joining the federal Liberals) has come out of seclusion to tell the party faithful that the party will rebuild and refocus in efforts to win the next election.

In fact, a strong case can be made for Rae to become the Liberal’s official leader come the next leadership convention – mainly because he’s the only guy in the Liberal camp who’s had political party leadership experience, and because Rae’s pretty much the only Liberal seat holder who has any sort of public persona that people could get behind – a born politician who can command a crowd with his oratory skills and an actual personality that can engage the Canadian population at large… which is precisely where Ignatieff failed since he was about as lively as watching grass grow.

The only problem with Bob Rae is optics… specifically how he’s seen in the province of Ontario – which is generally the area of the country that makes or breaks the Liberal campaign.

Rae had the unfortunate luck of being premier of Ontario during the early 90′s recession – an event not of his or his party’s making that bankrupted the province and forced Rae to create the unpopular “Rae Days” for employees of various governmental institutions that equaled forced, unpaid furloughs every so often… which was an act that greatly angered the public service unions and eventually led to Rae and his party being booted from office in the next election in favor of the provincial Progressive Conservatives who were promising the moon (and delivered deep public service cuts instead).

An acquaintance of mine says Rae could never be prime minister because he bankrupted Ontario – which is simply not true… and is something the Rae leadership camp needs to get out ahead of in the coming weeks and months: turning a generalist public opinion in Ontario from something unfairly negative into the actual reality that Rae did the best he could given the circumstances.

Once that problem is resolved, I seriously think the Liberals have a strong chance of rebuilding with Rae at the helm… or even one of the other candidates that are being bandied about like former federal finance minister Ralph Goodale – though I have to say the man lacks subtlety when interacting with the public, but that could in the end be a strength when running against the likes of Stephen Harper who never seems to get excited about anything.

But, for now anyway, we as Canadians are saddled with a brand-spanking-new parliament that – for better or for worse – we chose for ourselves.

It’s really hard to determine where the Government Of Canada is going to go from here on out since we haven’t seen an unconstrained Conservative party in power since the early 1990′s… and even back then, it was an entirely different party under the leadership of Brian Mulroney – a kinder, gentler group of politicians that was still known as the Progressive Conservative Party Of Canada which – by it’s very name -  seemed to imply an openness to outside ideas.

When Stephen Harper led the charge to reform the Conservatives (and in the process swallowing the Reform Party), he tossed out the “Progressive” name and moved the party from the right-of-center brand of politics to firm right wing entrenchment similar to their American Republican cousins – big on crime & punishment and friendly to big business interests through aggressive cuts to corporate taxes.

Since the Conservatives came to power in the 2006, they’ve always been kept in check due to their continual minority government status – having to rely on the Liberals, NDP, or Bloc Quebecois to achieve the number of votes necessary to pass legislation in the House Of Commons, which has kept the right wing agenda from dominating the Canadian landscape by continually adding more socially-minded items to budgets and other major governmental positions.

Now, heading into the middle of 2011, Harper & Co. have been given free rein to pass any legislation that tickles their fancy without any interference from other parties – a political blank cheque that will allow the Conservatives to implement laws, regulations, and spending cuts while swinging their arms akimbo if it suits them.

And while Prime Minister Harper came out fairly quickly after the election to say that he and his party weren’t going to change the way they did business from how they conducted themselves during minority government times, the average Canadian would have to be completely stupid/naïve to believe one word out of Harper’s mouth.

Harper has continually said his party has been chomping at the bit to implement the Conservative agenda since the 2006 campaign began… so how can we be expected to believe that, all of a sudden, Harper & Co. are going to learn the art of self constraint?

But… that’s how the war of politics is waged in a democratic system: the hopeful dependence on society’s short memory from election to election.

A democracy that we as Canadians just took part in… a democracy that we all voted for (well, at least more than 60% of eligible voters according to Elections Canada).

A democracy the Michael Ignatieff campaigned hard on – saying that it was time to fix democracy in Canada by voting Liberal and chasing the Conservatives from office that had been found to be in Contempt Of Parliament by the Speaker Of The House.

A democracy that turned on it’s supposed champions and made the Liberals a laughing stock.

Ah, well.

Democracy is great, isn’t it?

The Canadian Crossroads

So… here we are in 2011, and us Canadians are faced with a dilemma that couldn’t have been foreseen even 3 months ago.

Great swaths of Liberal voters – who had never even thought it possible – are heading to the polls in the early summer heat of May… ready to vote for more Stephen Harper.

How the hell did this happen?

Where did the Liberal party go so wrong that those who had vowed to die fighting the Blue Meanies would willingly put an ‘X’ next to the name of their local Conservative candidate – desperately trying not to vomit while doing so?

In a word? Iggy.

Michael Ignatieff has turned out to be a blunder of almost Biblical proportions… a goddamn Greek tragedy in motion.

You see… the Liberal body of voters (especially the card-carrying party members that attended the last Grit leadership convention) were duped into thinking Iggy was the next Great White Hope – someone who could embody the intellect and flare of great Prime Ministers of times past, and to be more specific, Pierre Trudeau.

On paper, Ignatieff had a lot going for him: international experience, academic fortitude, and lots of time doing public speaking engagements – which are all good ingredients when you want to promote yourself as being the central figure of Canadian politics.

However, the Iggy Experiment has failed.

Despite endless opportunities provided by the Harper Regime, and chances to interact directly with the Canadian people through much ballyhooed Liberal Express road trips, Michael Ignatieff has never come across as anything other than a stiff, awkward presence that seemed more apt to be a university professor than a man who would be king.

Worst of all to the Liberal faithful – and much to the delight of Conservative election engineers – Iggy has settled into a routine filled with arbitrary whining, pompous airbaggery, and snide opportunism… none of which are pleasant to behold and all are contrary to endearing yourself to a Canadian public who are just getting used to more prominent place in the global community after years of mismanagement by previous Harper rosters.

As much as the recent recession sucked for the world’s citizens on the whole, the economic meltdown played exactly to the Conservative’s business acumen: spend yourself out of it wisely (by surging money to public infrastructure projects that both put people to work and took financial stresses off municipalities), and then make Canada a very attractive place to set up your business by lowering corporate taxes to a rate that’s extremely appetizing when compared to other jurisdictions.

Also, the governmental officials that were responsible made sure they kept their hands firmly on the rudder… steering our economy in the opposite direction of many of our G8 neighbors who ended up drowning in boiling red ink.

The final part of the public’s redefinition of Conservative cronies is that Harper & Co. have been much more reactive to the concerns of the electorate: intervening in headline-making business deals like the Potash debacle… enabling Canadians to have more choice in the cellphone market by allowing Wind Mobile to set up shop in spite of questionable ownership… and taking the CRTC on directly over the ‘usage based billing’ decision that would have drastically altered the Canadian internet experience for the worse.

All of these things look very good for Harper & Co. when you string them together… portraying them as people who care about Canadian national identity issues, and what we feel like as citizens that are being raped at every juncture by money-hungry corporations that could honestly not care less about us.

Yes, it’s true that the Conservative Party Of Canada feels entitled to do whatever the hell it likes – regardless of rules, regulations, and political mandates.

If the Harper government doesn’t fall on the 2011 Budget text alone, it definitely will fall on the current Contempt Of Parliament issue that it can not shake… because, honestly, the opposition parties are practically foaming at the mouth in their hurry to throw an election party – even as non-governmental polling suggests that the Conservatives could possibly squeak by into majority-rule territory.

Why Iggy and Layton are so eager to get egg in the face is beyond me.

Well, maybe I can understand Jack Layton’s view: the floundering Liberals could mean a bolstering of NDP seats come the May election since they could position themselves as the least whiny alternative – providing that Layton can shake his socialist image (and it wouldn’t take the greatest Photoshop artist to manipulate Layton’s head back and forth with Lenin’s).

Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois never really need a reason to support a federal election as they’re Canada’s more civilized answer to the IRA (minus the bombings of course – at least not in 30 or 40 years) and whose sole function is to break apart federalism at the seams so Quebec can go it’s own way to whatever future they’re deluded into thinking exists.

But… this all rolls back to Iggy.

He’s the one who aches to be the guy standing before the world leaders gathered at the United Nations… to be the Prime Minister who puts the gallery to sleep by finding 1,000 ways to iterate how civilized Canadians are (it’s true – not saying otherwise), and how we disagree with violence and want to give half our clothes to strangers on the streets.

Sure, Iggy, those are all nice things to say about us… and we wish somebody who had actual lectern presence could get up and reaffirm our place in the world… but that’s not and never will be you.

We’ve all had time to watch you flop around, flailing at just about any issue you think you might be able to get some traction on – going on long-winded diatribes about things that, in all honesty, aren’t on the average Canadian citizen’s radar.

In fact, the biggest issue that Michael Ignatieff has been able to attach himself to is the future purchase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – which is somewhat an issue due to the $16,000,000,000 – $30,000,000,000 price tag – to replace our 30-year-old batch of CF-18 fighters that are starting to fall out of the sky for no particular reason other than they’re quickly reaching their Best Before dates.

To counter any argument that the Liberals might make on the F-35 purchase program, let me put forward two things:

1. The F-35 Lightning II is the most technologically advanced fighter available to the open market i.e. not limited to purchase by the U.S. military like the F-22 Raptor – and is designed for multiple roles in the combat and patrol missions that our Armed Forces take on (please see current mission over Libya, or semi-frequent intercepts of Russian bombers that test our defenses periodically).

2. The last time the Liberals canceled a military aviation purchase, it took nearly 20 years to find another suitable aircraft: in fact, the replacement of  50-year-old Sea King helicopters aboard our navy ships is still ongoing – leaving Canadian sailor-aviators at the mercy of 700 worn-thin spare parts flying in unison. WE DO NOT HAVE 20 YEARS TO REPLACE THE CF-18.

In the end, the Liberal election platform is going to be based on the notion that we’re sick and tired of paying so much money to the government in taxes when Big Business pays so little.

It would be a good platform in the 80′s or 90′s – maybe even in the 2000′s – but this is more and more a society that deals with information in a point-blank fashion: the internet and other forms of media has made the average Canadian more insightful (you’re reading a blog after all) as to what is working and not working from coast to coast.

And, right now, we’re all very aware of basic facts: our dollar is strong enough to top the mighty U.S. greenback… our banking system is the healthiest among all G8 (maybe even G20) nations… our employers are healthy enough to generate jobs at a rate higher than our southern neighbors… and however cynical it may be by design, our federal government seems to be interested in helping us in the face of Big Business.

Those things are all tangible indications of progress (but not of progressiveness, naturally – they are Conservatives) that has made our lives a bit better when compared to peoples in other countries, and even to ourselves when compared to a few years ago.

I fear that we as Canadians have no other option than to give Harper & Co. another mandate since they are doing what’s in our overall best interests… while overlooking their institutional inclination to be dicks.

The best we can hope for is another minority government that will be held in check by the Opposition – an Opposition that will finally wise up and take care of their Iggy problem after a trouncing.

So… sit back for the next 45 days or so and watch the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP duke it out over our airwaves in endless TV attack ads and televised debates.

It should at least be entertaining.

Me?

I might actually vote Green… as I can’t stand the local Conservative candidate.

Good News, Everybody! $100 For Just Being You!

Well… to be more precise, I have to specify that it’s $100 for just being from Ontario, Canada.

Also need to point out that if you make more than $82,000 a year, you won’t get a dime – so all you fat cats in banking and insurance will have to supply your own splurge funds!

Anyway…

A lot of you who are simple enough to buy into Tim Hudak’s message that the government is bribing you with your own money are more than welcome to rip up these nifty little cheques and go on about your business.

What’s that? You already cashed yours?

I see.

You must have done it under great protest… bitterly cussing out each and every single cent.

Regardless of those people who complain for the sake of complaining, these cheques are a nice shot in the arm when money has been thin due to the economy – and yes, I know some of the money being sent to your snail mail boxes or direct deposited in your bank accounts will be stolen back from you when the HST is fully implemented on July 1st, 2010.

However, I’ve done the math for myself, and have come to the conclusion that of the $300 dollars I will receive from the government through the Sales Tax Transition Benefit (S.T.T.R.), only $45 to $50 of it will go back to Queens Park in the form of HST a year – solely through a $4 and change increase on my telephone/internet bill.

Phone services have always had the PST added to them.

Same goes for my cable bill.

The only area of my regular finances that will be effected is my internet service.

Yes… there will no doubt be incidental HST taxation throughout the year – though I can only imagine it happening to me on the 2 or 3 taxi fares that I grudgingly throw money at a year.

It’s hard taking a new TV or office chair home on the bus!

Before you say it, let me beat you to the punch: I know a lot of you out there don’t have your finances in the same amount of control I do.

There are many of you who may be charged more HST than what you receive by the end of the S.T.T.B. cycle in July, 2011 – because you have a bigger set of financial liabilities and bills that you are responsible for.

But you must always bare in mind that your overall tax load has been reduced via both income tax reductions for more than 90% of the Ontario population, and the products/services you consume will become cheaper as corporations that operate in Ontario stop passing on to you parts of their taxation that have always been hidden in the prices you pay at the cash register.

Yes… you’ve been paying some of the taxes that Ontario companies (both large and small) are charged for doing business in Ontario.

Every case of Coca-Cola you buy in Ontario carries some of the taxes that will be charged to the local Coke bottling operation/Coke delivery operations/Coca-Cola Canada Ltd. head office – but it’s buried in the price tag that you see on the shelf.

Furthermore, the store you buy the Coke from also passes on some of their taxes as well in that price sticker.

In fact, every business that has had anything to do with that case of Coke Zero (aside from the manufacturer) passes on some of their taxes to you – think of the companies that print the cardboard carton the Coke cans come in, or the business that makes the cans that you drink The Real Thing from.

With the introduction of HST, all of those companies instantly save money through streamlining.

Some of them will save money when certain items they buy are cheaper – either through the removal of one tax layer, or because they will save money in the same way that you do through the removal of hidden taxes.

Companies like Walmart and Hewlett-Packard know that you – the person who buys the products they sell – ultimately choose whether they live or die when you vote with your wallet, so they can not continue to charge the same prices on the whole that they did before HST came into effect.

Yes, it may take anywhere between 6 months and a year for those passed on savings become tangible in comparison to what you pay now in June, 2010 – but by the time that happens, you probably won’t notice because the price decreases will be slow and incremental.

On July 1st, that case of Coke won’t all of a sudden be 10 cents cheaper – that’s completely unreasonable as all the people involved in getting that 12-pack to the grocery shelf still had to pay disharmonized taxes on everything that went into it.

Companies – both large and small – often sign yearly contracts to pay certain prices – and there’s a good chance that Coca-Cola might be locked into paying 3 cents for every aluminum can it fills until its contract with the aluminum supplier runs out in December, instead of 2.5 cents a can per a new contract come January 1st, 2011.

Until then, Coca-Cola still has to charge you that .5 of a cent per can to at least break even.

If it comes to be June 10th, 2011 and you’re still paying the same prices that you are on June 10, 2010 on your goods and services, then you know that the companies you’re dealing with are being dishonest – and you can then take the necessary steps to make them accountable.

Buy your services/products from another vendor who has dropped their prices a few dollars or a handful of pennies, nickels, and dimes.

You have the power.

As for the money that does go to Queen’s Park from the taxes that you can’t avoid?

It all comes back to you.

Maybe not in the form of a cheque – though some of you who make less than $15,000 dollars a year in taxable income will receive three cheques a year for $87 dollars.

All of you will see that money come back to you in the form of improved provincial services – better health care, improved education, and more infrastructure spending that this province desperately needs but can’t afford at the current tax level.

Are you aware that more than $0.50 of every dollar you spend in taxes goes to funding health care in Ontario?

That cost is only increasing as the Baby Boomer generation ages – and will continue to do so exponentially.

Where do you expect the government to get that money to pay for your sick grandparents – or hell, even you when you’re ill and laid up in a hospital?

Especially when you’re also demanding that there be better roads in Ontario to drive on.

When you want Ontario children to have superior education when compared to other areas of the country so they have a leg up on kids from Manitoba at job application time.

Many of you desire more police officers on the streets to make you feel safer.

Our environment requires funding to help us breathe cleaner air and to have lakes/rivers/streams that we can swim in without worrying about getting sick.

These are all valid things to want and desire from your government – the people you elected to represent you and your needs.

However, all those things come at a price… and the province needs the money to pay for these increased expenditures.

And that money comes from you.

Nowhere else.

Complaining about it doesn’t change the facts.

Like it or not, you’ll be better off in at least a dozen areas of your life through that Harmonized Sales Tax – probably more.

So accept your S.T.T.R. cheques happily and put the money to good use.

I know I will.

YouTube Blog: RMR Confidence Rant

In lieu of an actual blog – since I can’t really come up with anything that irritates me lately – I shall post something by Canuck icon, Rick Mercer.

Little known fact to straight people: Rick is gay – and it doesn’t matter at all ‘cuz he’s still the funniest guy on the CBC.

A Few Words Strung Together About The Ontario HST…

Listen.

You can’t do anything about it – no matter how much the NDP and PC parties would have you believe.

You should also remember when it comes to election time in 2011, neither the NDP or the PC party could cancel it – even if they were inclined to do so… which is completely unlikely because government likes money – since it makes it possible for them to live up to 45% of the promises they make during their election campaigns.

The only reason that the NDP and PC parties are squawking about it now – two years before any election could be called by normal means – is that they’re trying to build up doubt amongst voters in the long term.

In two years time, the dust will have settled mostly over the HST implementation because the electorate will have been paying the extra taxes for more than a year and will have settled into acceptance – however begrudging it is.

Ontarians were irritated by the health premium tax introduced by the Liberals before eventually getting over it by the next election – despite the two opposition parties hammering away on the issue to no end during the last provincial election campaign.

It all boils down to the experienced adult’s concept of reality i.e. the old saying that the only certainties in life are death and taxes – which is pretty much universal no matter which party is in control of Ontario’s parliament.

Taxes go up in the long term – never down (except in brief spurts that raise the ruling party’s profile for a time – such as the federal Conservatives lowering the GST rates).

Why don’t they ever go down?

It’s simple: the provincial electorate – the citizens who vote during an election – get used to a particular level of service from their government and it’s individual agencies that deals directly with the public.

Let’s take two costly departments as an example – the Ministry Of Health, and the Ministry Of Education.

These two governmental departments take an enormous amount of cash to run at their current levels of service… and even then, they don’t really have enough money to meet their goals as set out by the government – the goals that the majority of Ontario’s citizens look forward to seeing implemented sooner than later.

How else is the government going to pay for shorter wait times at hospitals and doctor’s offices?

Where is the government going to get money to hire teachers and implement a better curriculum to teach at your children’s schools?

Taxation.

The money for these enormous public institutions comes from your pocket through taxes and tariffs on the goods and services that you consume on a daily basis.

As much as it hurts at the point of purchase, the average citizen sees that money come back to them in the form of the government improving areas of their lives – whether it be through better health care, improved educational opportunities, or expanded and renewed infrastructure projects.

That’s where your tax money will go when the HST comes into effect next July.

The NDP and the PC parties would like it very much if you temporarily (or better yet, in the long term) forget that you can’t get something for nothing in this world that we live in.

Both the provincial New Democrats and Tories tried that last time they ran the province and what did it result in?

Nearly every single public employee union was on strike.

The poor were getting poorer.

Health care suffered.

Things didn’t get better until taxes went up when the Liberals took over.

See how that works?

In the end, higher taxes make people happier – which seems rather perverse when you think about it and is the absolute inverse of what the opposition parties want you to believe.

What else can they harp about that will resonate with the general public?

The OLG and eHealth scandals are fleeting and will subside over time, most likely long forgotten by the fall season in 2011 – yet the NDP and PCs still nag about those at every chance they get – despite only the eHealth issue being directly attributable to the current Liberal party.

No… taxes are the only long-term issue that effects the public, so that’s the topic which the opposition will crow the loudest about.

But it doesn’t really matter in the end.

We as the voting public will get over the HST and the increases that it represents to our bottom lines.

That may stick in your craw at the moment and leave a sour taste in your mouth – but it’s inevitable.

It’s somewhat similar to those of you out there that may be reading this blog who absolutely HATE getting any kind of needle – regardless of the obvious health benefits that will you’ll receive upon going through the momentary pain.

So why don’t we all just roll up our sleeves and demand that our chosen political parties get it over with and move on to something far more interesting?

I, for one, and really tired of hearing the broken record that’s playing at Question Period.

Let’s listen to something better.

A Faint Pulse…

Unfortunately for all of us, we have to wait a bit longer to heave Steve.

In what can only be termed as a Hail Mary Pass, the Conservatives quickly floated a contingency bill that gave the opposition parties a taste of what they had been begging for since big business started firing everyone who wasn’t an executive – an extension to the employment insurance benefits.

Let’s be completely honest here: I labeled it a ‘contingency bill’ because the bill served zero purpose in the Conservatives over-all political goals other than to keep them afloat for a little bit longer – allowing them to attempt finalizing a slew of legislation that will further screw the average Canadian citizen in whichever way they can dream up.

The Conservatives are big on the ‘scorched earth’ style of politics when their back is against the wall – rapid fire legislation and appointments being a key example.

Last time there was a fear of their life-support plug being pulled, what did they do? A flurry of Senate appointments,  sending long-time Conservative friendly people to live in the Canadian Senate for the rest of their natural lives – despite Harper spending years decrying the process and demanding it be changed so that Senators are elected instead of rewarded for toeing the ruling party’s line.

Yeah, that sounds EXACTLY like the people we need in Ottawa.

I really wish WordPress had a sarcastic font – but I digress…

Most of the Conservative’s forthcoming agenda has to do with making large corporations feel better – and to a degree, this is something that DOES need to be done in this post recession climate (yes…. you can come out  now: the recession is over for the most part).

But if you look harder, there are a few items that are not related to the recession at all – items that are designed to give breaks and advantages to businesses that make billions of dollars in Canada that have nothing at all to do with calming the accountants of said business in this time of an economy sorting itself out.

Some of these legislative efforts are at the behest of billionaire C.E.O.s who felt they simply weren’t making enough money BEFORE the recession – which is precisely what the Conservatives do best: bend over backwards to make the top 1% of the population (with more money than the bottom 99% put together) happier than they have any godly right to.

Would you like an example?

The current ‘consultation’ with the public over copyright reform is a smokescreen to hide Stephen Harper’s directive that the Heritage Minister, Industry Minister, and the Attorney General are all on the same page about Canada signing onto ACTA.

What is ACTA?

That is a very good question, and you really should write to your local member of parliament to ask what exactly ACTA is and why Canada is a signatory country without doing any public consultation or disclosure.

The ACTA treatise is one of the most classified documents in the business world and has to do with copyright issues – specifically regarding copyrights held by Hollywood studios in the fields of music, movies, and other intellectual properties.

The problem with ACTA is that the text of the document is forever changing – like the sands of your local beach – and is not open to public scrutiny.

One version of ACTA was leaked onto the internet a while ago – but I’ve found out that the document has changed since then, so even with the leaked information, we as consumers are in the dark.

I’m going to borrow some text from Inquisitr.com since they’ve summarized the findings better than I could:

The core of the document details how each party should deal with intellectual property matters, including costs, complaint process and legal standards. Where it goes further is with the introduction of set rate penalties based on types of infringement, and further makes no clear distinction (that I could see) between a commercial piracy outfit, and a kid at home downloading a movie on BitTorrent.

While international co-operation on issues such as these isn’t out of the ordinary, it’s the secrecy around the document that has caused alarm so far; and it turns out that it was justified. The net effect of this treaty is to overrule local laws and to increase the severity of intellectual property/ copyright laws in signatory nations. Maybe not police stat level, but in places like Australia and parts of the EU which don’t have as strict an interpretation of copyright (for example, you can legally rip a DVD in Australia), this document could force local laws to be changed. – Duncan Riley, Inquisitr.com

What should alarm you is that, in effect, Canada’s laws regarding copyright issues will cease to be made by Canadians – and made by an international consortium that includes lawyers from the largest Hollywood studios.

Why should this alarm you?

Why the hell SHOULDN’T this alarm you?!?!

Remember my past blog about copyright issues? If you haven’t read it, please look it up in the topics menu at the top right of your screen.

For all intents and purposes, Hollywood will be making the laws by which you would be prosecuted if you were caught with an MP3 on your computer you didn’t pay someone for the right of having.

If you’re a lawyer or have a head for reading nauseating legalese, you can access a PDF file containing one version of the ACTA document by clicking here.

Yet, this is just ONE of the many legislative efforts that the Conservatives are trying to finalize as quick as their legal teams can type.

There are others that would remove trade barriers that try to keep American and Canadian businesses on an equal footing in Canada.

Some of the proposed legislative items floating around Stephen Harper’s desk involve creating a two-tier health system in Canada in such confusing language that it would seem like quite the opposite – and who do you think a two-tier system would benefit the most?

Yeah… that wealthiest 1% of the population.

Well, okay… to be fair, it will probably benefit the top 30% of money makers in this country.

It will absolutely never benefit little Jacob who has pediatric cancer and two parents that work – one in retail and one in construction.

Have I ever mentioned before that the Conservatives hate the poor, the destitute, and the infirm?

Maybe I have.

Stephen Harper makes me long for the days of Brian Mulroney – who despite his government’s flaws – honestly thought what they were doing would benefit the average Canadian citizen i.e. the people who elected them to office.

Speaking of which, Mr. Mulroney had a party the other night celebrating the anniversary of his 1984 electoral victory – the absolute pinnacle of the federal Conservative movement to this very day – and there were a few amusing tidbits of information that came out of the party.

Stephen Harper did not attend – nor do I think was he invited (but I could be wrong, however remote that could be)… and he was never mentioned by name by Brian Mulroney in that sexy baritone of his.

Mulroney DID however take a swipe at Harper – at least according to people who had attended the gala – by asking if all the attending party-goers had their Conservative Party of Canada membership cards on them… for which Stephen Harper says Brian Mulroney doesn’t have any more.

I’m not privy to whether or not our former Conservative prime minister is an actual card carrying member of the Conservatives in this day and age – or whether or not he has any interest in being one – but I do savor the attempt by Mulroney to show the older statesmen in attendance that Harper and his gang of corporate lackeys (that are all under 50 years old on average) have lost touch with what government used to be about in Canada.

What it used to be before the Conservatives sold their soul to big corporations – sold one paltry $250 dinner plate at a time during speaking engagement by prominent parliamentary contenders and winners.

When it was about ideals that the Progressive Conservatives legitimately thought more than 50% of the population believed in.

Unfortunately, that was a very long time ago.

No, this blogger has never voted Conservative… and never will as long as he’s in control of the hands that are checking off the little boxes on the electoral ballots.

However, I can look back and realize the monumental gap in beliefs between the heyday of Mulroney and the government that we have in Ottawa at the moment that I’m writing this blog.

Which is one of the many reasons we so desperately need to heave Steve.

Now, if only the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois (and the Liberals to a much lesser extent) would stop accepting a reach-around from him…