I have to agree with Richco that Simon Kent wins today’s prize for best (and most scathing) column on Kathleen Wynne’s testimony at yesterday’s Standing Committee on Justice Policy – Kathleen Wynne confirms she knows nothing — literally:
…Even though she was a senior member of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet at the time, she confessed under oath Tuesday that she just doesn’t how the decisions came about.
Nope, not a thing. Zilch. Zero. Nadda. Nothing.
The timing, the cost and the political ramifications are a complete blank to the leader of Canada’s biggest province.
That’s not all.
As the campaign vice-chair in the lead-up to the last provincial election, Wynne had no inkling of how it would play out in the electorate because she was “not part of the discussion.”
At least that was the impression she sought to convey Tuesday before the Standing Committee on Justice Policy.
It was bafflement of the highest order, too.
She delivered an absolutely devastating exhibition of procedural ignorance that must make her very proud indeed…
So Ms. Wynne would have us believe that as a senior member of Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet and campaign vice-chair she didn’t know anything about the cost of this ‘political’ decision to move the gas plants.
And after the election when OPA said yesterday ‘everyone’ knew that the Oakville move would cost more than $40 million, apparently Kathleen Wynne was the only one who didn’t.
And when McGuinty passed the Premier mantle to Wynne she apparently didn’t bother to request more information on the debacle.
So is that willful blindness, incompetence or outright lying?
Either way, is that someone you want leading your province?
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Update
The following article in the Waterloo Region Record explores the need for Third-Party election spending caps in Ontario (a topic we discussed here recently) - Interest groups bought nearly $1 million worth of ads during byelection:
…An amendment to the Election Finances Act, signed into law by the Liberals in June 2007, continued to allow Ontario corporations, individuals and unions to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, and advertise as much as they desired with few restrictions, but forced them to register with Elections Ontario and release their spending details.
Before 2007, third-party groups did not have to make their spending public, or even identify themselves.
The absence of a spending cap has spurred explosive growth in third-party ad spending ever since. In the 2007 general election, third parties spent $1.8 million on ads. In 2011, they spent $6 million.
“I think even here it is really alarming,” MacDermid said. “They’re outspending the provincial parties. It’s already gotten to the point where the Liberals should do something about it.”
Greg Essensa, Ontario’s chief electoral officer, noted the spike in third-party spending in his 2011-2012 annual report. He recommends that third-party fundraising and ad spending be capped…
( . . . )
“They’ve got the federal rules as a template,” MacDermid said. “They could easily just adopt those.”
Well now that the union vote seems up for grabs to the highest bidder perhaps the Ontario Liberals will finally do something about this.
Budget Update
Ontario Liberal Budget: Deficits are not our problem – FP:
One of the striking failures of this budget is the absence of any meaningful measures to deal with the province’s growing electricity problems. To put it simply, Ontario’s Green Energy Act (GEA) has been an unmitigated disaster and Budget 2013 does nothing to rectify the problem.
A recent analysis by University of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick calculated that Ontario’s electricity prices will soon be near the highest in North America, if not the highest.
Large energy consumers like manufacturers and resource companies, upon whom the provincial government believes the recovery must be based, will face electricity price increases in the range of 40% to 50%…
