Blue Like You

Archive for October 26th, 2007

(Breaking news below)

Linda Leatherdale is back at it again today - ranting at all levels of government, and starting with His Blondness (Pols tighten our belts, but never their own):

…Barely a moment passed after the piggies at the tax trough gave a thunderous ovation to Mayor David Miller winning his new municipal land transfer tax and vehicle registration tax — then we learned firefighters are getting a sweet pay raise…

..But it’s blatantly obvious a powerful union lobby, who abandoned Bob Rae’s NDP after he ushered in Rae Days, is now backing the tax-happy Dalton McGuinty Liberals at Queen’s Park and the tax-happy Miller at City Hall…

…Miller cries City Hall is flat broke, our infrastructure is crumbling and if over-taxed taxpayers don’t cough up more money, it’ll go bankrupt.

So, this powerful lobby helped Miller win the vote for his tax grab, which will line the city’s coffers by up to $300 million a year over a full year. And still Miller says it’s not enough money.

Why then, if the city’s so broke, are we giving firefighters a 9.66% raise over the next three years – which is above the rate of inflation? Now, Toronto’s police are at the table. For the record, also Toronto’s finest…

Did you catch that??? A 9.66% raise over the next three years!!! Do you know of anyone else other than politicians that get that kind of increase?

This is only the beginning folks.

You know, it’s strange how many times I saw signs from the firefighters union supporting Dalton during the election. Now there are rumours that the province might take over the TTC.

Miller and Dalton must have had some kind of sweet deal cooked up between them.

Yes, and then there’s dear Dalton:

Hypocrisy also lives at Queen’s Park. McGuinty lied about “no new taxes,” then blamed a Tory deficit for one of the biggest tax grabs ever, the $10-billion health levy. Now, rumours swirl he’s planning to hike the PST by 2%, with 1% going to hard-pressed municipalities and 1% to cash-strapped transit, then harmonize the PST with the hated GST. If true, we’ll now be paying a provincial sales tax on services, like home buying closing costs, legal fees, court costs, etc.

And McGuinty will tell us he didn’t raise taxes. That’s because Ottawa is cutting the GST by 2%.

Yup. Watch for it. The GST will go down and Dalton will raise the PST. No tax hike right? It’s a wash.

It’s enough to drive a person to drink - if you could afford the taxes and mark-up. Better not anyway, because you don’t want to be needing a doctor - if you could find one.

BREAKING NEWS: Sorbara Quits Cabinet!!!

More at CTV, and Freedom is my Nationality.

CBC speculates on possible replacements.

Halls of Macadamia - Sorbara Surprise.

Friday A.M. Update: Our own Adam Daifallah has an excellent, no-nonsense editorial in today’s National Post - Bye-Bye, Mr. Nice Guy.

Well, somebody had to say it, and Adam did it very well. Time for some Tory tough love.

Ian Urquhart - Tory convinces most important backer - himself.

Thursday Evening update: Star - Public Funding Fight Far from Over: School groups. They might even fight it in court.

Good idea, John; but bad timing.

Good column by the Globe’s Campbell Murray, who seems to think that we should be giving John Tory a second chance - Tory has a chance to transform himself, just like McGuinty once did.

This contrasts with the Star’s Ian Urquhart whose column contains a very candid interview with Frank Klees - Faith-based plank not mine, Klees says:

…Nonetheless, Klees said he “implored” John Tory to get out in front on the faith-based schools issue and define it in his own terms before Liberals framed it in theirs.

However, according to Klees, Tory got conflicting advice from his “communications strategists,” brandishing polls that said the issue was not a big concern to the public.

“The advice that he (Tory) received was that we should not focus any attention on this issue, that we should allow this to be dealt with quietly and focus on other issues,” said Klees. “My warning to John was: you risk having the Liberals distort this proposal and you will find yourself on the defensive and your good intentions will end up causing us great difficulty.”

But Tory accepted the advice of his campaign team and chose not to highlight the faith-based schools policy in his campaign speeches or advertisements, until near the end of the election…

Too bad John didn’t listen a bit more to Frank Klees.

Campbell Murray informs us that Tory has now “deep-sixed his faith-based schools proposal”, and that “John Laschinger’s Northstar Research will no longer be doing Conservative polls”.

Finally!

My personal feelings at this point are that John Tory should stay on as leader for a while, to do what he does best - help the party recover from the past election costs.

However, he needs to demonstrate some humility and ability to learn from his mistakes, and listen to his caucus when they tell him he is going off in the wrong direction.

A good leader makes tough decisions, but he also values and listens to those under his command.

And the biggest lesson of all is this, John - Never, ever underestimate the moral depths to which the Liberal war machine will descend in order to win an election.