Just caught Linda Leatherdale on the Gary Doyle show. She’s telling Dwight Duncan to wake up and ask businesses in Ontario what they need to survive. She even used the D-word!
Do you think the McGuinty government is doing everything it can to protect Ontario from a recession?
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Update: Sorry folks. Not sure why comments had been turned off. Please add yours now if you are concerned about Ontario’s economic picture. Thanks.
Also please check out Christina Blizzard – Economy is a ‘challenge’?
… Duncan was trying to put a cheerful face on the numbers, refusing to use the "R" word. Apparently, it’s a "challenge," not a recession.
"I think we are in some challenging times, which I have been saying since my fall statement. I think those challenges continue," Duncan said, insisting that his economic plan is working…
…Niagara West-Glanbrook MPP Tim Hudak told reporters yesterday that since 2005, the closure of two processing plants in the Niagara area and a change in suppliers for another has affected hundreds of growers and left 6,000 acres of prime agricultural land without a market.
"That’s about 22% of the acreage under vine or in tender fruit in Niagara that now has no buyer for it," Hudak said.
Cherry Lane frozen foods in Vineland has moved to imported sweet cherries, impacting 200 acres, he said. Cadbury-Schweppes in St. Catharines, the last grape juice producer in this province, closed, putting 26 people out of work and impacting 1,700 acres of juice grape vines, with another 1,500 acres expected to be ripped out this year.
Can-Gro cannery in St. David’s, the last tender fruit canning factory this side of the Rockies went belly-up. That not only means lost jobs. It means farmers who have produced peaches, plums, apricots and other tender fruits in Niagara for generations no longer have a market for their crop.
Thousands of trees and vines have been ripped out.
"If the provincial government doesn’t take action it is possible that the 6,000 acres of formerly productive tender fruit and grape lands will form a growing agricultural brownfield within the greenbelt," Hudak said…
(Well, I’m not sure exactly what kind of action Hudak expects the Government to take, but it sure isn’t fair to cherry-pick.)
…Go ahead, rip out the peach trees. Who really cares if we have to buy our fruit from China or South America?
Mark my words, though: The sweet smell of burning peach trees will never mask the stench of a government gone mouldy before its time.
Well said, Christina. but the lemmings seem to like rotten fruit.
“Do you think the McGuinty government is doing everything it can to protect Ontario from a recession?”
HECK NO. Mcguinty needs to cut taxes. Or even better harmonize the GST and PST. Both would be good.
We have pumped enough money into failling buissness. There s going to be a hit. The manufacturing buiss, is a dying breed. And it started during the Raedays.
My family had a small buissness since the 50′s. And we had to change are whole buissness away from woodworking To a managment company.
You have to adapt and Mguinty is just wasting tax dollars on failling buissness that are not adapting. He needs to make the tax structure attractive for buissness to come to Ontario, and to expand in Ontario.
And do not like FM Duncan. Sobara was far better. Duncan is nero right now.
Theres a lot McFibb could be doing to help Ontario’s ailing economy like taking a lesson from former Conservative Premier Bill Davis, who when facing a similar problem in the mid-seventies put a 90 day cap on retail gas prices (they could go down by not up pass the cap). Then to help the ailing auto sector, temporarily eliminated the PST on new vehicles sales for vehicles manufactured in Ontario.
Now there was real economical leadership!
Drop the corporate tax now, for all industries, let those that can thrive do so. Let those destined to die, (big union auto sector) die a natural death, without sucking the life from others. Immediately put out a statement that the province of Ontario does not support any new taxes on energy, since this will cut into margins that are shrinking due to the higher dollar, and market based energy increases. Extend the Ontario Innovation tax credit to all companies regardless of size, to encourage investment in increased competitiveness. I’m afraid all of the above are much too sensible for a moron like McGuinty to understand, and against the wishes of his masters in the CAW, OPSEU, OTF etc, (the people who conspired to elect a moron, because they knew they could control him)
I wrote an article about this recently but I got sloughed off as another ex-Ontario hater.
Do you recall the Federal Finance Minister Jim F pointing out at the start of the year that the governing Liberals in Ontario had better reconsider their economic policies before things turned rotten? Do you recall the lashing he took for pointing that out? Who is the smart one now? I doubt we will hear anyone apologizing for their attacks on Mr. Flaherty now or in the near future.