Last October we had a chance to turf the McGuinty Government – and we didn’t take it.
Some of us stayed home and others bought into the hype of ‘Working Families’ and leftwing media, that warned us of the destruction that would be wrought on public services by Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives.
Oh it would be Mike Harris all over again they screamed, even while some editorials lamented the lack of discernible differences between the two main parties and urged voters to go with the ‘Devil they knew’.
And Ontarians once again fell for the smoke and mirrors, albeit with decreased mandate for the Liberals.
Now we are starting to see the game plan for this Minority Government: Dalton McGuinty will play the part of righteous, invisible Premier and leave all the dirty work to his Finance Minister and Don Drummond. They will be the Bad Cops whom you can blame when all the austerity measures come down like a plague on Ontario residents (loyal unions excepted of course,)
Christina Blizzard is rightly concerned about the influence of third-party interests:
Why won’t the Liberals freeze the pay of unionized public sector workers?
Remember the Working Families Coalition?
It was funded largely by a group of public sector unions who paid for a campaign of negative advertising that targeted Hudak during the election.
The Liberals owe them big time.
It’s time to change the rules on third party advertising — especially when the third party has a vested interest in the outcome of the election.
How ethical is it for unions to be inserting themselves into an election when they’ll be across the table from whoever wins it, negotiating their pay hikes?
Unfortunately for the Premier, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is not a very good actor when feigning shock at the dismal state of Ontario’s fiscal affairs – and mourning that the ‘province they’ve been leading for the past eight years is on the ropes.”
If Dalton can play the blame game and get away with it then surely it’s permissible for me to blame some of my fellow Ontarians for allowing themselves to be duped the last three elections. Or perhaps you’ve just become so bitter and disillusioned that you’ve given up altogether.
And for that, I really can’t blame you.
* * * *
Update
I was pleasantly surprised by this column from the Star’s Martin Regg Cohn – McGuinty will pay a price for minority missteps:
By all available accounts, McGuinty haughtily dismissed each of Hudak’s five points as if he were an errant schoolchild. Some of Hudak’s ideas were non-starters, notably his demand that Finance Minister Dwight Duncan be fired. But a couple of proposals were worthy of a serious response instead of a patronizing brush-off…
Big Update
Tories win right to appeal Working Families decision – Star
* * * *
Monday Update
One of McGuinty’s Bad Cops gets $1,500 a day!!!
Comforting to know McGuinty has renewed his vow to stay provincial and take care of us rather than head to the federal Liberals. Remembering his word is of little value, if he does change his mind, I nominate him opportunist of the year.
You can always tell when McGuinty is lying his lips are moving.
To steal a comment made I believe by Nigel Farage speaking of Tony Blair and George Brown.
“McGuinty and Rae are two cheeks of the same A**”
There are many, many people at work on this anti Conservative crusade.
From the illegal spending on the last Provincial election by “working families” backed by big union, McGuinty is owned by these people.
The support and money thrown at a bunch of dirty (literally) campers, the kid glove treatment of same by the Media.
Sitting on your butt complaining cause “life isn’t fair” never changed anything, and never will.
Amazing that the “Parliamentarian of the year” found the time to come down and suck up to them.
I guess McGuinty will be invisible and don’t pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.
Interesting times folks, reading the post today at SDA, the comments are chilling.
We have sold the big house, and are looking for another opportunity.
We have taken a lease on a home for 6 months to see how this shakes out, I really don’t like what I am seeing I think we may be in for an adjustment
in the price of houses in Canada.
I hope I am wrong, but, it has happened everwhere else.
http://metanoodle.blogspot.com/2011/11/canadian-housing-over-valued-economist.html
Love John Robson’s analogy in the Sun today: “Ontario budget mostly monkey business”.
Heh. Great column. Love this part:
“Dudes”? How about Duds?
Exactly! As in Premier Dud.
Yeah, we’re on a roll!
May as well have fun, not much left to enjoy in McGuinty’s Ontario.
Pingback: McGuinty « Newsbeat1
From the (barf) CBC;
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is dismissing reports he may be considering a run for the federal Liberal leadership.
Several high-profile federal Liberals attended McGuinty’s speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Brampton, Ont., on Tuesday, prompting renewed speculation he may run for federal party leader.
McGuinty has always rejected notions of running federally in the past, and today said he has not changed his mind.
He joked with reporters that he “wants to remain married.”
McGuinty is in his third term as premier of Ontario, but was elected with only a minority government last month after two previous majorities.
He welcomed interim federal Liberal Leader Bob Rae at his speech Wednesday, a rare public mention from McGuinty of Ontario’s former NDP premier.
So is McGuinty saying it’s his wife who is saving us from from the prospect of having to watch him perform his act federally?
There you go. Dalton is always blaming someone. Now it’s his wife. She’s the Bad Cop.
no Joanne, Dalton’s wife is too busy whispering education strategy into his ear. Maybe he’ll blame his mother next.
Yeah, I agree Richco, there’s a distinct possibility there’s more than a little pillow talk on the subject.
On the ‘good cop, bad cop’ reference, I agree. McGuinty, and the Liberals, have played those roles to some critical acclaim… McGuinty claimed to be taking the high road in the 2007 election — with the media crowing about his “positive campaign” — wjile Smitherman did his dirty work.
OT but just saw CTV’s QP reporters’ segment that wraps up the show… they mentioned the CBC and, as expected, in full-on defense mode of the state broadcaster. Sickening stuff, really. Too much to post; too angry to think straight.
I saw QP too. It was just awful.
It just goes to show you jon there is a lot CBC is not telling nor want us to know. Maybe some of our money might be going into CTV no wonder CTV are cozying up to CBC.
Any media that refrains from talking about CBC are in CBC back pocket.
A large jet plane crashed on a farm in the middle of rural Ontario . Panic stricken, the local OPP mobilized and descended on the farm in force. By the time they got there, the aircraft was totally destroyed with only a burned hull left smoldering in a tree line that bordered the farm. The OPP entered the smoking mess but could find no remains of anyone. They spotted the farmer plowing a field not too far away as if nothing had happened. They hurried over to the man’s tractor. “Hank,” the officer yelled, panting and out of breath. “Did you see this terrible accident happen?” “Yep. Sure did,” the farmer mumbled unconcerned, cutting off the tractor’s engine. “Do you realize that is the airplane of the Premier of Ontario ?” “Yep” “Were there any survivors?” “Nope. They’s all kilt straight out,” the farmer answered. “I done buried them all myself. Took me most of the morning.” “Premier McGuinty is dead?” the officer asked. “Well,” the farmer grumbled, restarting his tractor. “He kept a-saying he wasn’t… But you know how bad that sumbitch lies…
Oh my. I am speechless.
For those who didn’t see QP, here’s the link….
http://www.ctv.ca/qp/
(unfortunately, it’s pretty dumb how CTV posts its videos so you have to move the slider forward a few times to get to the last segment”)
After opening with the basis of the story, being “accountability”, Kevin Newman attempts to mitigate criticism to the CBC by inserting this line: “They are, though, partially a commercial endeavour, not entirely taxpayer-funded” lol
Oliver: “They are protected on some things, about their news coverage, that there could be a concern about competition, so I think that’s why they are concerned”… Craig never mentions that they held onto info about how many cars are in their fleet and did so for 17 months… proving that they use 68.1 — the protecting of journalistic sources section — frivolously.
Taber: “I don’t like what the Tories are doing with this, because you just know that everything they do, in questioning the CBC, is because they just don’t care about the CBC”
and then THIS gem from Taber…
“I don’t think they [the conservatives] care about accountability or transparency or any of the stuff … I just think they want to bash the CBC … and it’s really unfair, I think”
And on the CBC’s fight with the Information Commissioner, the Ottawa Citizen’s Dan Gardner says, “it’s really not that interesting of a news story. I think the potential bigger news story is this: there’s an amazing amount of apparent coordination between SNN and the gov’t… these things seemed to be timed so beautifully… and that makes me suspicious”
Oliver: “It’s all about intimidation, it’s all about intimidating, all that they can, one of the biggest news organizations in all of Canada”
And I especially love this exchange…
Ditchburn: “we’re ignoring so many other instances of lack of transparency, it’s taken me 3 days to get info from other departments”
As you can see, they do what so many of their ilk do this issue — using up all their time to attack those who stand up for taxpayers instead of trying to defend the state broadcaster on specific and pointed criticisms, which, considering that they never ever really get to the nub of the issue, they each telegraph how weak their arguments truly are for defending the CBC…. I bet Ezra touches on the QP segment on tomorrow night’s show. While going after the CBC primarily, he has, in the past, done segments on CTV, even featuring clips of QP’s Oliver and Taber themselves… should be good.
Thanks Paulstuff I needed that
Let those fools stew in their hell.
I found better news from Onward James:http://onwardjames.blogspot.com/2011/11/stephen-harper-is-gold-standard-in.html
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Stephen Harper is the Gold Standard in Politics & Statesmanship
A statesman for the west – Melanie Phillips
That is awesome!! Thanks for posting the link Jen.
The sympathy shown by these people towards the CBC is not so strange when you consider how many of them have worked there, or may wish to in the future. As we see from the AT Issue rates, appearences can be rewarding and very good for the resume.
Both women have been CBC commentators and I suspect some of the the men, (anyone know?) The CBC has a long memory, remember Adrian MacNair’s dramatic put down of Kady O’Malley over Climate change e-mails on Power & Politics, about 2 years ago, That was his first, and last appearence on CBC. So being rude to Kady, or provocative on another network, is not a good way to get air time. Even Ezra has appeared on CBC a few times, but I don’t think they will be inviting him back soon.
More awesome:
“”Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.”
Stephen Harper, you magnificent B**tard! I raise a toast in your honour.
Posted by: Rick”
“YNoKyoto
CTV news has learned….”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/018516.html#comments
That is great news!! CTV link here. Prepare for the histrionics from the left.
Its not a good day when the National Post has a headline with picture on spooky Margaret Atwood.
Regarding today’s update, the $1,500 per day isn’t out of line with what consultants would charge, heck my company charges more than that for me. What concerns me is that they picked a partisan liberal to do the job, so don’t expect any solutions that aren’t preapproved by McGuinty. One of the letters to the editor complained that the federal conservatives were paying Deloitte a lot of money to do a similar job. I have no love for Deloitte as Joanne can likely tell from my IP address, but they are at least independent, unlike Drummond.
That is exactly the problem – Drummond is Liberal.
My time as a super-wonderful engineer gets charged out at $150+ per hour. I’d like to get a better cut of it, for sure, but then I’d have to pay all of the overhead costs.
The $1500 per day doesn’t seem horribly out of line, but Drummond is really just an apologist for the government to make unpopular spending cuts. Or, at least, I hope so. Is there no-one already on the payroll who can make these analyses?
but Drummond is really just an apologist for the government
Most folks seem to be saying the fee is not out of line, but I do worry that his work will be affected by his Liberal affiliation. I bet he’ll just suggest a token cut on anything affecting the unions.
Hope I’m wrong though.
Obama to meet with EU leaders? what for? He can’t even do business with canada in order to create jobs with us through the pipelines. And it is the EU he goes too.
My feeling is that Obama is doing so just to show his people that he is hard at work yeah right Obama but you can’t do business with your own next door neighbour.
I also think that Obama doesn’t like PM Harper since he PM gets more attention rather than he. This is all ego on Obama’s part.
I agree re Obama being full of envy!
Thinking back to how he behaved with the adoration showered on him during his trip to Ottawa and now, he’s lost his star power, there is no doubt his ego is seriously bruised.
I have alway wondered if he would stomp a few heads on his way down and it appears that is exactly what he is capable of doing. To bad for him that our PM trumped him, big time!
CTV obviously appears to pick and choose those they wish to support or bash.
Nauseous coverage of Rahim and Helena, the listeria outbreak, PM Mulroney, wafergate, bathroomgate X2……..and now this… they resort to accusing Conservatives of partisan network support? How rich!
How do you spell T-A-X D-O-L-L-A-R F-U-N-D-E-D T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-C-Y, CTV?
Now they have really exposed themselves as partisan hacks and they wonder why we needed SNN to eliminate the fragile mess they were making of our brains!
Will ctv fly Jane back and forth once she relocates to Halifax, to give her stupid comments.
In a couple of hours CWB vote to come in. Some wheat farmers who wanted the ‘freedom of choice’ to sell their wheat to whomever wherever are at the HOC, to celebrate the passing of vote which they have long for for many decades. Take a look Maryt.
Watched the debate, watched the ndp go down in flames re their amendments, and watched the vote. Very happy. Also watched the ndpq bill go down in flames re closure and debate. If they are so upset re closure and time limits, why can’t they show up to vote and their motions etc.
Got a kick out of the mp from Quelph, Ont. telling us about all the petitions he has received from farmers to keep the cwb. Wonder how many of them were western farmers. Also laughed when he said he had been west 4 times to meet with hundreds of farmers who wanted to keep the cwb.
Must have missed the coverage of that.
Looking like a long list of Conservative accomplishments already.
H.T. to climbing out of the dark http://climbingoutofthedark.blogspot.com/2011/11/im-happy.html
The future looks bright, the bullying at the next Enviro-shriekfest will be off the charts.
I am one of the viewers who no longer has SNN as a alternative to CBC/CTV.
I would welcome an explanation from SNN as to why they did not renew their analog licence with Rogers Ottawa for inclusion on basic cable. Instead they moved to digital cable, losing a lot of customers in the process.
I was one of those that lost SNN on Nov 1, after it went digital. It was part of basic cable up until Nov 1. SNN kept making mention of it moving, leading up to that date, but I, as a Torontonian, thought I’d be exempt, primarily because I was told during last spring’s election that it was “free” until Aug 1, and when that date came and went with SNN still on the air, I assumed there was an exemption made for Toronto and those in the GTA, the reason being that Sun Media already owned a basic cable channel (ch. 15, where SNN aired up until Nov 1) and so I thought it would just continue airing on that station. To my horror, I turned that channel on that morning and found kids’ programming and knew then that, in fact, I wasn’t exempt.
Having said that, a funny thing happens when you lose SNN… that old saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” applies. I took it for granted, not having watched all that much of it leading up to it going off air. But as soon as it was gone, I wanted it back so badly. When all you’re left with is the consensus media, it really opens your eyes to the need for SNN. Even though I didn’t want to go digital, I did just to get it back. I can’t imagine not having it now. In the week that went by before Rogers came, you couldn’t help but to think of what stories I was missing, amplified when all I had was the consensus media. SNN is a staple for anyone who wants to get both sides of a story, and not just the ones force fed to us by all the others.
Martin,
I think the writing is on the wall. In the last week, we have lost up to 8 channels. It’s analog that is the problem. Apparently, everything will be digital by the end of this year or early next. So, its not just SNN. HGTV, History, and others as well.
So, as of today, we converted to digital and are adding SNN as a single a la carte channel.
Means, my husband will be hooking up the digital box later today.
I’m sure you are correct, but it certainly is not necessary or desired by the customers. With 70 channels available on basic, I find very few programs I want to watch. I cannot see paying extra for digital.
The thing is Martin, according the Cogeco people my husband talked to, they are going to completely shut down analog very soon. Perhaps you should call Rogers Ottawa and ask them when they are going to do the same.
It has been shockingly quick actually. First, SNN. Then, every night last week, when we clicked on our favourite programs (e.g., on HGTV and History), all but “Time Team” on TVO was “no longer available on this service.” Wham. Gone.
Right. With the electroniic/entertainment industry, “progress” is always (a) more costly, and (b) mandatory as the previous medium disappears. Think here of vinyl records or diode tube TVs. Consumer choice is a foreign concept to this industry.
Yeah I guess anyone relying on rabbit ears is out of luck now.
Wheat Board vote on right now. This must be a sweet moment for the Conservative Gov’t.
good bye CWB monopoly
If Mark Holland thinks the CWB is essential to farmers,
he should run on that in rural Ontario next election.
Explain to Ontario producers how they could land in jail if they donate their home grown grain to a 4-H club.
Looking forward to seeing new ‘value added’ processing plants across Western Canada.
I sat down to watch Bill O Reilly on my Bell satelitte and to my surprise 506 Sun TV is on right now. I am watching Charles Adler instead of Bill O Reilly.
Sammy… rural Manitobans have SUN TV a couple of weeks early. Check it out!
I saw a tweet about that from Sun!
Thanks for the heads-up. Watched and enjoyed the programming last evening. Have to send a thank-you to Bell as I had sent a complaint previously (wonder how long it will stay on basic service).
It was announced over a year ago that analog was going the way of the dodo. Just wish suntv was still broadcasting live. Our cable company does not carry Bell. Telus phoned to see if we wanted a dish, but when I asked if they carried Suntv he said, what is that.
Move to Shaw, Mary T!
The history books will show this to be true:
A statesman for the west
‘…Stephen Harper is a gold standard politician. In a world run by political pygmies, he stands out as a true statesman.
It may be more than the Canadians who give thanks that he is up there on the world stage in the terrifying months ahead…’
http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/11/a-statesman-for-the-west.html
Another example of how much our PM is appreciated around the globe in stark contrast to the political games played by our media,
accolades are few if any. In fact our PM doesn’t even get the respect the Office of Prime Minister deserves from the sneering tribe who pass themselves off as neutral journalists.
Happy the mad socialist scheme called KYOTO, whose Granddaddy is Maurice Strong, will be officially struck out in Canada.
Yeah too bad our own media here in Canada are too biased to admit how great our PM is.
Jen mentioned a link earlier to Onward James who discusses the Daily Mail story.