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The Economy Premier?

Posted by Joanne on 2 September 2010, 1:25 pm

Not content to merely be known as the ‘Education Premier’, Dalton McGuinty has now taken to giving advice to the Bank of Canada – Ontario premier urges Bank of Canada not to hike interest rate.

He actually has the gall to talk about the need for ‘prudence’(!):

“It points to the need for continuing prudence,” he said.

“Try as we might, we cannot completely uncouple ourselves from the American economy. They’re our single largest trading partner and consumer confidence — American consumer confidence — is a powerful factor in determining the health and vitality of our own economy here.”

McGuinty made the remarks from a Toronto elementary school where he was promoting a new expense for Ontario: full-day kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds.

The self-described education premier announced plans last fall to forge ahead with the costly project despite the economic downturn and warnings of a record-setting deficit.

The program, which is expected to cost $1.5 billion a year once fully implemented, is being slowly phased in over five years, starting with 600 schools this fall.

Ontario is also seeing higher inflation than other provinces, largely due to the July 1 implementation of the new harmonized sales tax.

Consumer prices in Ontario rose 2.9 per cent in July — the largest year-over-year hike among the provinces — with the HST accounting for about 1.3 per cent of that increase. Canada’s annual inflation rate rose by eight-tenths of a point to 1.8 per cent, according to Statistics Canada…

Is it possible that Dalton McGuinty is finally beginning to wake up to the possible nightmarish consequences of his many disastrous policies?

Nah, he’s just hoping he can get away with it.

Filed under Arrogance, Big Green, Culture of Conceit, Dalton Days, Dalton McGuinty, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, HST, Hypocrisy, Incompetence, Just trust Dalton, Lemmings love Fiberals, Lemmings love taxes, Liberal arrogance, Ontario economy, Premier Hudak in 2011, Socialism, Unions, Your tax-dollars, eHealth, economy, education, scandals.
9 Comments

I’ll believe it when I see it – Part 2

Posted by Joanne on 19 July 2010, 9:41 pm

The McGuinty Government apparently has finally listened to the Ontario PC party (among others) and will be scrapping the eco-tax.

Or so they say.

What a colossal waste of everyone’s time!

And what about the poor suckers who already paid it? With HST?

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Twitter Update

Mike Murphy – “the eco-fee may be reflected in the product’s sticker price-in which case the consumer is none the wiser”-Stewardship Ont.

#ecotax

McGuintyhas2Go

Also please check out Moose and Squirrel – McGuinty blinks — Ontario’s Liberals drop the eco-fee tax grab.

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Tuesday Update

Eco fees go bye-bye for now – Blast Furnace. A stunningly lucid take on the matter from a Progressive Blogger.

Premier Backtrack strikes again - National Post:

…the occasional mea culpa is even considered a sign of political maturity. But when the practice becomes business as usual, you have to wonder: Does anyone in this government think things through before they open their mouths?

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Wednesday Update
Taxpayers to fund eco fee for 90 days – National Post:

Despite the plan to stop charging the fee at the cash register, Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak slammed Mr. McGuinty for an attempt to “sneak” the eco-fee plan in at a later date.

“Dalton McGuinty is not really scrapping this tax. He is just looking for 90 days until he can find a more clever way to bury it in the price of products,” Mr. Hudak said. “We believe the shell game will continue.”

Filed under Big Environment, Big Green, Dalton McGuinty, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, HST, Incompetence, Ontario Politics, Ontario economy, Ontario election, Ontario government, Ours to Recover, Premier Hudak in 2011, Too many pigs at the trough, Voter cynicism, scandals.
38 Comments

Shorter Dwight Duncan

Posted by Joanne on 19 July 2010, 11:02 am

There.  I tried.

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Update

Dalton McGuinty Must Stop ‘Finger-Pointing’ and Accept Responsibility for His Eco-Tax Grab – Ontario PC Party:

The Ontario PC Caucus has obtained correspondence between the CEO of Stewardship Ontario and senior officials in John Gerretsen’s and Dalton McGuinty’s offices, which undermines the latest attempt by the McGuinty Liberals to deflect blame for the eco-tax grab on third parties.

In her letter to John Gerretsen, Stewardship Ontario CEO, and long-time Liberal, Gemma Zecchini, confirms that Gerretsen himself personally approved the Liberal eco-tax scheme and details how the responsibility for enforcing the tax falls on the McGuinty Government alone. Zecchini’s letter also accuses the McGuinty Government of ‘finger-pointing’ in order to assign Stewardship Ontario blame for “problems not of its making and outside of its powers to remedy,” further exposing Liberal attempts to dodge responsibility for the tax…

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Breaking – Canadian Tire scraps eco fees (Star):

Canadian Tire is scrapping new eco fees that came into effect July 1 on thousands of potentially toxic household products, saying the recycling charge developed by Stewardship Ontario and the province is too confusing for customers.

The chain – one of Canada’s most prominent retailers — is asking the beleaguered agency and Environment Minister John Gerretsen to take the controversial eco fee program back to the drawing board and come up with a replacement that makes more sense.

“Safely recycling toxic materials like rust remover or camping fuel is important so we don’t have toxic waste seeping into our landfills and environment,” Mike Arnett, president of Canadian Tire Retail said in a letter to customers Monday.

But the company “can no longer support passing along a recycling fee to customers that has inconsistencies between products and is difficult to explain.”

But won’t they have to pay it anyway? Will the eco fees simply be buried in the price? That’s worse.

Filed under Appeasement never works, Dalton Days, Dalton McGuinty, Follow the money, Ontario Politics, Ontario economy, Ontario election, Ontario government, Premier Hudak in 2011, Unions.
22 Comments

“I have some bad news for you”

Posted by Joanne on 17 July 2010, 8:11 am

Dalton McGuinty fully expects his sneaky Liberal government to be reelected without the loss of one seat – according some Nervous Nellies interviewed by the Star’s Robert Benzie.

Yes Dalton expects the Ontario Lemmings to overlook all of the following and more:

-  Solar power rates slashed affecting rural voters (only)

- “Special diet allowances” slashed affecting welfare recipients with medical conditions.

- Secret G20 law and subsequent confusion affecting both protesters and police.

- HST affecting all Ontario consumers and now hurting many businesses as we all tighten our belts yet another notch.

- SuperCorp fiasco which according to Benzie had sparked “an outcry from public-sector unions, opposition parties and many Liberals.”

- Eco tax/fees which have now caught the attention of the Auditor General and are causing headaches for both retailers and customers.  Meanwhile Dalton is MIA when it comes to accountability as usual.

- Energy prices skyrocketing through heavy subsidies to “green” power, which affects all Ontario citizens and businesses.

And now McGuinty is telling government ministries to “pursue new cost-recovery fees to stay on budget and to pay for additional programs” according to the Sun’s Antonella Artuso.

But wait! There’s more!!

Maz2 alerts us to a Star report that the OPP’s anti-rackets branch have “executed search warrants and raided government ministries in the Macdonald Block near the Ontario Legislature on Thursday.”

Innocent until proven guilty of course.

But where exactly is the tipping point when the majority of Ontario voters will finally decide they’ve had enough?

If anyone out there voted Liberal in the last Ontario election, I’d love to hear from you.

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Twitter feeds to keep an eye on:

- #ecotax
- #mcguinty
- @McGuintyhas2go
- #justpaidmore

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UPDATE

Looks like we got us a PROTEST!!!

ATTN Residents of OTTAWA: Protest McGuinty’s Eco Tax Julty 17th – Big Blue Wave

Protest against Onario’s illegal eco-tax: Saturday, 17. July 2010 - Xanthippa’s Chamberpot

Canadian Tire admits to overcharging on eco fees [and check out who's on the Board!] - CTV:

Residents in Ottawa plan to protest the fee outside Premier Dalton McGuinty’s office on Saturday.

Alright!!!

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Bonus! Photos of the demonstration in front of Dalton McGuinty’s riding office!

Filed under Accountability, Arrogance, Big Environment, Big Green, Dalton McGuinty, HST, Lemmings love Fiberals, Lemmings love taxes, Liberal arrogance, Liberal entitlement, Liberal machine, OPP, Ontario Politics, Ontario economy, Ontario election, Ontario government, Ours to Recover, Premier Hudak in 2011, Protests, Twitter, Unions, Wind farms, Your tax-dollars, grassroots power.
76 Comments

Grumblings and rumblings from the underlings

Posted by Joanne on 7 July 2010, 4:36 pm

Dalton McGuinty now admits that the Ontario Government should have clarified the exact range of temporary police powers during the G20 in Toronto.

But it sounds as if some backbenchers are still unhappy, according to a Star report by Robert Benzie:

“There’s a pattern of incompetence. Think about Andre Marin and the handling of that, think about the sex ed thing, think about the SuperCorp,” said one member.

And as I predicted, the G20 blowback is hitting those MPPs harder than the HST:

Another Grit said incredulously that some Ontarians seem more put out by the “sweeping powers they think we gave police” than by the 13 per cent harmonized sales tax that came into effect last Thursday and raised gasoline prices by 8 cents a litre.

That’s right.  Ontario Lemmings will take as many taxes as anyone cares to throw at them but just don’t try to fence them in.

Oh, and there was ‘tremendous psychological scarring’ – because Premier Dad’s glow is starting to tarnish.

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Update

Green Blackout – Tom Adams, Financial Post (this is a must-read!!):

...As far back as 2007, then Energy Minister Dwight Duncan took the environmentalists’ bait hook, line and sinker, opposing a relief transmission line as an option to help secure Toronto’s electricity supply…

Also please check out #justpaidmore on Twitter – re: HST

Eco fees latest McGuinty green grab: Editorial – Sun

And this is interesting - The green bulbs now have eco-fees whereas the old ones don’t. Who knew?

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Thursday Update

Anti-G20 group marches in Waterloo – Record:

The police response in Toronto “demonstrates that the powers that be cannot tolerate dissent,” said Wilfrid Laurier University psychology professor Richard Walsh-Bowers. The former NDP candidate said he plans to run as an independent candidate in Kitchener-Waterloo in the next federal election.

“If you don’t like the public policies, move the politicians out,” he told the crowd. “Overturn the state. It sucks.”

Wonderful. And this from a WLU prof. Figures.

Filed under Big Environment, Big Green, Crime, Dalton McGuinty, Green bulbs get red hot, HST, Incompetence, Lemmings love taxes, Ontario economy, Ontario government, Ours to Recover, Toronto, Twitter, democracy, scandals.
27 Comments

What McGuinty can do with his ‘Strong Medicine’

Posted by Joanne on 23 June 2010, 1:47 pm

Well I’ll leave that up to your imagination.

However, Dalton McGuinty’s arrogance clearly knows no bounds.

I do wish that the Ontarians who blindly vote Liberal time after time would consider trying to wean yourselves off your addiction.  Please?

It’s strong medicine but it’s for your own good. And mine.

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Update

McGuinty promises caution on SuperCorp – Star

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Thursday Update

(H/T Darryl Wolk)

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Friday Update

It’s just dirty socks when you take a good sniff – Michael Harris, Sun:

…Why am I so sure Dalton knows he’s emptying our piggy banks again? Well for one thing, how long did it take him to admit that HST was actually going to soak average taxpayers? It took him 14 months. Which raises two unsavoury possibilities: Either he didn’t know, until the opposition provided the studies that showed the HST’s true cost, or he knew and did the Pinocchio thing to avoid the political heat.

First it was a wash, now it’s strong medicine, but it’s really dirty socks when you take a good sniff — a giant windfall for the provincial government that has done nothing but run up a mountain of debt…

Filed under Dalton McGuinty, Election fever, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, HST, Lemmings love Fiberals, Lemmings love taxes, Liberal Party of Toronto, Liberal arrogance, Liberal entitlement, Liberal machine, Ontario economy, Voter cynicism, Your tax-dollars.
34 Comments

The Scary Duo

Posted by Joanne on 16 June 2010, 7:31 am

Everytime I see Dalton McGuinty and Jean Charest getting together I cringe with fear.  Their latest mission is a renewed push for cap and trade because the feds just aren’t moving fast enough – especially now that “they have dug themselves out of the recession.” (Who knew? Does that mean that Alberta can quit sending equalization payments?)

Coincidentally Lorrie Goldstein has addressed the recent inclusion of climate change into the G8-G20 agenda, (Summit will deliver more hot air) with a note of warning regarding the possible economic ramifications:

Indeed in the real world, getting the global economy moving again, presumably the main concern of the G8/G20 leaders, will cause greenhouse gas emissions to rise.

Unless, of course, they were to establish a global cap-and-trade market by putting a world price on industrial carbon dioxide emissions, thereby allowing the same giant U.S. investment banks that just finished crashing the global economy by trading in highly speculative and ultimately worthless subprime mortgage bonds, to do the same thing all over again with carbon credits.

My own suspicion is that the Green Scheme Twins see this as a golden opportunity to not only appease a very powerful environmental lobby, but also push for a new speculative industry that might cause some serious economic backlash if handled improperly (not to mention the potential for fraud.)

Lorrie Goldstein has addressed this issue many times before, for example in his March 27 column – Inconvenient Questions:

Does the fact the earliest corporate boosters of Kyoto and carbon trading were the fraudsters at Enron never cause you to wake up in a cold sweat?

How about the fact your “allies” on cap-and-trade are the giant U.S. money houses that just finished wrecking the global economy, now looking to make another quick killing by brokering trading in highly speculative carbon credits, the European market for which, aside from doing nothing to cool the planet, is awash in multi-billion-dollar frauds?

Largely ineffective

What about the 2002 report by Statistics Norway that Norway’s 1991 carbon tax has been largely ineffective in reducing emissions?

Or last week’s story in the Times of London that the U.K.’s energy regulator has found many of Britain’s wind farms are a bust when it comes to delivering electricity?

That, in the words of Michael Jefferson, professor of international business and sustainability and a former lead author of the IPCC: “Too many developments are underperforming. It’s because developers grossly exaggerate the potential. The subsidies make it viable for developers to put turbines on sites they would not touch if the money was not available.”

Gee. Hard to see that one coming, eh? Who knew that when governments insanely guarantee to pay grossly inflated prices for “green” electricity for 20-25 years, thus handing developers windfall profits from the hides of electricity consumers, many don’t deliver the goods?

Not you, obviously. Or Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

One thing for sure. Whenever you see Premiers McGuinty and Charest put their heads together, you’d better hang on tight to your wallet – until they pry it away by force.

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Related

Scan of Arctic ice dispels melting gloom, scientist says – Citizen (H/T NNW)

Filed under Big Environment, Big Green, Dalton McGuinty, Energy, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, Global Warming, Goldstein, Jean Charest, Just trust Dalton, Kyoto, Liberal entitlement, Liberal machine, Ontario economy, Ours to Recover, Peter Principle, Premier Hudak in 2011, Quebec politics, Science/tech, Shifty Green, Too many pigs at the trough, UN, Wind farms, Your tax-dollars, climate change, environment, environmentalists, pesticides, scandals.
25 Comments
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