Some days, it is almost more than I can do to muster even a modicum of faith in our political system. Confronted as we are on an almost daily basis with evidence of corruption, betrayal of the public trust, and reminders that we, the voters, count only at election time, it is difficult to affix any credibility to the utterances of our 'representatives'. Currently, my ire is particularly directed at the Ontario Provincial Liberals, led by Dalton McGuinty.
My acute disaffection with the Premier began in late June, during the G20 summit. It was only after the summit was over that the Premier revealed that the so-called five-meter fence law allowing police to demand that people show their identities and the contents of their knapsacks did not actually exist. This, despite the fact that Bill Blair, the Toronto Police Chief, was trumpeting its importance since the day before the Summit actually began, and Dalton McGuinty was enthusiastically agreeing with him in the press that such extraordinary measures were necessary to provide an adequate level of security for the delegates.
After it was all over, McGuinty simply said that they “could have done a better job in communication” and facilely dismissed the idea of a public inquiry, despite the fact that he had obviously colluded with the police to deprive citizens of their Charter Rights guaranteeing freedom of movement and association.
My disaffection with him has deepened given the events that transpired over the weekend regarding the site for the Pan Am stadium in Hamilton, which I have already written about.
And today comes the announcement that the Provincial Government is going to move into the lucrative field of on-line gambling, whereby they hope to realize a minimum of $400 million dollars annually, choosing to ignore, despite whatever public-relations gestures that will be forthcoming, the gambling addiction of many Ontarians and willfully exploiting that weakness to enrich government coffers.
So now, in a province that is almost financially bankrupt, we have seen, in at least three different ways, its declaration of moral bankruptcy.
One can only hope that voters will take notice and remember during the next election campaign.
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