Short-Term Gain For Long, Long-Term Pain

I will readily admit to readers that I am not by nature one who sees the glass as half-full; however, since the June 7th provincial election of Doug Ford, which revealed that far too many of my fellow-citizens are quite happy to enter into Faustian pacts, my natural tendency toward brooding pessimism has intensified.

And With Good Reason.

A post-election analysis reveals how debased the electorate has become:

Ontarians handed Doug Ford a strong Progressive Conservative majority because they feel he best understands their pocketbook struggles and trust him to take quick action on excess government spending, says a revealing post-vote study by Navigator Ltd.

“If on the first day he calls in the auditors and cuts 10 cents off the gas tax he’ll be off to a very good start,” said Jaime Watt.

Despite the kind of magical thinking his promises require, voters responded with enthusiasm to Ford's vows to offer an array of money-saving schemes with no plan to pay for them, other than a promised $6 billion in efficiencies, code for massive cuts that those with even a mdicum of critical-thinking skills understand.

But probably the most depressing aspect of the Navigator study is that Ford supporters don't really give a damn about anyone but themselves:

Voters were less concerned with longer-term issues like infrastructure, pharmacare and anything aimed at the next generation — a factor that could have implications for upcoming municipal and federal election campaigns...

With an attitude like that, Ford Nation will be in its glory, at least for the short-term. At the start of July, Ford intends to recall the legislature to end the York University strike and

implement his planned 10-cents-per-litre reduction in gas prices.

He is hoping to achieve that by cutting the provincial excise tax and scrapping Ontario’s cap-and-trade program with Quebec and California.

While withdrawing from the climate change pact could take 18 months, Tories believe the taxes can be cut before Ontario exits the greenhouse-gas reduction program.

Turning his back on climate change abatement and adaptation will undoubtedly elicit paroxysms of joy, but, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for:

Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 180 billion tonnes of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimetre every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.

The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.

But what do facts mean to the people devoted to a provincial Wizard of Oz? Probably as much as they do to those who see no paradox in a prime minister who says that we can meet our climate-change goals at the same time we buy up and expand pipelines to extract more bitumen from the tar sands of Alberta.

Clearly, we are no longer in Kansas.

Can A Giant Ferris Wheel (Or Something Even More Grand) Be Far Behind?

These must be heady times indeed for those visionaries amongst us who, when they look at hectares upon hectares of greenspace, farmland, etc. see massive value-added opportunities for another kind of green, the kind salivated over by developers. One man, the putative next premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is leading the charge:



As revealed in the above, Dougie is taking his direction from some of the country's biggest developers, the ones who see little value in preserving farmland, despite its necessity given the wild gyrations climate change is already imposing on food production everywhere. Cash in the hand, it would seem, trumps stewardship of the land.

As reported in The Star, Ford

said the 800,000-hectare swath of environmentally sensitive and agricultural land known as the Greenbelt is “just farmer fields.”

“It’s right beside a community. We need to open that up and create a larger supply,” he said, noting that will lead to “price drops” in housing in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Note how the demagogic leader of the Progressive Conservative Party is couching his plan in the usual cant of his ilk: it is for the people and will lower housing costs.

“I support the Greenbelt in a big way. Anything we may look at to reduce housing costs — because everyone knows housing costs (are) through the roof and there’s no more property available to build housing in Toronto or the GTA — it will be replaced,” he said.

“Anything that we will look at on the Greenbelt will be replaced, so there will still be an equal amount of Greenbelt.”

It was unclear how Ford could expand the Greenbelt if the preserved land is paved over for development.

Details, mere details.

Ford's logic doesn't fly upon closer scrutiny:

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, said “the Greenbelt does not constrain housing supply or cause high house prices.”

“Municipal data shows that there is enough land available to provide for housing development within existing Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area urban boundaries until 2031,” said Gray.

“There are also abundant lands outside of towns and cities that are not within the Greenbelt that could be available for expansion after that date.”

Ontario Housing Minister recalls his time on Toronto city council when Ford had another 'grand idea':

as a city councillor when his late brother Rob Ford was mayor, the Tory leader wanted to redevelop Toronto’s port lands and build a massive Ferris wheel.

Now that he is poised to become the next premier, perhaps Mr. Ford will dare to dream even bigger:



All of which serves to remind me of something else: democracy is a fine system of government, as long as the people are paying attention to something more than the rambling, disingenuous rhetoric of hucksters.

Following Politics Too Closely Takes Its Toll

I imagine that many people who follow politics closely do so in the belief that it is one of the few arenas that offers the possibility of change on a wide scale. Enlightened public policy, backed by the appropriate fiscal measures, can help bring about greater social and economic equity, thereby contributing to a more balanced and compassionate world. Unfortunately, perhaps inevitably, that hope is almost always dashed. Consequently, many of us fall victim to a deep cynicism about human nature.

In the current Ontario election campaign, there is much about which to be cynical. Three parties, all deeply flawed, all vying for our vote. There is the prospect of voting for a government long past its best-before date, the Liberals, whose leader, Kathleen Wynne, has thus far been unable to lay to rest the ghost of Dalton McGuinty. Next, Tim Hudak, leading the Progressive Conservatives, seeks to resurrect the ghost of Mike Harris, accompanied by an egregious contempt for the electorate's intelligence, reflected in his facile use of a fictitious number, one million, for the number of jobs he will create by cutting 100,000 of them.

At one time, solace might have been found in the New Democratic Party. Sadly that time is no more.

Its leader, Andrea Horwath, now inhabits an unenviable category. Having abandoned traditional progressive principles, like a pinball caroming off various bumpers, she emerges as one wholly undone by a lust for power.

Having forced this election by rejecting a very progressive budget on the pretext that the Liberals cannot be trusted, she is floundering badly as she tries desperately to reinvent herself and her party as conscientious custodians of the public purse, promising, for example, to create a new Savings Ministry, cut $600 million per annum by eliminating waste, and lower small business taxes.

Few are fooled by her chameleon-like performance. Carol Goar's piece in today's Star, says it all: Ontario NDP sheds role as champion of the poor: Andrea Horwath campaigns for lean government, forsaking the poor, hungry and homeless.

Horwath, says Goar, is so preoccupied with winning middle-class votes, assuring the business community she would be a responsible economic manager and saving tax dollars that she has scarcely said a word about poverty, homelessness, hunger, low wages or stingy social programs.

She continues her indictment:

She triggered the election by rejecting the most progressive provincial budget in decades, one that would have raised the minimum wage, increased the Ontario Child Benefit, improved welfare rates, and provided more support to people with disabilities. She parted ways with the Ontario Federation of Labour and Unifor, the province’s largest private-sector union. And she left MPPs such Cheri DiNovo, a longtime advocate of the vulnerable and marginalized, without a social justice platform to stand on.

No vision. Not a scintilla of progressive policy. Only the perspective of an uninspired and uninspiring bookkeeper.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, is what Dante said was inscribed on the entrance to hell. These days, it could equally apply to those who have thrown in their lot with the Ontario NDP.

Young Tim's 'Transparency'

In a political landscape littered at all levels with lies, deception and expedience, it is hardly surprising that young Tim Hudak, the beleaguered 'leader' of Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party, has hung former Finance critic Peter Shurman out to dry.

Those who follow Ontario politics will likely be aware that Shurman, who represents the riding of Thornhill, lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake and maintains an apartment at taxpayer expense in Toronto, since his principal residence is more than 50 km from Toronto. This was done, according to Shurman, with the full knowledge and approval of Hudak, knowledge and approval which the Tory leader now steadfastly denies.

As a consequence of Shurman's expense claims coming to light, along with his refusal to pay back the money, young Tim, apparently in a futile effort to display 'decisive leadership,' fired Shurman from his finance critic's post:

“He did follow the technical rules but I need to enforce a higher standard,” said Hudak. “I think we need to change this rule.”

Which may be all well and good except for two things: Hudak's prior approval of the arrangement, if Shurman is to be believed, and this interesting tidbit in today's Star:

Embattled Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman wanted to run in Niagara Falls in the 2011 election, but Tory Leader Tim Hudak urged him to remain in Thornhill to save that seat ...

... four senior Conservative sources said the leader was worried the Liberals would win Thornhill without Shurman and pleaded with the popular incumbent to remain there, even though Hudak knew he was living in the Niagara region by then.

While young Tim is trying to use this situation to show that he is capable of strong leadership, some would say it is an example of something far less flattering: personal betrayal.

An Apt Contrast

There is the Energizer rabbit, brought to you by Everready:

Then there is the Never-ready rabbit, brought to you by Ontario's Conservative Party: