Morning Rant: Can it really be a decade since the 2003 election swept Dalton McGuinty/Kathleen Wynne and 71 other Liberals to power? Frankly, when you look at the gas plant scandal, the Ornge boondoggle and the $1 billion poured into the pockets of Liberal friendly consultants at eHealth, I don’t think it’s so much a lost decade as a stolen one. Remember the Liberals’ 2003 fantasy election platform? Most of their promises could have been written on the back of a napkin. It was only after the election we discovered the civil service pegged the price tag on McGuinty’s 200-plus promises at a whopping $18 billion. The platform also assumed a $900-million asset sale in the first year. Most of the promises were laughable. Others were ridiculous. Most were broken — or forgotten — soon after they came to power. McGuinty’s biggest fib was when he looked into the camera during that election campaign and told us our taxes wouldn’t go up “one cent” under a Liberal government. The following year, without blushing, he and finance minister Greg Sorbara introduced the hated health-care levy that dinged most families $1,000 a year and raised around $2 billion for provincial coffers. What were the other pledges? Well, they said they’d shut down coal-fired electricity generating plants by 2007. They delayed it to the end of 2009. The last two should shut by the end of this year.(Maybe) • “We will balance the budget.” No, seriously. Stop laughing. That’s what they said. In fact, they increased spending from $80 billion to $128 billion and doubled the debt to $273 billion. They’ve had credit watches and credit warnings from rating agencies. Our annual deficit is sitting at $11.7 billion — almost twice what it was when the Liberals took over. • “We will fund medically necessary health-care services.” Then they delisted eye exams, physiotherapy, diabetes testing, and chiropractic. • “We will cap hydro rates at 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour until 2006. In fact, in May of 2006, the price of electricity was 6.7 cents a kWh. In 2010, Dwight Duncan announced electricity prices for homeowners would skyrocket 46% over the next five years. That’s before you take into account the cost of scrapping two gas plants.( 1 Billion dollars). That didn’t include the 10% rebate the Liberals borrowed another $1 billion to give us. • “We will cap tolls on Hwy 407.” The peak rate for cars was 12.95 cents a kilometre in 2003. This year it’s more than double that — 26.2 cents a km. • “We will stop school closings.” Rural Ontario has been devastated by school closures. • “We will offer a pre-paid tuition program to make it easier for parents to save for their children’s education … by guaranteeing them today’s price for tomorrow’s education.” Hello? Is anyone paying 2003 prices for university? • “We will make sure health dollars are spent wisely.” Um, eHealth, Ornge. Need I say more? • “We will stop the privatization of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission.” Too bad. If they’d actually sold ONTC to a private company, Northern Ontario might still have rail service. Which they now don’t — because the Liberals shut down ONTC. • “Reduce private consultants.” Right now, 31 committees are probing various aspects of government. Just weeks ago, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced another group of 13 consultants will look at ways to hike taxes to pay for transit. The leader of the pack, Anne Golden, will make $900 a day — to a maximum of $90,000 for three months. And finally, among the dross, theres this gem: • “We will govern with honesty and integrity.” Hmm. Cancelled gas plants, deleted e-mails. You decide. This is what happens when a government spends money like water for a decade, while blowing billions on scandals like eHealth and Ornge. A government that has doubled the province’s debt to almost $300 billion, runs record deficits year after year and now spends $10.4 billion annually just to pay off interest on debt, without reducing the principal. Inevitably, something has to give and it’s never the jobs of the cabinet ministers and bureaucrats who created the mess in the first place. Time to make them accountable. Get the Liberals out of office before they can do any more damage to Ontario.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 12:07:27 +0000
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