So what is there to say today? We’re back with Premier Dad, who lied to us, and cheated us, but you know, we didn’t know the other guy, so, you know, we went with him. Great. Get ready for some more taxes, folks!

I do not want to come off as a sore loser, because I hate that, I hated that the last federal election when all the lefties were sore losers, and are still talking about the “60% that didn’t vote for them”. I do not want to do that. The people of Ontario voted for the Liberals, they won fair and square according to the system we have, and we have to accept that. What I am wondering, though, is HOW it came to be.

The Seinfeld Campaign.

Let’s face it: the campaign was about NOTHING. I mean, come on, taking HST off of Hydro? What’s that, like $20 a month? A $1,500 tax credit for seniors so they can renovate their homes? Really? How much money does a $1,500 tax credit give you in your pocket, like $200? Oh, you can do a lot of renovating for $200. Ever been to the Home Depot and picked up some wood? $200 doesn’t even begin to pay the taxes! And I don’t even know what the NDP was offering, oh yes, a cap on gas prices. Really? And what else was there in the platforms… More tax-credits for some group or another. I mean, really, what was this campaign about? It was about piddly things. Things that don’t matter. “We’re for  familes!”, “No, WE are for families!”, “No, WE are!”. Come on. Where are the bold ideas, like tackling the deficit in a meaningful way, like not just extending the credit limit, but paying off your balance. Tax reform that will simplify the system and make it more equal, like a flat tax system, where everyone pays a fixed percentage of their income, no longer stifling entrepreneurship. Fix healthcare once and for all by allowing a private delivery system, paid for with your OHIP card, that will take the strain off of our hospitals. Come up with a doable, affordable energy policy, like waste-to-energy, which kills two birds with one stone. Tackle pollution, and really punish the ones breaking the law. No, we’re talking about $20 a month off your hydro bill, a once a year $200 payment to be able to renovate your house, and capping your gas price at $1.20 a litre. Whoop-de-doo. So what do most people do when there is a choice between three parties that are the same? They go with the status quo. That’s Human Nature.

No consequences

In a way, the result reflects today’s parenting style: even though little Johnny put spray-paint all over the neighbour’s wall, we praise him for the nice artwork, apologize to the neighbor, but forgo the punishment, in order to secure Johnny’s friendship. And therein lies the problem: even when talking about prisons, the words “rehabilitation” and “deterrent” come up, yet the word “punishment” is never uttered. We live in a society where “keeping the peace” and “keep it slow and steady” is more important than making people face the consequences of their actions. What does that say about our society? We all ran to the comforting safety of Daddy, even though you know Daddy is a lying, cheating bastard. That’s OK. He’s Daddy, he’ll take care of us. We forgive him his past lies, and will go “forward” with him.

The media

I have a real axe to grind with the media, especially the “news”. I put “news” in quotes, because, for some reason, and I don’t know when this changed, the “news” is no longer just the news, it is a nightly opinion-piece. Thirty years ago, the news was just the news. The (boringish) anchor was sitting in front of a (boringish) set, just reading the news: “In Ottawa, the government passed a bill that makes it illegal to shoot someone”. You know, the NEWS. Now it’s an opinion piece, and every anchor and correspondent has to throw in their two cents worth. And don’t even get me started on the newspapers, which should be reclassified as opinion magazines, like MacLeans. And I have heard many time before “oh, I stopped following the news, I get my own information”, well that’s fine for you, but unfortunately the masses still watch the “news” on TV, or read it in the newspapers, and take it for “news”, rather than the opinion of the anchor or editor that it really is.

All of a sudden, the week before the election the media started talking about “the coming storm” referencing a new recession. Even though Canada’s finance minister has not talked about a coming recession, nor has the Bank of Canada, but there it was. So where did it come from? It came from Dalton McGuinty’s mouth: “the coming storm, and we need an experienced leader to weather it”. And there you go. This is how the “news” influences the voter.

Polls

Polls are no good for anything. Really. They influence the people that like to follow the crowd, which seems to be the majority of people. The “Orange Crush” syndrome: people that want to be a part of history, rather than vote with their convictions. You can make an argument that a poll can also motivate the troops if your party is behind, but that is just the point: on election day, we only start counting votes after all polling stations are closed, in order not to influence the polls that close later, yet we allow polls to be done and published, that constantly influence the outcome all through the campaign. But does this blindly following the polls say something about polling, or something about us?

People 1) don’t care, 2) are selfish and 3) stupid

1. And this is the kicker: people don’t care. One the one hand, they say they don’t care about politics, and don’t vote, because “They are all the same. They all lie and cheat to get elected”, and on the other, they keep re-electing proven liars. If there is no punishment for the crime, the politician will just keep on lying, and keep on getting re-elected. We’re creating our own prophecy here.
2. People will vote for what will be good for them, rather than what is good for us all. That is also Human Nature. Promise someone a $100 tax credit, “oh, that’s better than paying off the provincial debt, I get $100!”.
3. A $100 tax credit, is NOT $100 in your pocket people!! Come on!

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So what to think of all this? At the end of the day, after all is said and done, democracy prevailed, the majority got their choice, and at the very least, we have to be happy about THAT.

I am just wondering if the founding fathers of democracy ever thought of the fact that the people who vote are uninterested, ill informed, selfish followers who have no concept of “the greater good”.

It all started with this innocent looking Tweet by @BradDuguid:

New #energy rates today show average home bill this May compared to last May remained the same http://bit.ly/cdpKw

There is so much wrong with this tweet, I barely know where to start.

OK, first off, unless Mr. Brad NoGood Duguid has a friend named Doc, and access to a DeLorean Time Machine, there is NO WAY he can know what his MAY Hydro bill will be like, since it is April 20.

Secondly, Hydro JUST announced another 8% increase taking effect May 1st. That is on top of another 9% that was implemented in August 2010, and another 8% of HST on top of all that. There are also numerous smaller increases throughout May 2010-May 2011.

So, this is AT LEAST a 32% increase in rates since last May, and Mr. Duguid is saying a mere 10% bribe discount off your bill will cover that. In fact, he says all of our future fictitious Hydro bills are the same as our May 2010 bills. Quite the foresight, there.

I think it’s time for Mr. Duguid to acquire a calculator. Or at least a brain.

So McGuinty quietly takes another $18 million out of our pockets. This time because we didn’t want something, we took a stand, and these are the penalties for that little victory we scored last year. It’s like we can’t win for losing. This, of course, comes right on the heels of another $18 million we have to pay to reimburse Hydro One’s legal fees after losing a court case vs us, the taxpayers, for overcharging us.

And you’re thinking: that’s only $36 million. That’s nothing. That’s like a $1 a person in Ontario. Yes, $1 a person. TODAY. Tomorrow there’ll be another $1 for some other inept policy, and another the day after that. And at the end of the month that comes to $30 (except for February, don’t think you’re smarter than me). And at the end of the year, it’s a $365 bill. That’s $365 that used to be in our pockets. Gone.  And for what? Gross incompetence.

The way I see it, the only way to stop this, is to kick McGuinty out of office this fall. Surely he deserves it.

Vote Ontario PC.

Sometimes I’m forced to watch Global TVs 5:30 news. Sometimes I linger long enough, past the dire Global Warming footage, and “green” energy announcements, to catch the promo for the six o’clock Global Toronto News. You know, the promos where the local figureheads are walking around Toronto, touting about how much they know about what’s going on. What I saw last night had me falling off my chair.

The promo starts. Here we have the two figureheads, Anne Mroczkowski and Leslie Roberts. They are in a gym and an irate guy comes up to them with a bill complaining about how expensive it has gotten. The figureheads reply (paraphrasing):

Oh, yes, the bill has gone up another 8% when the HST was introduced. Ottawa is taking that money and giving less of it back to Toronto.

Here’s the thing. I, and people who read my blog on a regular basis, know this is utterly false and misleading. The extra 8% on top of the gym bill constitutes the PST portion of the HST, and, of course, ends up at Queen’s Park, NOT in Ottawa. Ottawa does not get ANYTHING extra from the HST, and is in fact, out $4B that it has given to the province to ease the transition. I am worried about the average (brain-dead) viewer in Toronto though, who just laps up anything Global serves to them. And this promo is exempting McGuinty, whom we desperately have to get out of office this fall.

Problem is, that this is a promo for a NEWS SHOW. They are supposed to report the news, not promote any one political party over another. However, in one promo it is helping Dalton McGuinty in exempting him from the higher HST bills, AND laying the blame solely on The Harper Government (see what I did there?).

I think Global Toronto is starting to see McGuinty might lose this fall!

Need a link to this promo video. I you have one, let me know!

This strategy is so brilliant, I wish I’d had thought of it: invent your opponent’s platform, release it, and then attack it as if it was real. A conveniently leaked “closed door” meeting revealed the Tory platform to the media. The made-up platform contained a whole bunch of stuff that people don’t like, so along with snide remarks by Liberal officials, the LPO Twitter-sphere went crazy attacking this newly released fictional Tory platform, spreading “the word” as if it was the truth. I tell ya, it’s not a bad idea.

The Ontario liberals are so out of ideas, last week they asked the public for guidance. I guess anything will help at this point. They even asked for Opposition platforms, so they could steal some good ideas from them. And now this.

Unfortunately, the Ontario voter seems to be so far removed from reality, this strategy might just work:

PC’s will close all hospitals*

* we made this up

If the Ontario voter is stupid enough to believe this crap, than they deserve a third term with Dalton.

I understand you need some votes, but to go as far as to threaten people to actually vote for you in order to keep you far away in Toronto for four more years is going too far.

link

Waking up this morning, I am left wondering: how much more can we take? It seems that every morning there is a new idiotic “green” announcement that makes no economical or ecological sense.

This one involves IKEA, the Green (furniture) Giant. The Swedish company is using one of Ontario’s ill-conceived green energy programs to install 6.4M dollars’ worth of (taxpayer subsidized) solar panels on some of their stores so they can generate energy and claim to be (taxpayer subsidized) “Carbon Neutral”. I say “taxpayer subsidized” because, although the initial investment is covered by IKEA, the good government of Ontario (ie: you) is going to pay IKEA a whopping 71.3¢ for each kilowatt of power produced. At this rate, IKEA will be making back its investment in about 7 years, and since solar panels are good for about 20 years, IKEA will be making good coin off the taxpayer of Ontario for the following 13 years, AND can affix a “prestigious” (for those who still believe) Carbon Neutral statement on their front doors.

And Dalton just stands there and smiles and says this is A-OK.

Next October can’t come soon enough.

I just hope Walmart doesn’t find out…

The same professional “protesters” who keep crashing the G8 and G20 summits everywhere. Organized, and bused in, carrying weapons and wearing ski masks, these are no ordinary protesters. These are anarchists. Most of the time, these idiots don’t even know what they are protesting. All they look for is clashing with local police to get them on the evening news crying about police brutality.

Go home and get a life, you bums.

Toronto mayor Miller came to Giambrone’s aid today saying “The government has no business in the bedroom of the nation” (I know, highly original).

Excuse me, if I was living in Toronto, and was headed for the polls this fall, I’d say: “I would  like to know whether I am voting for a nice, upstanding man with integrity or a lying, cheating sleaze ball.”

But I don’t live in Toronto, so I won’t say that.

Here is today’s Ottawa Citizen front page:

Can you find him? Can you?

I’ll enlarge the section I’m talking about:

‘Nuff said…

Randall Denley had a great column in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday: Magic money just a McGuinty trick about Dalton’s new found money to help those poor Nortel employees who lost their pensions just before there happens to be a by election in their riding.

He writes:

Ottawa West-Nepean Liberal candidate Bob Chiarelli wished that the provincial government had done something to help angry Nortel pensioners who live in his riding. Presto, no sooner had Chiarelli made his wish than Finance Minister Dwight Duncan made it a reality. And on a Sunday, too.

and:

In April of last year, the premier said he just couldn’t guarantee help for the Nortel pensioners. There was no by election then, of course.

Randall fails to mention though, the same thing happened a few years back with hospital funding in Toronto when Georgie Smitherman needed to be elected in his riding.

Earlier this week, to the question if this is just vote buying in the eyes of the voters, Dalton replied arrogantly: “the voters of Ontario will have a chance to let us know how they feel come election time” [paraphrased]. Well, the “voters of Ontario” will only be able to vote on this nearly two years from now (and we all know how long the memory of the average Ontario voter lasts), and the voters in the West-Nepean riding sure aren’t as objective as the rest of us, now are they?

Mr. McGuinty announced his latest project today: 7 billion dollars goes to South Korea, for which a consortium led by Samsung will build and set up wind and solar farms across Ontario. The government has guaranteed them to pay above-market prices for green power. For all this, they’ll create 15,000 jobs.

So, to recap, we’re paying Samsung to build unproven wind and solar farms, and we’ll be buying over-priced power from them after. In addition, we paid nearly half a million dollars for each job created.

How does this help us?

I suppose the commercial is right: there is no place like McGuinty’s Ontario…

The twelfth gift that Dalton gave to us

Twelve friends with handouts

Eleven denied taxes

Ten decades’ suff’rin’

Nine wisemen checkin’

Eight points of taxes

Seven solar farm plans

Six scandalled outfits

Five aging coal plants

Four product bans

Three sizes too small

Two frightened people

And a health tax to pay for our debt

I want you to turn your attention to this McSquinty commercial, for the 2007 Provincial election. First, I want you to skip through the first minute of Liberal Propaganda, and head for the 1:00 mark and start listening (don’t watch his face or you might get sucked into it too!). Folks, he got elected on that 40 seconds of speech:

Now, merely two years later, we have a McGuinty-is-against-but-still-approved ”Afro- centered” high school in Toronto, and now he is mulling over a school for boys. I suppose boys and girls are just too different to be sharing a classroom. Our children who “need to be sharing a classroom together to learn from and accept their differences”, can’t really be expected to do that and are now being segregated one by one.

After watching people being more outraged by the Governour General’s real title than a 1 billion dollar eHealth scandal, and another slew of announcements (like: Dalton Days, insurrance going up 10-20%, numerous taxes [electronics, paint, tires etc.]) that didn’t inspire ANYONE to raise some questions, it seems the Ontario electorate just doesn’t care.

And that’s a very sad thing.

Guinty & Smithy are just running wild now. One boondoggle after another. There seems to be no way to stop them.

The latest stupidity project is taking shape in Almonte. Mr. eHealth Scandal himself, George Smitherman, was on-hand to unveil the latest proof of incompetence: Two-hundred acres of prime, fertile farm land has been leased to a French company, that, for the lovely sum of $100,000,000 of Ontario taxpayer dollars, will erect a “solar wonder of the world” and, get this, will be paid $0.42 per kW/h to generate electricity. We currently pay, say, 0.06 per kW/h for coal/hydro/nuclear, so that will be an increase of seven hundred percent to the cost of electricity. AND we have to pay them to build it. On top of that, there will be an 8% increase once Dalton’s Rip-off Tax goes through next summer.

They say the project will start to generate electricity in December. Uhm.. after they hired some students to wipe the snow off of these miles and miles of solar panels. Yeah, solar energy is a real good idea: first off, you lose 2/3 of the day because there is no sun, and then you lose 1/3 of the year because there is snow sitting on these things.

And Dalton’s planning numerous projects like this one over the next three years.

Can we please get this guy out of office before he bankrupts all of us?

Read and cringe.