Biggest story yesterday was, without a doubt, the eHealth auditor’s report on a $1B WASTE of OUR MONEY. That was, in fact, the biggest news story this week. On Wednesday morning, the Ottawa Citizen (a CanWest newspaper) reported on David Caplan’s weasley resignation over eHealth on PAGE 4 in a sub-sub column type story, buried far away from the front page. I thought: OK, it’s a CanWest paper. They don’t like to talk dirty about ANY liberal.  Strike one.

So then came on Global TV News (CanWest again) with Kevin Newman, live from Toronto, on Thursday evening. Lead story? How the CONSERVATIVES are NOT ACCOUNTABLE for the stimulus program with their ‘vague’ Action Plan website with only ballpark numbers, and how in the States read more

Ontario’s summer, so far, has been so cold and damp that it is now very hospitable to Heracleum mantegazzianum, also known as the Giant Hogweed, which is native to Russia, and thrived in the early 1970s in (also) damp and cold Britain. Ontario’s summer has been so cold and wet that it closely resembles Britain’s, and as such, the Giant Hogweed is quickly spreading.

The Giant Hogweed is a plant that can grow up to 7 meters tall, and it’s 3 cm thick stems have a clear liquid that, combined with sunlight, can make your skin boil. It was introduced to Britain by a victorian explorer, planted in the Royal Gardens at Kew, and quickly took over the countryside, prompting my read more

This is McGuinty’s Ontario: take money from those who don’t have it, give it to those who don’t need it, to buy cars with that are not made in Ontario and create no Ontario jobs, that run on power we can’t generate. All for a questionable claim that those cars are “green”.

Randall Denley’s got a great column in the Ottawa Citizen today: Why pay Ontarians to buy U.S.-built cars? Highlights include:

Premier Dalton McGuinty’s announcement this week of $10,000 government handouts for buyers of Chevrolet Volts is wrong on so many levels that one has to wonder if the premier is still firing on all cylinders.

he continues:

The batteries of the Volt are expected to last five to eight years, which might read more

Ol’ Tom got me all riled up here. Pensioners in this country, who worked hard all their lives, make $519 a month. And that’s TAXED. And we’re gonna give this crook $317,000 severance? In the seven months she worked for us, she made about $100,000 a month. $100,000 A MONTH. She defrauds the Ontario taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and our “esteemed” health minister Caplan doesn’t even have the guts to fire her. They came to a “mutual decison” to “resign”. Give me a break.

People with MS can’t pay for their meds and are being  cut off. Kids with autism can’t go to their therapy. Going to emergency in this province takes 5-13 hours. Waiting read more

At a speech at an Ottawa Rotary Club, Ontario’s Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson told the members that the Ontario Government now mistrusts the City of Ottawa after they used money designated for infrastructure for snow removal instead.

I suppose the irony is lost on Mr. Watson: he works for the least trustworthy government since Bob Rae had his day(s):

We will not raise your taxes

Right.

As I was standing at 7 am, with about 200 other people, in a dingy and poorly lit hallway, waiting for the doors to open to give us access to the glorious Ontario healthcare a la 2009, I was thinking to myself: I just forked out another $900 last year to make our healthcare system better and faster, shorten wait times and whatever else was promised to us, and here we are, herded like cattle in a small hallway waiting for “the system” to serve us better. We were out at about 10:30. Just to do some bloodwork. Three and a half hours! Some of us have to get back to work, you know. That’s three and a half hours of waiting, read more

One government giveth, the other taketh away.

Lovely isn’t it?

Anyone else find it curious that the first “tax rebate cheques” will be rolling out, uhm, say, three months before the next provincial election? And that’s Federal CONSERVATIVE money, by the way, that the Ontario Liberals will be happily handing out just before they need to be re-elected. And I’m sure we’ll see Dalton “That’s Not True” McGuinty’s trademark fake smile as he pretends to be Santa Clause, and how much do you want to bet he’ll say: “Oh, and btw, this cheque doesn’t come from us, it comes from Ottawa!”

After passing on Ontario’s First Final Offer in November, which was for 12% increase, and passing on Ontario’s Second Really Final Offer in early December, the teachers begrudgingly accepted the province’s Final, Final, Really Final, Officially Final, This Time We Really Mean It Offer yesterday, settling for a mere 10.4%(!) salary increase over four years. They also get improved benefits, and a total of 240 minutes of preparation time (that’s FOUR HOURS folks!) a week, which means, they will even spend less time in the classroom than they do now, but get paid more. With the new agreement, Ontario’s top teacher salary will be around $92,700. Not bad for a job that has the summer off, a week in spring, two read more