by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
February 25, 2005
Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty is getting quite the reputation as a fighter. He's taken on the feds with his demands that the Paul Martin fork over $5 billion of the obscene surplus that the federal government has. Dalton has learned what Newfoundland has learned; if you yell and scream loud enough, Paul Martin eventually stops his dithering and caves. and here we all thought that Dalton was a liar not a fighter. Strange things sure do happen in the world of politics.
McGuinty's government has brought in fixed election dates with the next trip to the polls to be held on October 4, 2007. and no doubt Dalton will be seeking a second term. and he's probably got a good shot at getting one; after all, electing Liberal governments that consistently lie to the voters is Canada's national sport, especially now that hockey is gone.
There is at least one advantage to McGuinty sticking around after the next election. The Liberal premier is ridding the province of socialism, something that no Liberal or PC government has ever been able to do. Give the guy one more term and he will destroy the red menace in the province of Ontario forever (okay, the NDP are not really a red menace; they are more like a pink nuisance).
No, Dalton isn't doing anything that is making the New Democrats fade away. What he is doing with his inane and idiotic policies is turning the socialists into half-crazed libertarians who are becoming the defenders of the over taxed and the spokespersons for freedom and liberty.
It started last December when Dalton and his boys and girls pushed the theory than banning things doesn't cost the government any money and made simple ban of everything from junk food in schools to pit bulls a mainstay of their legislative work. But the government went a little too far when Minister of Health George Smitherman planned to ban previously unfrozen sushi, the eating of which has caused no known illness or death in the province. That hit the NDP right between the trendy bistros that they all like to frequent. The proposed sushi ban caused NDP leader Howard Hampton to say, "You hear it everywhere--get out of my face, stop telling me how to live, stop telling me what to think. People do not want Dalton McGuinty or George Smitherman telling them how to raise their kids, what values they should believe in or shouldn't believe in." Wow! Howard has a bright future after politics, teaching advanced conservative principles to the Belinda wing of the Conservative Party of Canada.
This week, Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar introduced amendments to the Highway Traffic act that included increasing fines for those who fail to yield to pedestrians from $60 to $150. In introducing the bill, Takhar said, "The heartbreaking truth is that children are nearly five times more likely to be killed walking or running out on to a street than adults".
We all know that historically the NDP's major reason d'etre is to protect the most vulnerable in society. and other than the elderly, the poor, the physically disabled, the mentally challenged, gays, lesbians, the transgendered, visible minorities and women, who could possibly be more vulnerable than children? You would think that the NDP would praise this measure. Wrong.
NDP transportation critic, Gilles Bosson called the measure a cash grab. That's hardly something you would expect a veteran member of a party whose entire five year term in power was spent trying to get more money out of the taxpayers. Slowly but surely, Dalton's driving the socialist NDP to somewhere to the right of Rush Limbaugh.
Bosson's is right of course. The measure is nothing more than a desperate move to bring in more money. after all, are drivers really going to say to themselves, well now that the fine has gone up by $90, I better not kill a kid because it's getting too expensive? Of course not. If these accidents are the fault of drivers and not the children we already have a plethora of laws to cover those situations, dangerous driving being the most serious. But dangerous driving is a criminal code offence that doesn't rake in big bucks for the provincial coffers. Bosson was right when he said that without increasing enforcement of those laws, which of course costs money, raising the fines is nothing more than a cash grab. Mike Harris couldn't have put it any better.
Dalton McGuinty has turned the once proud socialist party into a bunch of libertarians and conservatives. Remember this in 2007--ban the socialist hordes from Ontario; reelect Dalton!