The opposition parties at Queen’s Park have been attacking Dalton McGuinty over what has become the national pastime of Canadian Liberal parties --doling out advertising contracts to their friends. During the first year that McGuinty’s Liberals were in power, they gave contracts to the advertising firm of Bensimon-Byrne that totaled $6.3 million. The firm had been on the list of approved suppliers during the tenure of the previous Progressive Conservative government, but in the Tories’ final year, the firm only received about $100,000 worth of work.
What really caused a stir with the opposition was the fact that the agency’s creative guy, Peter Byrne, worked as a "volunteer" on the Liberal Party’s 2003 provincial campaign. Byrne is credited with such advertising gems as Dalton’s famous "you won’t pay one penny more in taxes under a McGuinty government" line. and we all know what happened next. after taking office, McGuinty hit the poor misled residents of the province with a whopping health tax that cost some Ontarians an extra $900 a year. Dalton, of course denied that it was even a tax and said that it was a health care "premium". That lasted until some provincial employees revealed that under their collective agreements, their employer, the government, was responsible for health premiums. Consistency never being one of Dalton’s strong points, the premier told them not to be so silly; that wasn’t a health care premium; it was a tax.
The contracts that were awarded to Bensimon-Byrne were just the normal, everyday rewarding of political friends that all parties engage in. But this being Canada, where the phrase, "Liberal-friendly advertising firms" is synonymous with corruption, we have to ask if the province got $6.3 worth of work from Benison-Byrne. If they did (and there is no suggestion that value for money was not provided) this is a real step up for those who proudly call themselves "Liberals". It’s a far cry from what their federal cousins did--give millions to their ad agencies buddies for either doing nothing or for simply passing money around from one Liberal crony to the other. They actually worked to earn the money. When you look at it from that perspective, the Benison-Byrne contracts appear almost noble.
It is understandable that the opposition wants to attack McGuinty and the Liberals over the awarding of huge contracts to a Liberal-friendly ad firm. after all, that’s their job. But more than that, Dalton McGuinty is so much fun to pick on. It’s hard to explain but it’s almost as if Dalton walks around with a "kick me" sign on his back. It is easy to see why the education premier is more concerned about bullying in schools than he is about say, blood splattered churches in the northwest area of Toronto or the loss of jobs in the automotive industry.
But the opposition should cut McGuinty some slack on this one. Let’s face it, when it comes to patronage and rewarding friends, they all do it; even the self-righteous NDP when unsuspecting voters accidentally put them in power as happened in 1990. as Peter C. Newman pointed out in his book, The Secret Mulroney Tapes the former Tory PM first began running into difficulties with the electorate over patronage. It wasn’t the fact that he was engaging in it; it was because he had scored that famous knockout punch over John Turner regarding Liberal patronage that everyone paid more attention to the patronage that he doled out. Criticism over these types of contracts is something that could come back to haunt the opposition; especially the Tories who have a good chance to form the next provincial government.
But there is a more important reason why the opposition should just drop it. By the time the 2007 election is over the Conservatives and the NDP will have gotten more use out of Peter Byrne’s "not one penny more" slogan than Dalton McGuinty ever did. Just as George H.W. Bush was done in by his "read my lips, no new taxes", Dalton’s "not one penny more" is bound to come back and haunt him. at least George never paid big bucks to come up with the one liner that ultimately did him in. Then again, our Dalton never was any good with money. If the opposition parties are really concerned about the taxpayers being ripped off, they should reimburse the government for at least what that slogan would cost.
"You won’t pay one penny more in taxes under a McGuinty government". That one line was worth every single one of those 630 million pennies that the taxpayers forked over to Benison-Byrne. Happy campaigning, Dalton.