Ontario: broke and broken

One wonders what might have been going through Ontarians’ minds or even if they had any minds, in giving one of the nation’s most corrupt and cynical regimes another 5 years at the helm—with a majority to boot! I always think that there is some sort of Stockholm syndrome relationship between Ontario voters and the Liberals.

When you think of past corrupt governments in Canada, Quebec’s Duplessis regime comes to mind, as does that of Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau and of course, who could forget Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Shawinigate or Adscam fame? Yes, government corruption is still alive and well in Ontario, starting with boondoggles such as the E-Health program, which cost a billion dollars and failed to provide any benefit. Then there’s ORNGE, the province’s airborne medevac service that’s been hemorrhaging cash into the private accounts of some of its crooked executives. Not to be ignored is the gas plant scandal that saw Wynne’s predecessor, the Pinocchio-nosed Dalton McGuinty, cancel construction of two unpopular natural gas generating plants at a cost of over $100 million taxpayer dollars, just to save a couple of Liberal seats in order to stay in power. Here’s the picture as it now stands: Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals are so deep in the red that it will take our grandchildren’s great-grandchildren to start paying it off. As of this writing the province’s total debt is just north of $281 billion. 10 years ago the debt was less than half that. But given that Wynne’s nanny state wants to control us from cradle to grave, the have to buy votes using the voters’ own money. That’s why this year the Wynne government is running a $10.5+ billion deficit, which gets tagged on to the provincial debt. In order to generate revenues to continue buying votes and forging alliances with large and influential voter blocs like government workers and teachers’ unions, Wynne is desperately looking for new “revenue streams.” Hence the hare-brained idea to impose an Ontario Pension Plan that takes and average of $2,500 per employee per year out of Ontario’s economy and puts it into government coffers. Does anyone really believe that they will ever see a penny of that money? The Ontario Pension Plan is a solution to a problem that does not exist for the average Ontarian; it only exists for Wynne’s Liberals. And you can bet your bottom dollar that this new “revenue stream” will fund plenty of future boondoggles.

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“Green energy” provides less than 4% of Ontario’s electricity production, yet it accounts for over 30% of its cost

The really bad bad news? Ontario is broken and cannot be repaired, as the so-called Green Energy Act has made the province a place where no new businesses would want to locate, due to the high cost of electricity and its punitive tax regime. Currently the cost of electricity in Ontario is among the highest of any jurisdiction in North America. And businesses need affordable electricity to operate. This is one of the reasons that GM is planning to close all its Canadian Plants and other automakers are heading for places like South Carolina or Alabama. In fact, Automobile production in Ontario has declined 33% over the past decade and is now down to some 600,000 units per annum. This is a problem that isn’t fixable because of the Liberals’ blind faith in “green energy.” Under Dalton McGuinty the Ontario government made a $10 billion deal with South Korean giant Samsung to construct thousands of windmills to generate electricity from wind. One is given to wonder how much of that cash found itself into McGuinty’s pockets or the Liberals’ coffers. Problem is that windmills need traditional power plants, such as hydro, gas or coal-fired as a back up in case the wind isn’t blowing, which generally happens around the time the power is most needed, like at dawn or dusk. “Green energy” provides less than 4% of Ontario’s electricity production, yet it accounts for over 30% of its cost. Worse yet, is the fact that Ontario regularly has to pay millions of dollars to adjoining jurisdictions like New York or Michigan to take the surplus electricity off their hands. It’s a shame that the ‘powerhouse’ of Canada’s economy has devolved into poverty central. Even traditional “have not” provinces are now outperforming Ontario economically and will continue to do so because their leaders are elected by voters demanding results, unlike those hostages held by Ontario’s Liberals.