There are definitely similarities between the 2014 Ontario election and the current presidential campaign. And if these parallels hold true, Hillary Clinton will be the 45th president of the United States no matter how many scandals she becomes embroiled in.
The Liberal Party has held power in Ontario since 2003; first under Dalton McGuinty and then Kathleen Wynne. Liberal corruption and scandals were well known when the voters went to the polls in 2014 but the voters not only rewarded the scandal-plagued government with re-election but the Liberals went from a minority government to a majority. Why?
The answer is quite simple. Tim Hudak, the leader of the Progressive Conservatives, the only other party with a realistic chance of forming the government, said something dumb during the campaign. With that, as has often been said, the PC leader snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It would take a thick tome to detail all Liberal Party scandals but here are some of Dalton’s and Kathy’s greatest hits.
McGuinty’s Initial Big Lie
During the 2003 election campaign, McGuinty looked directly into the cameras and, with a straight face, told Ontarians they would not pay one penny more in taxes than they were already paying. Once elected, the Liberals wasted no time imposing a health tax, the largest tax increase in the province’s history.
But McGuinty would not admit he lied. He said don’t be silly, it was not a tax but a health care “premium.” At one time the province did require residents to pay health care premiums. Collective agreements between the province and its public service unions contained clauses that required the government as employer to pay these premiums. Although long since abolished, the clause was never removed from some of the collective agreements. These unions and their members yelled “Yippee!!!” because the government was going to have to pay, not them.
McGuinty told them not to be silly; it wasn’t a premium, it was a tax (a court later held it was in fact a tax).
This “it’s a tax, it’s a premium, it’s a tax” set the tone for the next 11 years of government in Ontario.
eHealth
eHealth was set up in 2008 in an attempt to put the health records of all Ontarians online. Its creation followed a similar program that failed to work.
The following year, the Auditor General of Ontario found about $1 billion of taxpayers’ money had been wasted. Much of this money was given to outside companies and consultants who turned out to be friends of the Liberal Party. Jim McCarter, the auditor general, found millions and millions were dished out to these entities without any competitive bid process. The AG found eHealth had no more than 30 employees but had retained the services of 300 consultants.
The consultants were paid amounts of up to $2,750 a day and still expensed small amounts of money to the government for such necessaries as coffee and muffins. CEO Sarah Kramer believed she had the support of the government to enter into untendered contracts. The self-indulgent Kramer spent thousands and thousands of dollars for limousine rides and resigned her $380,000 a year job in 2009. After spending just 10 months squandering taxpayer money at eHealth, she was rewarded with severance pay of $317,000 and given a bonus of $114,000.
Ornge
Ornge is Ontario’s air ambulance service. Created in 2006, it quickly became mired in scandal. Auditor General McCarter found the government poured hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars into it with hardly any oversight. Those in charge of the ambulance service created for-profit companies and used public money to benefit themselves and these companies. One of these subsidiaries purchased a building and then leased it back to Ornge at a rent that was 40% higher than market value, benefitting the subsidiary and screwing the taxpayers. The agency purchased more helicopters and aircraft than it needed and allowed these subsidiaries to use them.
Friends and relatives of the CEO and board members were hired and given high-paying jobs they were unqualified to do. CEO Dr. Chris Mazza earned $9.3 million for the six years he headed Ornge; monies that included salary, bonuses and expenses. He was somehow left off the province’s Sunshine List that requires the names and salaries of government employees who earn more than $100,000 a year to be published.
A dramatic rise in money spent and equipment purchased all occurred at a time when the number of passengers serviced by Ornge dropped. A police investigation was launched.
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Gas Plant Scandal
Perhaps the most egregious scandal was that involving the construction of two gas plants. In the lead up to the 2011 election, people who lived in the ridings where these plants were being built were upset about it. The Liberals under McGuinty saw the possibility of losing these Liberal-held ridings and stopped the construction. The construction of these plants was then re-located. The cost of this stoppage and relocation to taxpayers was over $1 billion. Unlike eHealth and Ornge, the halting of this construction could not be blamed on rogue employees or rationalized as trying to benefit the health of Ontarians. It was a blatant political move pure and simple.
McGuinty eventually resigned because of this and was replaced by Wynne. But around the time of change in leadership, allegations arose over Hillary-style deletion of emails and police commenced another investigation. During the McGuinty years, Wynne held major cabinet portfolios and was at the cabinet table when decisions about the gas plant relocations were made.
These are just three of major scandals involving the corrupt Liberal government. Although the Liberal-loving media bought the rogue-employee excuse and the occasional “I’m sorry,” these and other scandals were duly reported. Even Ontarians who paid attention to the news only occasionally watching or reading the mainstream media were aware of all the scandals. So in the midst of this waste and corruption, how did the Wynne Liberals manage to go from a minority to a majority?
There was only one reason why she was able to do this—Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak. He said something extremely dumb that doomed him and his party from even coming close.
During the first week of the campaign and unbeknownst to party members, even other candidates, Hudak announced he was going to slash the province’s civil service by 100,000 jobs. But he failed to release a detailed plan of how he intended to do this.
Hudak left the impression, not only with progressives but with voters who were undecided and even his supporters, that he was simply going to fire 100,000 people. And to make things worse, he seemed to be enjoying the prospect. He came across as a cheap version of Donald Trump saying: “You’re fired!”
There is no doubt that the Ontario civil service that has grown dramatically since 2003 is too large. This increase was deliberate and done for the following three reasons. First, progressive economic theory provides the more high-paying government jobs that are created, the more money employees have to inject into the economy and everyone prospers. Why totally communist countries have never been economic powerhouses remains a mystery to these people.
A second reason is the more well-paid civil servants there are, the more money their unions can rake in that can be kicked back to the Liberals to keep union-friendly policies in place. And of course, a huge increase in civil servants results in a larger number of lifetime Liberal Party voters and supporters.
The third reason is that the Liberals are working hard to perfect a total nanny state. More and more government employees are needed to exert more control over more aspects of Ontarians’ lives.
But there is a flip side to a bloated civil service that eventually doomed Hudak and the PCs. Because the civil service has grown so much, government employees are everywhere. To use an old expression, you can’t swing a dead cat in Toronto without hitting a civil servant. Hell, I can’t even roll over in my sleep without hitting a retired one.
They’re everywhere! It would be rare to live in the province’s capital without having relatives, friends, acquaintances and neighbours who are employed by the Ontario government. These are real people who friend or relative wants to see fired simply to reduce numbers. This is regardless of how costly and socially useless many of their jobs are.
The 2014 election would have turned out differently had Hudak bothered to come up with a plan to cut the provincial workforce. He could have talked about a freeze on new hires, reductions through attrition or proposed buyouts that would help the province financially in the long run. But no, he stuck to simply getting rid of 100,000 civil servants. Hudak fit perfectly into the stereotype that the left have of conservatives of being mean and not caring about people.
When it comes to voting, are Americans really any different than Ontarians? If there are similarities, the following comparisons can be made.
Prior to the 2014 election, the Liberal government was mired in scandals and subject to several police investigations by the Ontario Provincial Police. But that did not prevent Wynne from getting sufficient votes to take her party from a minority position to a majority. It became obvious there were enough voters that simply did not care about this corruption as long as they personally felt they would be better off under a Liberal government. While the government wasted billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars, Wynne retained support from those who stood to benefit from government waste; civil servants. those who live off government benefits and employees and relatives of Liberal-friendly companies the government threw billions at for such ridiculous things as saving the planet from climate change. In the end, it was enough to keep the corrupt government in power.
Once enough people were willing to overlook the scandals because the government benefited them, future scandals had no consequence. And so it will be with Clinton.
If the United States was to be attacked by aliens from another planet (or undocumented extraterrestrials to be politically correct) who killed tens of thousands with death rays, Americans would be shocked. But would they be shocked if they later learned these aliens were financed by money from the Clinton Foundation? Not so much.
If the U.S. election has similarities to Ontario’s last election, most people who support Clinton are not likely to abandon the Democrat no matter what other scandals and corruption surfaces or what information Wikileaks releases between now and November. Trump calling Mrs. Clinton “Crooked Hillary” is cutesy but unlikely to get a lot of Clinton supporters to abandon her. Many of her supporters do not pay enough attention to know she is crooked or believe she is an innocent victim of a vast right wing conspiracy.
More importantly, many on the left who claim they care about the poor, the downtrodden, and all minority groups will end up voting for the candidate they feel will benefit their lives the most. As long as Clinton continues to promise a bunch of “free stuff,” her support is not likely to significantly decline. As with Wynne, additional scandals or police investigations or proof of wrongdoing are in the general scheme of things of little relevance.
But like Clinton, Wynne is too big to jail
Like Clinton, many people are constantly saying Wynne should be charged and imprisoned. But like Clinton, Wynne is too big to jail. Regarding Clinton, FBI Director James Comey could not have been clearer; Clinton had no intent to release classified information so she could not be successfully prosecuted even though the requirement for a conviction is only proof of gross negligence. The FBI director warned mere mortals if they did what she did, they would be prosecuted. Comey could not have acknowledged this double standard any better.
While Clinton will never be prosecuted let alone jailed because of the power of the Obama administration, Wynne’s case is slightly different. While the government is under five police investigations by the Ontario Provincial Police, her government awarded the OPP an extremely favourable contract prior to the 2014 election. The OPP union was so pleased with this they took the unheard of step of running TV ads against the PC party during the last election. This has led to at least the perception Wynne bought off the cops who are investigating her and her government.
Like Wynne, it is so remote Clinton will ever be prosecuted, allegations of criminal acts will not be a deterrent to winning the election.
Clinton, as did Wynne, benefits from the mainstream media who many claim are biased. The truth is they have passed bias a long time ago and are acting as cheerleaders for their beloved candidate. But complaining about how bad and unfair the media is doesn’t change anything. They are what they are.
Media is never going to be fair to Republicans, let alone Trump
It is a fact of life, the media is never going to be fair to Republicans, let alone Trump. A recent example illustrates this point. When Trump mused perhaps the NRA could take care of Clinton he was accused of calling for her assassination. But when Clinton was losing the primary to Obama in 2008 and the media asked her if she was going to drop out she said “no” because it was only May and Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June. Even though she used the word “assassination,” the media downplayed it, referring to it as merely “a gaffe.” These tactics are extremely successful with low information voters.
Hudak received similar treatment by the liberal media but his party was wiped out two years ago because what he said turned off a significant number of people who may have voted PC. Trump has not yet had a “Hudak moment” but given his unscripted comments, it is a distinct future possibility. Trump has come close to losing a lot of potential supporters with his comments after being given a Purple Heart. Trump said, “I always wanted to get a Purple Heart. This was much easier.”
That statement was an insult to veterans, those serving in the military, and especially those who were wounded or killed in action and their families. Future comments such as this are likely to erode his base and discourage others from voting for him.
Ontario has shown that corruption is not a job-killer when it comes to trying to lead a government. As with Wynne, future revelations of Clinton’s corruption are not going to make a difference as long as she continues to tell a lot of people what they want to hear.
Clinton is almost irrelevant to the outcome of the election. It will be Trump who determines who the next president of the United States will be.
There are definitely similarities between the 2014 Ontario election and the current presidential campaign. And if these parallels hold true, Hillary Clinton will be the 45th president of the United States no matter how many scandals she becomes embroiled in.
The Liberal Party has held power in Ontario since 2003; first under Dalton McGuinty and then Kathleen Wynne. Liberal corruption and scandals were well known when the voters went to the polls in 2014 but the voters not only rewarded the scandal-plagued government with re-election but the Liberals went from a minority government to a majority. Why?
The answer is quite simple. Tim Hudak, the leader of the Progressive Conservatives, the only other party with a realistic chance of forming the government, said something dumb during the campaign. With that, as has often been said, the PC leader snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It would take a thick tome to detail all Liberal Party scandals but here are some of Dalton’s and Kathy’s greatest hits.
