Fuschi’s Canadian Forum

If Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals were car manufacturers, they would think nothing of trying to market a car without an engine.

This is the clear impression left by the Ontario throne speech. (Probably called that because it appears to have been written in a "throne moment".) Having committed to 20,000 new post-secondary education spaces, McGuinty indifferently admitted that he had no idea how we were going to pay for them. What’s an engine, anyway?

That he would do this is not a big surprise. Recall that his recent drive to implement full-day kindergarten, - at a projected eventual cost of $1.5 billion yearly - also came without pesky financing details. And, in case you have not yet had enough, let’s also remember that Dwight Duncan told us that they would get around to assessing how they would pay the deficit piper, ..sometime later on. What, me worry?

It is hard even for someone like me, - who never for a moment expected a cogent, realistic fiscal/economic plan from a Liberal - not to be awed by the monumental indifference of the Dalton Gang. Where Bob Rae was in high seas clearly beyond his depth, and quickly being abandoned by his favourite ideological lifesavers, these guys don’t appear to give a damn. They are not even faking a plan for redemption. Their only grasp on reality seems to be their consistent effort to buy the last available vote of Ontario’s teaching establishment.

Commenting on the challenge presented by his pie-in-the-sky promises, McGuinty admitted that "finding the money will not be easy." Even for a man used to fabricating stories of an incredible green Ontario where jobs will grow on renewable trees, and power will come from millions of propellers mounted to everyone’s beanie hats,… this piece of fudge is a mouthful. Personally I believe his plan for more revenue is far more transparent than that.

When the HST is in place (because the people of Ontario laid down and let it happen) and the federal government is in charge of collection, it will also be the recipient of blame from unsophisticated critics. At that time, the latitude for rate increases will be as high as the sky.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 6:41 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.