We can't win for losing...

If we vote for Kathleen Wynne we get a continuation of McGuinty's mess, plus her do nothing budget (see: http://gerry-stopthebull.blogspot.ca/2014/05/could-kathleen-wynne-possibly-be-dalton.html for my comments on this.) About the only thing acceptable about it was the vague promise to reduce auto insurance premiums ('sometime'), but like tomorrow, it never came.

If we cast our vote for Andrea Howarth we get hit with another $100M expenditure on day care, which for a single, senior citizen is hardly a reason to jump for joy. (Does anyone, Anyone, know how much we spend in aggregate on child welfare--from 'pecker-cheques', to athletic grants and cultural incentives??)

And now we are told that Tim Hudak, who so far has failed to come up with one innovative idea beyond reducing the corporate tax from 11% to 8% ( I pay 18%) in order to create a million jobs right after he fires 100,000 civil servants!

So who would be affected if Hudak made good on his pledge? Well, according to Kaylie Tiessen, economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Ontario office, and Kayle Hatt , research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, just about everone--whether they wanted to or not, i.e.

Statistics Canada indicates there were 88,483 Ontario public servants in the general government category in 2012, the most recent year of data available.

This includes the core public service, agencies, boards and commissions (such as Metrolinx, the Ontario Municipal Board, the Niagara Falls Bridge authority and several hundred other organizations), provincial police and judicial employees.

Certainly, not every job in the provincial government would be axed. That means the job cuts would have to reach into the broader public sector and impact service areas such as public education and health care. At his press conference last Friday, Hudak confirmed that teachers would be on the chopping block saying, “Will it mean fewer teachers? It does.”

Eliminating 100,000 jobs would amount to 15.3 per cent of Ontario’s provincial public servants — 1.5 per cent of the total jobs in Ontario.

Using that multiplier, we estimate the impact of cutting 100,000 good jobs out of Ontario’s economy would result in the loss of an additional 50,000 private sector jobs — because those who used to be employed in the public sector would no longer have the money they need to participate in the local economy, go to movies, eat at local restaurants and shop in local stores.

And this is a conservative estimate. Others have estimated private sector job losses to be as high as 67,000.

[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/05/18/tim_hudaks_public_sector_cuts_more_extreme_than_harris_years.html.]

And not even seniors are going to be spared when "Mighty-Mo" swings his ax. The “healthy homes renovation tax credit” that pays senior citizens up to $1,500 to improve bathrooms and stairs to enable them to remain in their houses longer — and out of costly long-term care facilities — would be axed.

The cry used to be "Lord protect me from the Huns," then it was "the Norsemen," and now it's the "Three horsepersons of the Apocalypse."

A pox on all their house, I say!