Team-building with Lego? Property tax agency MPAC slammed for ‘extravagant’ meeting, blocks included

To the people of Vaughan who gave the McGuinty Liberals a mandate.

Have you heard the latest? The Ontario agency in charge of property tax assessments (MPAC) for homeowners is under fire for holding an “extravagant” Toronto convention for hundreds of employees — with Lego in their rooms for team-building exercises. It is the latest the latest Liberal spending scandal to cost taxpayers thousands and thousands of dollars as the province fights a $14.8 billion deficit.

Finance minister Dwight Duncan, in a typical grasp on the obvious, said: “It’s a boneheaded thing to do,” and then used the usual excuse.

“We have no authority over it,” he added, calling the convention “an inappropriate use of municipal tax dollars” and urging local officials throughout the province to express their displeasure to MPAC.

The Conservatives weren’t about to let Duncan off the hook on that, pointing out that he as finance minister appoints the 15-member board of directors of the agency that was the subject of a scathing report several years ago by Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin.

“You don’t have a Lego to stand on,” Tory MPP John Yakabuski (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke) shot at Duncan, prompting politicians of all stripes to break into laughter.

You get what you vote for!!

McGuinty ... Decisions, decisions ...

How much more of Dalton McGuinty's reckless spending can we take!

Have you read the Toronto Sun's assessment of all-day kindergarten's cost? [See: The real cost of all-day kindergarten by Moira McDonald]. This was one of "Goosee McGuinty's" pet, $1.5B projects in 2010 which was billed (in McGuinty fashion) as a long-term investment that would give kids an academic boost. Moreover, in last year’s provincial election, the Liberals told parents the program would save them $6,500 a year in childcare costs! And that's the point ... It's a thinly disguised, $1.5 billion dollar DAYCARE program!

But the $1.5B is just the start. Read on:

Retrofitting and construction has been needed to keep up with the expansion, after two years of squeezing the larger, extra kindergarten-friendly classrooms the program requires into existing space. The provincial government has so far allocated $1.4 billion to cover capital costs.

Now, according to my calculations that $2.9 billion dollars--So far. But the insult to injury doesn't stop there. Last week this vote-sniffing premier pointed out difficult trade-offs must be made.

“We can’t invest in teacher pay hikes and roll out full-day kindergarten,” McGuinty told reporters. “We can’t afford that.”

Well, Mr. Premier, we can't afford you and all the other financial boondoggles you've steered us into. So, for God's sake man, do the honourable thing and step down.

Why I would never vote for Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal party

Personally, I've never liked the man since he did an about face on most of his key promises after taking office. Of course he blamed it on the former Ernie Eves administration (PC), which he continued to do until the next election (when the 'former administration' became his) but then he blamed it on whatever source was handy. Therefore, the man is a great buck-passer except when it comes to taking credit.

Also, he's a consummate politician, meaning the last election is just the prelude to getting elected again, which can be seen in almost every piece of social legislation --i.e. from child benefit payments to grants for companies to hire immigrants.

Having said that, here are some headlines and excerpts that summarize my reasons:

Dalton McGuinty has made enemies of friends: Bans strikes by teachers, freezes wages

The strategy: manufacture a crisis that would make McGuinty look decisive and responsive in the eyes of parents wondering whether classes would resume after Labour Day. The strategy would pay extra dividends on the doorsteps of Kitchener—Waterloo (byelection) if the opposition tried to thwart the legislation.

Teachers gain support from Canadian Civil Liberties Association

It’s unconstitutional to take away the right to strike before there’s a threat of one, the association said Thursday in announcing it will seek intervener status if the law passes as expected — likely Sept. 10 — and education unions challenge it.

“Peoples’ rights are not something to be trifled with,” said Sukanya Pillay, director of the association. “We are concerned that this legislation goes too far and violates the civil liberties of all Ontarians.”

Cancer drug not ‘cost-effective’

Health ministry denies prostate cancer patient medication that could double his life expectancy

While acknowledging its benefits, the message was that the drug is so effective in prolonging life it isn’t cost-effective. If men survive longer with prostate cancer, they will cost the health-care system more money.

McGuinty pandering to immigrants (voters)

That’s all you can say about the Dalton McGuinty Liberals’ plan to give a $10,000 tax credit to companies that hire newcomers to this country. It is bald-faced pandering to the immigrant vote.

Imagine this: A company is hiring staff. There are two applicants. One is a young person recently arrived in this country, speaking little English. He or she has no background and no history of working and paying taxes in this country.

The other applicant is a young person who was educated here. Who’s paying taxes. Whose parents paid taxes and who’ve contributed to this community in countless ways. The young person probably has a student debt.

Hydro rate hike
Ontarians on Time-of-Use Pricing (TOU) will see their lowest rate for electricity — overnight and on weekends and holidays — rise to 6.5 cents per kWh from 6.1 cents per kWh.

On a weekday from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., prices increase to 10 cents kWh from 9.2 cents kWh.

Firing up the electrical appliances during peak times, which will be between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays for the rest of the spring and summer, will set consumers back 11.7 cents kWh, up from 10.8 cents kWh.

Those increasingly rare hydro customers not on Smart Meter billing will pay 7.5 cents kWh, an increase of 0.4 cents kWh, on the first 600 kWh per month.

Any use over that threshold, which drops from 1,000 kWh in winter months, will be billed at the new higher price of 8.8 cents kWh, up 0.5 cents kWh.

ORNGE: Former Mazza aide tells probe he was told to mislead auditors with false documents

The former executive aide to Dr. Chris Mazza at ORNGE testified he was ordered to create “illegal” false documents to mislead auditors probing the scandal-plagued air ambulance service.

“There were plenty of secrets at ORNGE,” said Lebo, whose testimony overshadowed Premier Dalton McGuinty’s refusal to appear at the hearing to answer questions about his own meetings with Mazza.

“The more the premier refuses to appear…the more questions we have,” said Klees, suggesting McGuinty is afraid to reveal information that could hurt Liberal chances in two crucial by-elections next Thursday in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Ontario economy could be worse than California’s

California trumps Ontario with lower debt-to-GDP ratio — the ratio used to measure a country's ability to repay debt. California's debt-to-GDP is 19 per cent whereas Ontario's is a whopping 35 per cent. California also boasts a much lower per capita debt: each Ontario resident owes $18,651 while Golden State residents owe just over $10,000.

No problem with no caucasians allowed at Ontario correctional services conference: Ruling 

A group of white, Ontario correctional officers was barred from attending a government conference on anti-racism and diversity in the workplace, documents obtained by the Toronto Sun show. 

The conference sparked a backlash from white officers, according to the documents, who alleged the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services [Ontario] discriminated against them because they weren’t part of an identifiable ethnic group.

The officers, some of whom have non-white spouses, were represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), whose lawyers unsuccessfully argued their collective agreement was violated before a grievance settlement board in January 2012.

Liberals suffer reality blackout on electrcitiy usage
While the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty would like you to believe it’s their energy policy that’s saved us, in fact it’s their economic development plan — or lack thereof — that’s freed up massive amounts of electricity.

This province has lost almost half a million manufacturing jobs since McGuinty came to power, so we just don’t need the same kind of generation we once did.

Remember McGuinty’s 2003 pledge to shut all coal-fired plants by 2007? It may be a dirty demon to him, but it’s still going strong. Coal production on Thursday was 2,232 MW — more than twice the 853 MW produced by windpower.

The McGuinty government has been very clever about branding the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves years as a time of energy crisis. In fact, the Tory years were an era of industrial boom — and that’s what caused the hydro shortage.

And the list goes on an on.

***

 Would I vote for Dalton McGuinty in one of the up-coming byelections? Not if they were running a white dog against him.

Ten reasons not to vote for McGuinty, by Christina Blizzard

This is an excerpt from Christina Blizzard's column in the Toronto Sun Newspaper. See the original column at: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/08/20120821-171415.html

Here are 10 reasons not to vote Liberal:
- $190 million to cancel a power plant in Mississauga in the middle of the last election: In a move that would make a tinpot dictator in a banana republic blush, Dalton McGuinty pulled the plug on an unpopular power plant under construction in order to save a few seats in the western GTA.

- Ornge Air Ambulance scandal: Forget the Liberal spin that's blaming this outrageous piece of mismanangement onto a rogue agency run by a rogue CEO. This is their baby. They created Ornge. They allowed CEO Chris Mazza to put in place a massive web of companies that squandered huge amounts of public money.

- Bonus pay for everyone: Turns out, 98% of Ontario public service managers were eligible for bonuses last year. McGuinty tried to backpedal on the plums recently, blaming it on former Tory premier Mike Harris for instituting the pay for performance bonuses in the first place and promising a review.

Well, Harris's idea was to reward excellence -- not mediocrity. The Libs paid everyone. They've been government for nine long years now. That's plenty of time to end the bonuses.
Instead, they used it as a backdoor way to hike managers' pay.

- The HST: Who can forget the sneaky way McGuinty hiked the price of just about every consumer item 8% when he agreed to combine the provincial PST with the federal GST two years ago?

The savings we were supposed to get from laying off tax collectors didn't materialize. We just got a different pocket picked to pay for them.

Those tax collectors got $25 million in severance -- and they didn't lose their jobs. They simply moved to the federal level and got a 3.5% pay hike.

- Eco fees: McGuinty brought in fees on 9,000 consumer goods in 2010, disguised as an environmental fee. Shoppers suddenly found the fees tacked onto their bills at the cash register, with no explanation where the money was going.

- The sneaky way the Liberals amended the wartime Public Works Protection Act ahead of the G20: It created the so-called "five-metre rule" and led to a policing shambles. Provincial ombudsman Andre Marin called it, "the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history."

- Their botched Green Energy program, the failed FIT program, the desecration of rural Ontario with wind
turbines.

- Soaring energy costs: Two years ago, the Libs forecast energy costs would go up 46% over the next five years. They gave us a 10% rebate on our bills to help offset that. Nothing like being bribed with your own money.

- Credit warnings and downgrades: McGuinty's disastrous overspending has turned what was once the economic engine of the country into the poor man of Confederation. Moody's recently down-graded our credit rating and Standard and Poors put us on a negative outlook.

- Liam Reid: The three-year-old Whitby, Ont., tot will go blind if he doesn't get surgery in Michigan. OHIP won't pay for it. Health Minister Deb Matthews and McGuinty should hang their heads in shame.

- Finally, (I know, this is number 11) The biggest reason voters shouldn't mark their ballots for McGuinty: He doesn't deserve it.

If there ever was a question that "Father Goosee" McGuinty is anti-grey, then look no further

Ontario moves to protect young teachers’ jobs

Having been on the threshold of, and contributed mightily to, nearly every social benefit program we have today, Medicare, OHIP, Old Age Security, etc., it is disparaging to realize that I have now been relegated to the dust bin by a pipsqueak who has made a bollocks of running a government.

McGuinty's record regarding seniors has been nothing short of abysmal, as follows:

• Upon assuming office, the first thing he did was rescind legislation already passed by Ernie Eves granting seniors as property tax exemption
• He then took the cap of hydro rates so that the cost of electricity has more than tripled in the past seven years.
• Although he made a great todo about lowering insurance rates, the legislation merely gave the insurance companies an incentive if they kept rate increases to 10%.
• His much touted benefits package, aimed at helping lower income groups, provided an annual $1,500 subsidy for children (later raised by $1,000), and a $500 Senior's Property Tax Grant. However, the seniors' grant was geared to income so that my grant amounted to $23.00.

Now he is trying to force a pay freeze on teachers by pitting younger teachers against older ones. See:
Ontario moves to protect young teachers’ jobs. For example: "The OECTA deal does not include a general wage increase, though it allows for pay increases for newer teachers who are still moving up the salary grid. That increase is funded by all teachers taking three unpaid days off in the second year of the contract."

The guy is political hack, and if Liberals are elected in the bi-elections of Vaughan and Kichener-Waterloo, then the voters in those two ridings deserve what they get.

An update:

Elementary teachers will take their chances with individual boards

“Never have we seen such an insidious assault of this magnitude,” he said. “No government in Ontario, of any political stripe, has ever, ever made this kind of blunt force strike at the heart of any of its public sector workers.”

Words for teenagers and lazy adults ... Get a job...

This may be the Rosetta Stone of child rearing.

Northland College principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth. "Always we hear the cry from teenagers 'what can we do, where can we go?'

"My answer is this: Go home, mow  the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, built a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you've finished, read a book. YOUR TOWN DOES NOT OWE YOU A  RECREATIONAL FACILITIES AND YOUR PARENTS DO NOT OWE YOU FUN.

"The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at ward, in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It's too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is no and that somebody is you!"

Thank you Dalton McGuinty. My "Seniors' Property Tax Reduction Grant" gave me a good laugh.

The other day I received my Seniors' Property Tax Grant, the program that Dalton "Father Goose" McGuinty touted as being such a benevolence for seniors. Of course he didn't mention that the very first thing he did when he took office was the rescind Ernie Eves' property tax exemption for seniors. McGuinty has a talent for forgetting things like that. Anyway, here's how my benevolent tax grant worked out on a property tax bill of $2,000:

Basic grant: $500.00

Less: Reduction for income: $477.00

Net grant: $23.00 

Okay. It's something, and I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but compare this to what the McGuinty government provides for a child.

• A basic, no-questions-asked annual grant of $2,500 per child.
• A per-month child benefit payment
• Dental expenses
• subsidized child care
• etc., etc.

Oh, I guess I needn't mention he has two, school-age children of his own.

After much thought I've decided to donate my $23.00 to one of the opposition parties.

ORNGE: Health minister pleads ignorance ... Or should it be "stupidity"

Health minister Deb Mathews appeared before the Accounts Committee today, and used those old, 'protect thy ass' standbys for doing just that. She accused the 'other guy', former CEO Chris Mazza, claimed ignorance of important correspondence, and browbeat any and all who challenged her. She also tried that other tactic of talking over the questioner.

Now all of this is politics as usual, except we are talking about hundred-of-millions-of-dollars belonging to the tax-paying public, and which may never be recovered. From this perspective it is arrogance of an astonishing level, and shameful if not negligent behaviour on the part of a minister of the crown.

Here, thanks to Tanya Talaga of the Toronto Star Newspaper, is what took place.

The memo was from Malcom Bates, director of the ministry’s emergency health services branch, dated June 29, 2011.

The letter warns senior ministry staff that the government may have to step in and assume massing debt at ORNGE. It also mentions a $4.3 million loan receivable where “taxpayer dollars” have been lent out and it discusses the jump in ORNGE’s capital assets. They rose from $96.4 million to $264 million and cite “assets under construction” as the reason for the rise.

“We do not have additional information on this — we assume this is planes that are not completed but are in progress,” the letter stated.

Matthews told the committee she has never seen Bates letter before.
Klees retorted back that he found it “passing strange” she had not seen it and questioned why.

“What are you hiding?” he questioned her.

Often, Liberal committee members jumped in to stop Klees as he questioned Matthews.
The health minister said Klees has a history of dropping information bombs that turn out to be untrue.

“On behalf of the frontline staff, the paramedics, pilots, the engineers, all 600 staff — would you stop running down the organization and be part of the solution? I am hungry for this committee to finish its work and write its report … I’d like the recommendations of the committee,” she said.

Klees shouted back his recommendations would be, “first of all start with your resignation.”

This is not surprising coming from the McGuinty administration, of course, for when it comes to arrogance, and downright lying there are few that can match McGuinty himself. In my opinion he and Mathews are birds of a feather that should be put on the endangered species list!

 

The ORNGE scandal ... A fiasco within a scandal!

It is enough to boggle the imagination! Hundreds of millions of dollars squandered by high flying bureaucrats running amok without any apparent accountability--not even to the provincial auditor.


Here is a list of scandalous activity so far.

For the last four months, an all-party provincial probe has heard of CEO Dr. Chris Mazza’s reign at ORNGE including the promotion of his water-ski instructor girlfriend to associate vice-president, of a Porsche-driving board chair who pocketed $200,000 in compensation, of a senior employee with drug problems and another who was told to fake an MBA because it would impress investors.

Then there were the dreams and schemes of now-defunct ORNGE spinoff companies, lavish business trips, a $6.7-million marketing services agreement that is being investigated by the Ontario Provincial Police, and a $275-million “bond issue” to pay for a fleet of helicopters and office space.

Throw in a speedboat, a law firm that billed 22,000 hours and a couple of customized orange motorcycles and you’ve got the latest scandal of an agency that seemed to fly off the government’s radar. Tanya Talaga, Toronto Star.

And yet the McGuinty administration goes acts as nothing untoward has taken place at all.

I mean, whats a few hundred million?

The following is the July 24th, 2012 editorial comment in the Toronto Sun Newspaper. See it at:  http://www.torontosun.com/2012/07/24/lame-response-to-gang-violence 

_____________________________

Torontonians can take no comfort from this week’s meetings on gang violence involving Mayor Rob Ford, Premier Dalton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

They were dog-and-pony shows by politicians who treat us like mushrooms — covering us in manure and keeping us in the dark.

Ford’s meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper Tuesday had all the earmarks of a session organized just so the two could say they’d met.

After his meeting with McGuinty Monday, Ford declared victory without achieving anything. McGuinty’s promise to maintain current funding for police anti-gang initiatives — which has not stemmed this summer’s gang violence — was basically a commitment to do nothing other than continue doing what hasn’t worked.


Following Toronto’s infamous Summer of the Gun in 2005, 400 additional police officers were assigned to city streets through a combination of increased provincial funding — which McGuinty boasted about — and an internal redeployment of the force.

That led to a wave of arrests that helped stem the carnage.

Today, the Toronto force is down at least 175 officers due to budget cuts, but no one’s talking about bringing it up to its full complement.

Why? For Ford, it’s because he ordered those cuts in the first place and for his left-wing opponents on council, it’s because if they’d had their way, those cuts would have been even deeper.

So let’s not kid the troops about what’s really going on here. The real plan by both the mayor and his opponents, albeit for different reasons, is to rag the puck in hopes the recent outburst of gang violence abates on its own. But that’s not a plan. That’s crossing your fingers.

As for McGuinty’s advocacy of increased social spending to fight the root causes of gang crime, the reason he doesn’t have any of our money to spend on such programs is that he’s blown it on fiascoes like eHealth, Ornge and the Green Energy Act.

But even if McGuinty had the money to spend on anti-gang initiatives, and the wisdom to spend it effectively, those are long-term solutions that do nothing to help people caught in the cross fire today.

All our politicians — at all levels — are really telling them at the moment is “duck.”

x

It doesn't take a community to raise a child. It takes two dedicated parents who have the right values, themselves.

All around the mulberry bush

Well, the politicians (Mayor Rob Ford and Premier Dalton McGuinty), as well as top police officials met today for a much touted meeting of the minds--euphemistically dubbed the "Summit of the Gun." With lots of press hanging around, the politicians made plenty of noise about finding a solution, but in the end they merely spent another $5M (that's on top of the $10M of taxpayer's money already being spent), and went home.


Meanwhile, police officials and community activists (the "hug-a-thug" crowd) took the spotlight by hauling out their own list of threadbare, expensive ideas, which, for the most part, have all been tried before with varying degrees of success, i.e.:

• More funding for social services 
• Gun control
• More police officers

The problem with all these solutions is that they are all merely treating the symptoms. Putting salve on root rot isn't going to get to the heart of the problem. 

Nonetheless, since everyone is getting in on it, I suppose I may as well get my tax-dollars'-worth, too.

So here's my list:

• Full identification of the facts, including racial profiling of criminals.

It is almost impossible to choose a direction unless you know where you're at, and that requires a full identification of the facts. Prohibiting racial profiling of criminals is like blinding one eye. It is also incredibly naive. The first six pages of the newspaper is both an obituary and also racial profiling for anyone with eyes to see.

• If kids are old enough to have kids, they're old enough to raise them.

Having a baby? Congratulations! Now get a job to support it. Every kid that comes into this land (Ontario) goes on the public dole almost from its inception. Pre-natal care, gynaecological consultation, paediatrics, subsidized day care and nursery school, and when it gets old enough the school system takes over with all-day kindergarten. Meanwhile, for single parents ("baby moms" and "twink daddies") there's social assistance and a "pecker cheque" from Uncle Dalton McGuinty.


I'm single and childless, but I'm helping to raise a million-or-so.

 

• Hold parents responsible for the transgressions of their kids, and open the door to allow civil suits as well. 

I believe there is already legislation on the books that holds parents responsible for this sort of thing, but I have yet to hear of it every being applied. It falls under the category of "you had them, you look after them." It seems a dichotomy of thinking that a person can be held responsible for allowing a person to drink and drive, but enjoy carte blanc when it comes to their kids' actions.

• Tell religions that preach against birth control and abortion to mind their own 'beeswax.' Surely most of them have a backyard to clean up, first

The term "opiate of the masses" used to apply to organized religions (now it's iPods), but no one has bothered to tell them. Oh, sure, they make a feeble attempt to gain lost stature by slandering the GBLT community, but given their own record(s) it is laughable at best.

So there you have it. Gerry's list of "let's get real" solutions to gun warfare and gang violence.