With the beginning of school comes the official start of the campaign trail for the 2011 Ontario provincial election. Choosing the Labour Day weekend, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty unveiled his new election platform full of promises and money for students, seniors and immigrants. I guess the working white family who gets the pay for everything will eventually be the recipient of a new tax to pay for all these new Liberal frills.
Let’s recap the Liberal gifts to the province;
$60 million for senior’s home care – Doctors will perform house calls to seniors to help keep them at home longer. Nice idea except for two problems; I as a working member of society just see less doctors available to help me which will means less family doctors to help me get better and a longer ER wait if I get sick and need to take time off work. I guess if I live long enough to be a senior, I can finally have a doctor come to me to tell me what has been wrong with me all this time. Second problem is the money…where is $60 million coming from? We have a $15 billion deficit and yet McGuinty has stated that we have discovered funding for a $60 million program. No Dalton, if you have found $60 million, it goes to paying off debt, not buying the seniors vote
30% Tuition cut – Wow, so let me get this straight; in the 8 years that McGuinty has been in power tuition has steadily gone up and yet now as an election comes, he gets to pander to the student voter and chop tuition that he has overseen rise throughout these years. Now since post secondary institutions are not government run, how are they supposed to handle the budget shortfall? Will there be more government grants (i.e. more taxpayer $), will schools have to offer less services to students to help offset the 30% tuition chop? At least the uninformed voter will have McGuinty’s vote.
$10,000 for companies to hire immigrants – Imagine you just finished your 30% off postsecondary education and are still saddled with debt. You’ve achieved high marks and now just need to find a job to start becoming a productive member of society. You find the perfect job opportunity only to not be hired because the other applicant was a new Canadian and the employer was given $10,000 to hire him instead of you. Moral of this program; if you work hard in Ontario to put yourself through college or university you will still not be on equal footing as someone who has just entered the country, can’t speak the language and whose family is probably also on social assistance. In other words, go out of province for a job.
Full Day Daycare (Kindergarten) - Ahh the grand-daddy of all election vote buying. McGuinty took a theoretically good idea and in the midst of an economic recession implemented a plan that bought votes for low incomes households by taking their child away for a full day to learn. Originally the goal was to provide education for these students but critics have stated that this is just free daycare for low income households. Even their own Liberal website states that fact; “FDK is saving parents up to $6,500 per child per year in child care costs”. No mention about how making your children learn all day is beneficial, just simply that it will save you money.
These are all nice promises provided you aren’t the actual taxpayer that has to pay for them. He states that jobs are being created and yet there is no evidence to support these claims, unless of course they are government jobs for life in which the average middle class taxpayer gets the privilege of paying for as well.
McGuinty’s promises usually add up to disappointments, new taxes and lies. The sad part is most voters only look at the splashy headlines and vote for the party that promises the most. Unfortunately in the last two Ontario elections, the party that has promised the most has delivered the least!
