Play Ontario Jeopardy: The answer is - "Throw more money at it"

And the question: "What is the Liberal answer to everything?"

James Wallace covers this quite nicely in "Grits offer 71 New Promises" (Sun). A comment in a previous post brought this column to my attention.

Grits are notorious for assuming that if they keep throwing money at a problem, it will be solved. Never mind analyzing the situation and making sure there are checks and balances and reliable strategies for determining successful results.

Wallace notes:

Results from the province's Education Quality and Accountability Office show that despite $4 billion in new education spending over the past four years and a watering down of tests, student scores for reading, writing and math in Grades 3, 6 and 9 have plateaued for the past two years and fallen short of government targets.

No amount of money is ever enough if you don't fix what's wrong in government.

My reader adds:

However that's because the lion's share of the money spent went to ballooning a bureaucracy rather than on effective reading and math programs.

Ontarians should be very afraid that with yesterday's promises the education premier is looking to bloat the ranks by billions more.

Quite so. The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, which has just released a report on the influence of teachers' unions in Canada, would likely agree:

Among the report's recommendations are that teacher compensation be tied to performance and that strikes and lockouts no longer be allowed as ways to resolve disputes in the public school system.

Despite its aggressive arguments aimed at Canadian teachers' unions, the report is not meant to attack them, said Charles Cirtwill, the institute's acting president. "This isn't about killing unions,'' Mr. Cirtwill said. "This isn't about removing gains that have been made to protect individual teacher's rights."

According to Mr. Cirtwill, the simple, focused mandate of unions is to represent the interests of their members, which may or may not match that of the public. "The unions have the ability to use the dues to influence politicians. They have a bully pulpit from which to comment very aggressively on policy changes and they've been very effective at stopping policy changes which they do not support."

Compensation tied to performance? Are they crazy???

Where's that good old-fashioned entitlement ethic?


Seriously, can we really afford four more years of a left-leaning, union-pandering McGuinty government?


Just so you're warned.

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Update: Please check out this new watchdog: Working Families Coalition Watch.

Michael Coren - Public Education in the Buff:

"The system does not need to be tampered with, it needs to be destroyed."

This is the only way to remove the destructive power of the teachers' unions, allow bad teachers to be fired and empower the better ones to promote excellence.

Those strange Tories - respecting taxpayers' money!

From the Winnipeg Sun - Who has the cheaper government? (H/T Bourque)


It seems that the current Federal Government is not as free with the taxpayers' money as it should be. At least that would seem to be the case according to Liberal strategist Susan Smith:

"I find it hard to believe they're being chained to their desks," said Smith. "If that's the case, we should also be concerned they're not out talking to people."

(And not wining and dining them.)

Tories

Not wasting your money.

In Canada.

Be afraid. Be very afraid!

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Tuesday Update: SDA - Because Paying For Your Own Lunch Isn't A Concept That Occurs Naturally To A Liberal.

From Ditherer to Duffer

If you're wondering what the Honourable member from LaSalle—Émard has been up to lately, wonder no more. The Post informs us he is in the process of building a golf course in his backyad::

By Mr. Martin's own admission, a little practice would not be amiss. While he lists golf as his favourite sport to play, he said through an aide yesterday that his handicap is "21 and getting worse."

Some people have gazebos or waterfalls in their backyards, but what the heck. A golf course sounds like fun, doesn't it? And he assures us he is meeting all the environmental concerns. A good green golfer is our Paulie. We can feel proud.


Apparently there are other notables with this hobby:

Mr. Martin, who resigned as Liberal leader following the party's 2006 election defeat but remains MP for the Montreal riding of LaSalle-Emard, will enter illustrious company once his course is ready, expected to be next summer.

Mr. Martin's former boss at Power Corp., Paul Desmarais, recently built a complete golf course on his property in Quebec's Charlevoix region. Tim Hortons' co-founder Ron Joyce built himself an 18-hole course along the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia.

The budget for Mr. Martin's project is not known, but golf architects say building a single hole can cost $100,000.

(Of course those guys aren't still sucking at the government teat.)


Yep. Good old Paul Martin. Just your regular Tim Horton's kind of guy.

Green Plan Fall-out

No surprises with John Baird's environmental plan. He had no choice but to straddle that difficult line between trying to please the environmentalists and safeguarding the economy. Of course he received few kudos for his efforts.

I concur with Chantel Hebert, Don Martin and the incredibly insightful ChuckerCanuk that now is the time for the opposition to either put forward a motion of non-confidence or forever hold their flicking peace.

Speaking of Dalton, one wonders what climate-change nightmare is in store for us:

“It falls short of Canadian expectations. I think we can reach further and we intend to do that here in Ontario when we put out our climate change plan,” he said at the opening of the Green Living Show at Exhibition Place.

Gulp! With that let-them-eat-tofu majority government of his, there's no telling what might happen to this poor province's economy.

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Saturday Update: Here Lies Kyoto; Dead and Unloved. (Not the dog)

And from the Goracle: Al Gore says Tories' Green Plan 'A Fraud'.

Mr. Gore acknowledged he is not a Canadian citizen and said he has “no right to interfere in your decisions.”

- Then don't!!!

Baird fights back.

WHO'S out of touch?

Lotto-gate, 'Corner Store Trust'-gate, Colle-gate, 'FLICK-OFF'-gate...

The Ontario majority Liberal government is having to spend a lot of bothersome effort trying to divert public attention away from these pesky nuisances.

Accountability? Who needs that when you have a majority? You just vote down any attempt to be examined for questionable actions.

The public? They're so self-absorbed they don't even care what you do right, Dalton?

The first rule of politics for the McGuinty government is when confronted with an attack, fling back any mud you can grab. Anyone watching Oral Questions in the Ontario Legislature yesterday would know what I'm referring to. The government refuses to be accountable to the opposition and therefore by extension to the taxpayers.

But I always thought that being in charge of the public purse is a sacred trust - That it should be respected; not used as a party coffer.


However, I digress. In today's Sun Christiana Blizzard relates how she was told by former CityTV reporter-turned Liberal media strategist Ben Chin that she was "out of touch" as was radio host Bill Carroll and the entire CFRB audience; the overwhelming majority of whom felt that Minister Broten should resign. Chin later apologized and said that he meant that John Tory was out of touch.

Well here's a wake-up call, Ben. You can add a lot of MSM pundits and bloggers across the whole political spectrum to that list of folks who are out of touch. Also the National Post. I'm sure there are others.

So who's really out of touch? I'll let you decide. I'm just a dumb taxpayer who probably can't be trusted.

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Update: From the Globe - John Tory's worst day at Queen's Park ("Tories in Uproar over Grants").

Ontario, do you care???


And under the headline of 'How low can you go?' we have this.


Oh-oh. SDA has picked up on it. (Now your goose is cooked, Dalton!)

Y2Kyoto: The Moron is the Message. Heh.