You just have to wonder.
The National Union of Public and General Employees seems quite thrilled. Among their members is OPSEU. So, we the taxpayers are bankrolling that one. If anyone of them has to work on the holiday, I'm guessing there will be some overtime involved.
Then we have the Teachers' unions who would likely be quite thrilled about another day off, right? And indeed there was a huge amount of support for Dalton and his crew from the teachers. They helped work on campaigns in copious numbers, courtesy of their ability to take time off for "union work" - up to 20 days.
Oh, and don't forget those lovely ads run by "Working Families" during the election - ads with the sole purpose of glorying McGuinty and trashing John Tory. Who is part of Working Families? Well, among their illustrious crew are the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
The irony here is that because Dalton just arrogantly declared this a stat without consultation, there is now a ripple of panic being felt throughout the province - and not just from small business.
Today's Record explains that "Family Day" is causing headaches for school boards as well ("McGuinty's new day off giving schools a headache"). Now they have to figure out whether or not to take away a professional development day, or else add another day to the school year in June:
"This has really come out of left field," said Bernie Kowalczyk, superintendent of student services at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. "We weren't prepared for it."Indeed.
And imagine how a small businessperson is trying to deal with this now, when their bottom line is so tight to begin with, and the economy suddenly looking less than rosy.
So Lemmingland, this is the first example of what you did on Oct. 10 - You handed Dalton a blank cheque, just as Howard Hampton predicted. You see, Dalton has no one to account to now for another four years. Whatever he wants will be passed by his bobble-head majority.
Howard and I warned you, but you wouldn't listen. You got your tax-and-spend government back again. Yes, sir. We lemmings love taxes!!! - Especially the Toronto Lemmings.
Yesterday, the Post's Steve Murray complained that "Family Day" is discriminatory because not everyone has a family. Well, that's hard to believe, but maybe he's got a point.
He is taking for suggestions for a better name and is asking readers to send them to smurray@nationalpost.com.
How about "McPander Day", Steve?
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Update - Great Letter in the Post today:
The minimum estimated cost of enacting a Family Day holiday in Ontario is at least $500-million. That is $100-million more than the estimated cost to end the religious discrimination against 53,000 students in the province. It would be interesting to find out how many parents of the 53,000 children will need to work on Family Day in order to afford to send them to school, after they have already paid for everyone else's kids.
No one can deny that the Ontario Liberals have their priorities straight -- spending on one extra day a year off work is surely a better use of tax money than righting bias.
Michael N.W. Baigel, Toronto.
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Christina Blizzard -Take a break on holiday idea.
