One small victory at a time, today in a stunning announcement the Ontario government placed a moratorium on any further offshore wind projects citing in part environmental concerns. This is a significant victory for the advocacy groups who have been raising concerns over the adverse effects of wind power as a source of renewable energy.
From Toronto Star
Wind Concerns Ontario President John Laforet said he feels vindicated.
“I don’t think they care about the environment,” he said. “Because if they cared for it they wouldn’t be allowing on land projects either.”
Laforet said he’s watched projects go up after forests have been blasted down.
“I think what they have realized is they have unleashed hell on themselves before an election and we aren’t going away,” he said. “One side of me feels vindicated in being a volunteer in this role … but at the same time I don’t believe for a second these guys care for the environment.”
I’d like to think this is a achievement for ordinary Ontarians who brought some common sense to Queens Park.
Category: Canadian politics
Dalton’s Inconvenient Truth
Today I read an excellent rundown of the Ontario Liberals record, it deserves to be a must-read for anyone who is considering voting Liberal in October.
From Ottawa Citizen
Premier Dalton Mc-Guinty’s new election speech should be dubbed Dalton’s Version. It leaves out large chunks of the truth, but it’s the past as he would like us to remember it.
In summary, McGuinty has improved Ontario’s health care, schools, electrical system and tax structure to position us as the best in the world. Sure, it has been expensive, but now the future will be ours. Unless, of course, people make the mistake of electing Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak, who will destroy all this progress.
The premier’s account of his seven years in power might not accord with your own recollections, but it’s his attempt to buff up the past while putting an optimistic glow on the future. If he can pull it off, people might even re-elect him.
McGuinty certainly delivers the speech with conviction. He offered a version to party members here last weekend and to a business audience in January. He accompanies his talk with charts and graphs, which help create the impression that it was all based on facts. The art lies in selecting certain numbers to create an impression.
He show
For example, the premier states that “1,200,000 more Ontarians now have a doctor.” That might well be, but the government’s own Ontario Health Quality Council says there are still 730,000 Ontarians without doctors and almost nine in 10 Ontarians say they are waiting too long to see their doctors, an indicator that has gotten worse in the last three years.
McGuinty says that the PCs reduced the number of nurses in the 1990s, but now his government is doing the same thing through the back door by refusing to cover the real wage increases our hospitals are facing.
On education, the premier notes a 14-per-cent increase in test scores, while failing to tell us they still fall short of his modest 2003 goal of having 75 per cent of students meet the adequacy standard. McGuinty would also have you believe that Ontario’s school system is one of the top five in the world based on a study that looked at selected systems.
The international testing numbers behind that study, which the premier also mentions, actually show that Ontario’s science, math and reading scores have been stable or slightly declining during Mc-Guinty’s big education revolution and don’t even lead the nation, although they are strong.
The premier tells us that his Green Energy Act has been a job-creating bonanza. In his speech, he refers to 20,000 jobs last year, up to 45,000 this year and “ultimately 60,000 in 2012.” As the Citizen revealed earlier this week, the actual job estimate so far is 13,063, and some of the companies the government cites say the job total is inflated. Most of the jobs are supposedly in the conservation industries. Even if McGuinty’s optimistic prediction comes true, that’s still less than one per cent of the total jobs in the province. It’s not the basis for a new economy
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In fact the left-leaning Toronto Star initially compared the premier’s PowerPoint presentation to a pale Al Gore imitation. As Ontarians are beginning to realize Dalton’s Inconvenient truths have become Ontario’s reality.
Also don’t forget to read one of the best cases for Mike Harris I read recently.
Dalton McGuinty Recognized For Wasteful Spending
Dalton McGuinty was in The Winners circle Tuesday night for probably the only time this year. When his government was awarded with an honorary Golden Teddy for wasting over $224 million of taxpayers money on special consultants and bureaucrats during the e-health scandal. The event was put on by the Canadian taxpayers Federation who annually highlights waste and mismanagement in government. What a suspiciously low note to go out on for McGuinty .
[source]
Those Liberals Are So Predictable
At the liberals latest policy convention Premier Dalton McGuinty raised the specter of his predecessor Mike Harris,yet again. Joanne has the full story. Simply put the Ontario Liberals are one of the most predictable political parties in Canada. To illustrate this point Let’s play a game called when did the premier say this.
Mr. Harris slashed government programs after he was elected in 1995. The Liberal Leader said Ontarians are fooling themselves if they believe his adversary could phase out the annual $2.6-billion health premium and still make additional investments in health care.
[A] 2010
[B] 2007
Answer 2007
It’s twice as big as all the cuts that Mike Harris made to our social programs and to the Ministry of the Environment combined.
[A] 2010
[B] 2007
Answer 2007
whenever the government can not defend the issue or is not getting traction with the public, they go right to the old standby demonizing Premier Mike Harris’s record. Let’s not let them do it again, this time the Ontario Liberals have their own record to defend.
McGuinty Not Telling the Whole Truth
On Friday Rosie unemployment numbers were released showing that Canada for the most part is rebounded well from the latest recession. To this end Premier Dalton McGuinty has begun to crow about how Ontario has gained 95% of the jobs it lost during the recession. However if you dig a little deeper this number is somewhat misleading. From the article.
TD Bank economist Sonya Gulati, who noted Ontario is one of five provinces that still haven’t reached pre-recession employment levels.
She predicts that will happen as early as this month — another 5,000 jobs are needed to close the gap — but said it’s only part of the story.
“When you take a look behind the numbers we do trail in terms of having part-timers and service-sector jobs . . . It could be someone who has been laid off in manufacturing and is working part-time.”
Getting the province to a situation where incomes and jobs are equivalent to pre-recession levels “is certainly going to take a bit of time,” she added.
Is McGuinty ignoring the inconvenient truth underlying Ontario’s unemployment numbers?