Do you know your portion of the provincial debt? Now you can find out with the newly developed Ontario debt clock.
This nifty piece of code can be added to any website to help raise awareness about Ontario’s growing debt problem. Since assuming office in 2003 the current McGuinty government has nearly doubled the province’s total debt. As a result of the fiscal mismanagement of the liberals Ontario is hurtling towards a $30 billion problem.
Hat Tip Sandy
The Ontario Liberals are doing some old-fashioned political posturing at Queen’s Park. Sunday night finance Minister Dwight Duncanreleased a statement that the Tories were going to force an election on the people of Ontario . In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Finance critic for the Ontario PCs Peter Sherman released a statement laying out in detail how Premier Dalton McGuinty has ignored many of Tim Hudak’s proposals.
A November face-to-face meeting between Tim Hudak and the Premier, laying out several Ontario PC proposals for jobs and our economy
· A full week of tour and Queen’s Park activities to discuss Hudak’s plan to create 200,000 new skilled trades jobs by reforming the apprenticeship system
· A week spent detailing the Ontario PC plan for a mandatory public sector wage freeze
· The rollout of Hudak’s proposal to enable private sector and not-for-profit competition with public sector unions for the delivery of government services
· A week of briefings on fixing Ontario’s broken public sector salary arbitration system, which awards settlements without regard to taxpayers’ or municipalities’ ability to pay
· A week of speeches and media events on the need to treat energy policy as a cornerstone of economic growth
· Province-wide meetings with businesspeople to make the case for lower business taxes
· A series of major daily newspaper op-eds on the Ontario PC Planfor reducing the size and cost of government and growing our economy, and
· A series of daily pre-budget statements by Tim Hudak and Ontario PC Caucus members on measures the budget
Now, who is really playing politics with the public good?
There’s a new news aggregator on the block and it’sBlue Canada. The brainchild of Craig Smith co founder of Blogging Tories it is a refreshing conservative alternative to other predominant aggregators in Canada. To this end, I have now placed Blue Canada in my blogroll.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Centre for Policy Studies welcomed the 10 per cent reduction in taxpayer subsidies to the CBC announced in yesterday’s federal budget.“Last October we called for the privatization of the CBC,” said David Krayden, executive director of the CCPS. “The CBC is a world class broadcaster, fully capable of competing in the private sector. The more than $1 billion in government funding the CBC receives annually is a misuse of tax dollars since virtually every service it provides can be, or is being, provided by private broadcasters in Canada. What’s more, this subsidy gives the CBC an unfair advantage over other broadcasters who must compete with it for advertising revenue.”
“By reducing the size of the subsidy it receives every year from taxpayers, today’s announcement represents an important first step toward the CBC’s inevitable privatization.”
Here’s my more in-depth article on CBC privatization. As well we have to encourage the conservative government in Ottawa to continue taking a tough stance on public broadcasting and make sure that taxpayers are getting value for their money.
H./T. Steven Taylor and Hatrocks Cave
Originally appeared in The Prince Arthur Herald
With the upcoming budget later this month, we will focus many eyes and much press on the expected 10% cut to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and what that means for the future of Arts funding in Canada. Of course, the friends of the CBC and other left-wing advocacy groups will raise a hue and cry over continuing indifference of our public broadcaster. With one of the most expected austerity budgets in recent memory, it is important to re-examine the relationship or ask questions about Canada’s broader cultural policy and how it can flourish in today’s society.
Along with fighting the war of ideas, the Conservative Movement also needs to focus on the Cultural aspects of Canadian society, it has as much impact as any other governmental policy. The Conservative Party approach to Cultural policy is markedly different from the traditional Liberal method. From a political standpoint the Conservatives in counterbalance to the Liberals have focused more on historical and traditional institutions with the maintaining of the Canadian identity focusing on institutions like the monarchy and historical events such as the War of 1812. Therefore, rebranding and reinforcing the Canadian identity. This is in contrast to the traditional “Trudeau-utopian” model, where there was a myriad of grants and cultural organizations that everyone paid for but no one saw.
Economic freedom and cultural liberty are intertwined and the individual should be able to choose what art he or she supports, as this principle should be paramount in the ideal world based on free market principles. Currently, we have to live with the hand that they deal with us. Most Canadians although, not a top priority do support arts and culture. Conservatives now need to take a twin pronged approach first constructively criticize and point out any waste or mismanagement of publicly funded Art. In addition, start being an active participant in cultivating culture that reflects not only your voice but your values.
