Politics, politics: now we have an Ontario election to look forward to, just a little more than a month from now, on Thursday, June 12.
The minority Liberal government has, of course, been living on borrowed time ever since former Premier McGuinty resigned from office early in 2013 and Kathleen Wynne won the Liberal leadership in a closely contested race, hence becoming the premier.
During her year in office, she has tried hard to mend as many fences as possible. In Northern Ontario, the government reclaimed the Ontario Northland Railway’s freight division, thus maintaining many jobs along the Highway 11 corridor north from North Bay. This was of foremost concern to the mayors and reeves in this same area, many of them well-known Progressive Conservatives, who urged Ms. Wynne and the Ontario government to reconsider its decision to sell off all assets of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. (The passenger service was closed down and Ontera, the telephone and Internet service that serves much of the same region, was sold this year to Bell Alliant.)
This move somewhat appeared to mollify the major concerns of most of the local politicians and the government’s pre-budget announcement that it would commit $1 billion to the Ring of Fire chromium mineral development, to help build infrastructure the project will require, was also good news for the North.
But here comes the “politics, politics:” the offer is only good if the federal government also ponies up a similar amount of money.
Ms. Wynne must enjoy these games because it’s fairly certain that Prime Minister Harper’s federal Conservative government would far rather contribute to a partnership, in Ontario, on a project proposed and led by the Progressive Conservatives than by Ms. Wynne and the Liberals.
Nevertheless, a move like this is an astute one for it will make the federal Tories appear that they are attempting to influence a provincial outcome if they indicate another party with which they would prefer to dance. It also sets up the Northern mayors and reeves (remember that many of them are Conservatives) to lobby their friends in the government in Ottawa to seriously consider Ms. Wynne’s proposal since bringing this project on line sooner rather than later will benefit their communities. Fairly close to Manitoulin, the major player in the Ring of Fire project, Cliffs Resources from Cleveland, has indicated they would build their chromite smelter at Capreol in the Greater Sudbury Area, thus delivering 400 skilled jobs to the general region.
Courting the labour vote, and with the clear intention of drawing away NDP votes, the Liberal budget last week proposed wage increases to personal support workers, something Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath has been demanding for some time.
Last Thursday’s budget (thinly disguised as an election platform) was very NDP friendly in a number of ways and more than a few NDP supporters have been publicly critical of the caucus and its leader for rejecting the “half a loaf” budget offering with Ms. Horvath and her MPPs instead declaring they would treat the budget vote as a confidence issue and defeat the government.
The cat is very clearly among the pigeons now; the budget is a friendly one for many Ontarians, especially those in their early working years who would benefit in retirement through the enforced savings an Ontario Pension Plan would require that would augment them later in life together with their Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security benefits.
Granted, the employers’ share of such a new Ontario Pension Plan would mean greater wages and benefits costs but, in the long run, a relatively more affluent cadre of retirees means they will also be consumers of retail goods and services longer so this expense can just as readily be viewed as an investment than as an expense.
What Ms. Wynne and her Liberal candidates have to overcome is the very real concerns about decisions her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, made respecting not constructing natural gas fired electricity generating stations within two southern Ontario ridings where this construction was vigorously opposed.
Each was a Liberal riding and whether Mr. McGuinty felt more strongly about saving those ridings for the Liberal cause or, and this is quite different, doing whatever was necessary to prevent them from going to the Progressive Conservatives, the contracts were cancelled, penalties to the contractee (the government) were invoked resulting in more than $1 billion in costs to the taxpayers for which they received absolutely nothing.
The next month will be an interesting one in this province’s history as Ms. Wynne makes her case for the improvement of life for Ontarians and the opposition takes her to task because of the poor judgment of her successor.
In a way, the election will be waged and won (or lost) on either looking forward to what Ms. Wynne will present as a positive future for this province or by being spanked by the opposition NDP and Tories for indiscretions committed by a prior administration.
