Author: Jennifer Smith

Runesmith's Canadian Content: "When did we become for immigrants?"

HT to Oakville Mayor Rob Burton (or as we like to call him, @OakvilleMayor) for pointing out the quote of the day from Burlington PC candidate Jane McKenna:

“We have 550,000 Ontarians who are unemployed and yet the government wants to pay $10,000 to hire immigrants for jobs. When did we become for immigrants? You should have one law that fits everyone.”

Wow. I got nuthin’.

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Runesmith's Canadian Content: The Orange and the Green

When provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath announced this summer that her party wanted to reduce the HST on gasoline, I must say I raised an eyebrow. After all, the NDP is supposed to be (among many other things) an environmentally friendly party, and conventional environmental wisdom states that high gas taxes are an effective way to reduce consumption.

Now, it’s one thing to argue against that premise, and certainly many have done just that. But to completely ignore the environmental implications of cutting an energy consumption tax and just drop it straight into the ‘saving taxpayers money’ file seems a little… well, un-NDPlike.

Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so. 

NDP losing its green allies


In a stinging letter to Horwath, circulated to members of a green coalition, Environmental Defence executive director Rick Smith complained that her party had lost its way:


“Some of your existing policy positions are not in the best interest of environmental or human health protection,” Smith wrote last month.


“How can any party that claims to be concerned about global warming advocate de facto subsidies for buying oil and gas. This is absolutely the wrong direction.”


Significantly, Smith is a former chief of staff to the late federal NDP leader, Jack Layton, who made environmentalism a cornerstone of his campaigns in a way that Ontario New Democrats have not. The party’s former research director, Hugh Mackenzie, has also condemned its recent positions.

Ouch!

The article also calls into question Horwath’s delicate dance around the issue of wind turbines, in which she seeks to simultaneously avoid offending either her green allies or her sizeable rural constituency without tying herself in a knot and falling off the stage.

I’m sure some political operative is telling them that this is the best way to capitalize on the perceived momentum from their federal cousins. And maybe they’re right. But if the provincial NDP really wants to bask in the orange afterglow from Jack Layton’s passage, they might want to try adopting his principles and his strength of resolve instead of emulating his opponents’ political flexibility.

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Runesmith's Canadian Content: Uproar over Uploading

The recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Conference presented a golden opportunity for Provincial candidates to make their pitch to just about every municipal government leader in the province. This hugely influential alliance of mayors, councillors and regional chairs was anxious to hear exactly what the party leaders had to offer Ontario’s cities and towns, and they certainly got an earful.

Unfortunately, some candidates weren’t telling them what they wanted to hear.

The biggest shock came when PC leader Tim Hudak was asked if his government would continue the ‘uploading’ of services from municipal and regional jurisdiction to the provincial level. This is a process that was started by the McGuinty Liberals almost as soon as they took office, designed to reverse the ‘downloading’ of costs for everything from transit to social services to court security onto municipalities by the previous Progressive Conservative government – a government that Mr. Hudak played a significant role in.

Downloading was essentially a shell game designed to make the new Provincial government look like economic wizards, when all it really accomplished was to transfer those costs from the income tax base onto the considerably less flexible property tax base. Municipal budgets have been buckling ever since.

The current Provincial government has been slowly (some say too slowly) reassuming those costs, as well as gradually eliminating the GTA pooling that saw Halton property tax dollars funding services in downtown Toronto. In Halton’s case, those savings have been parlayed into much needed infrastructure investments, as well as easing the tax burden on homeowners.

The process is only about two-thirds of the way complete, which is why AMO delegates were shocked to hear that a Tim Hudak government would put the brakes on it until they can see exactly what the province’s financial situation is. That has been taken as a nice way of saying that the uploading will stop, and may even be reversed again.

For Halton, and especially for Milton, this is of particular concern since one of the current items being ‘uploaded’ is court security – a very big deal in this prison town. Now Regional staff are estimating that halting the uploading of that and other remaining services will cost Halton an estimated $15.9 million per year in projected savings.

Reaction from AMO delegates and editorialists alike has been universally negative. One particular mayor was seriously pissed, especially when it was suggested that Hudak’s comments were at all ambiguous:

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion said she wasn’t confused at all by Hudak’s position on uploading.

“He was very clear. He is going to stop it,” she said. “He supports it where it is at.”

Social costs must be taken completely off property taxes, she said. “Health is next then education,” she said. “The uploading has to continue in a major way and this is only the beginning. Property taxes were designed to take care of property, not humans.”

Note to candidates: irritating Hazel McCallion is NOT how you get elected in Ontario.

For the record, both the NDP and Green party leaders have firmly committed to honouring and even improving on the current government’s uploading commitments. As for Hudak, it remains to be seen whether his handlers’ attempts to downplay his remarks will appease voters.

They certainly haven’t fooled anyone who was at the AMO Conference.

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