2014 Provincial Leaders Debate.

The one and only debate of the 2014 Provincial election has come and gone without much fanfare. The spin doctors from each of the political parties were all over social media and the post debate talk shows, cheering for their respective leader.

Now here's my take on this one and only debate. Each of the party leaders stuck to their message. Hudak and Horwath did what was expected of them and attacked Wynne for the actions of Dalton McGuinty. If I hear the words "gas plants, corruption, and scandal" one more time I will blow a gasket.

Hudak took aim at Wynne for not saying no to signing the paper that cancelled the 2 gas plants. These same 2 gas plants are the same ones that both Hudak and Horwath said in the 2011 election they would have cancelled, had they formed the government. Hudak knows all too well that when the party leader tells you to do something you do it as a member of the cabinet. The same can be said when Hudak was a cabinet minister during the Harris years when he signed the papers to cancel the Eglinton subway, close 28 hospitals, and fire 6200 nurses. Wynne failed to make it very clear that she was not Premier at the time, she was not the party leader, and therefore had very little control over this matter.

Horwath promised to raise corporate taxes by 1% if elected and said that the business leaders she's spoken with have no issues with the tax increase. Really, please list the names of  the business leaders who are in favor of a tax increase. Wynne on the other hand will raise taxes on the top 2% of wage earners in the Province to help bring the budget into balancee by the 2017/18 fiscal year. Hudak will lower corporate taxes by 2% claiming that the lower tax would encourage business leaders to invest in Ontario and create jobs. Please Tim, tell us how that's worked out in the United States? All the proof points to the fact that lowering corporate taxes does not produce more jobs.

Hudak made a promise saying that if he does not create 1 million jobs he would resign from office. What Hudak failed to mention is that his 1 million jobs plan takes place over 8 years. So I say that if he forms government and does not create 125,000 jobs in his first year he should resign. 125,000 X 8 years equals 1 million jobs. Every leading Economist has said his 1 million jobs plan is a fraud. Regardless of who wins the election, the economy is slated to create over 500,000 jobs in the next 8 years.

I will say that whoever did the debate prep for Wynne should be fired. The using of the hands, her failure to directly look at both Horwath and Hudak gave me the impression that she was nervous, and also reminded me of the first debate between Romney and Obama in 2012. Obama tanked, but he hhad 2 more debates to turn things around and he did. Wynne does not have the option, and she really needs to step up her game if she wants to win this election.

Not one of the party leaders addressed the issue of the environment, and it further proves that all of them are more interested in saving their jobs. We all know that at least one of the party leaders will be heading out the door, maybe even 2 after this election. If Wynne loses the election I suspect she wil be gone as leader, and the same for both Hudak and Horwath.

The bottom line for me is that none of the leaders impressed me, and while I usually vote for the local candidate, this time I just don't know if I'm even going to vote.  

Can someone give Hudak math lessons, please!!!

 

 The picture to the left says it all. Tim Hudak and the PC Party don't know how to do basic math.

Not only does his 1 million jobs plan number don't add up, his party is now laying blame on the Liberals for running a budget deficit, and raising the Provincial Debt.

Let's take our Provincial Debt. The PC party is blaming the rise in our Provincial Debt to the mismanagement of the finances of the provinces by the Liberals.

What Hudak and his gang fail to see is that each year the Province runs a budget deficit that deficit is added to the Provincial Debt. This is also true on the Federal level as the Federal Conservatives, since the Recession of 2007/08 have ran massive deficits, reaching the high of 52 billion. That money gets added to the National Debt. Since the recession the Conservatives have increased our national debt by 200 billion and this is with lower taxes at all levels.

Now back to Tim Hudak's funny math. Hudak claims that he can bring Ontario back to balanced books 1 year sooner than the Liberals. His plan calls for the firing of 100,000 public workers, lower taxes, lower energy costs, lower everything....

Every major respected economist says that Hudak's plan is out of wack, and he could actually send Ontario back into recession. I'm no economist, but his numbers just don't add up, so I'll let you all be the judge on the Hudak funny math.

Hudak job cuts impact on communities

 
Today the Ontario Federation of Labour and CUPE Ontario published calculations I prepared of how Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s promise to eliminate 100,000 public sector jobs will be felt at the local level, on cities and communities across the province.
The original OFL release provides info on the magnitude of these impacts for the 15 largest census metropolitan areas across Ontario, for which labour force survey figures are available, a second release has the impacts for smaller communities, while CUPE Ontario has put a map on-line  that shows the impact for all the metro areas and a number of smaller cities and towns (or “census agglomerations”).   Below I include some details on how the numbers were calculated and provide the impacts for the full list of communities.
These job cuts–more extreme than  under Mike Harris–would be devastating for many communities.   As I outlined in a previous post, if the elimination of 100,000 public sector jobs plus the spin-off jobs led to an equivalent increase in unemployment, Ontario’s unemployment rate would reach 9.7% (based on an increase from current rates)– the highest in 20 years.
But the impacts would be even greater for particular communities.  What this analysis shows is if public sector jobs are eliminated proportionally, the impacts would be especially severe for mid- and smaller-sized cities and towns in the province–and could lead to double-digit unemployment rates in many.

For example, if the cuts were implemented proportionately, Kingston could see an increase in its unemployment rate by 3.8 percentage points up to 10.2%; Peterborough up by 3.2% to 14.8%; Oshawa up by 2.9% to 9.9%; Guelph up by 3.2% to 10.4% and Greater Sudbury up 3.2% to 9.4%.

This is because, perhaps contrary to the perception of many, public sector employment actually tends to be proportionally higher in mid- and smaller cities than in larger cities.  These public sector jobs are also an important source of economic stability in these communities because the jobs are more stable and are decently, or at least more equitably, compensated.   The cruel irony is that the smaller cities and towns that are often a base of Conservative strength would be most damaged by the deep cuts Hudak is planning.
The impacts of public sector job cuts of this magnitude would be at odds with the way Hudak and his Conservatives are trying to sell them: as cutting “100,000 jobs in the bureaucracy” that would have little impact on front-line services or local communities.
The reality is the large majority of public sector workers are front-line workers.  According to Statscan data over 400,000 Ontarians work in education (locals schools, universities, colleges and trades schools); about 236,000 work in health care and social services (hospitals, community clinics, residential care); about 275,000 for local governments; and about 40,000 for provincial crown corporations such as Hydro, the LCBO etc.
In fact, there were only ~90,000 employed in the core provincial public service.  This includes the classic government worker or “bureaucrat” that Hudak loves to disparage, but it also includes many others, including provincial police, judicial employees, and those working for agencies, boards and commissions.
So there’s no question: the cuts Hudak would implement would result in significant cuts to front-line public services and would have a major impact on communities across the province.  Even prominent conservative columnist Tasha Kheiriddin (formerly director with the Fraser Institute and Canadian Taxpayers Federation) recently wrote she won’t vote for Hudak because she realizes he will cut public services her autistic daughter needs.
(While Hudak claims only private sector jobs create wealth, private sector industries and companies can often be more bureaucratic with higher administration costs than the public sector.  For example administrative costs in the US private health care system are about three times the administration costs in Canada’s largely public system).
How these job impact figures were calculated
These figures are based on the most detailed employment by industry and occupation figures that are readily (and freely) available for communities in Canada: data from the National Household Survey (NHS).
From this I calculated employment in public sector industry groups at the four-digit (most detailed) level for the 48 “Census Divisions” (CDs) in Ontario (from NHS Table  99-012-X2011052) and separately for the 42 different Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and smaller Census Agglomerations (CAs) (from NHS table 99-012-X2011034).
16 different industry groups at the 4-digit level were included, with most of the employment from these in education, health care and social services and public administration, but excluding employment in federal and aboriginal public administration.   However, I included in this local, regional and municipal public administration because Hudak was reported as saying he would also force municipalities to cut jobs.
From these totals of provincial and municipal broader public sector employment by community, I subtracted the NHS figures for employment of nurses, doctors and police officers (commissioned and non-commissioned) (From NHS tables 99-012-X2011051 and 99-012-X2011033) for each of these communities as Hudak said these jobs wouldn’t be cut.   This provided net totals for the public sector workforce by community that would be affected by these cuts.
This analysis assumed then that the cuts would be made proportionate to these levels of public sector employment across the province.  Hudak hasn’t provided any other details on how specifically the cuts would be implemented except to admit that they would definitely affect front-line services and mean fewer teachers.
And because the loss of these direct jobs have multiplier effects through the loss of their spending in the local community and beyond, the total impacts also include an estimate of the spin-off effects on private sector employment, using a multiplier of 0.67, as explained in my previous post.
The increase in the unemployment rates was calculated for the 15 Ontario CMAs for which Statistics Canada publishes Labour force Survey figures using the April 2014 seasonally adjusted figures from Cansim Table 282-0116.
These are of course estimates.  No one knows what the impacts ultimately will be, but they are the most accurate estimates I could calculate based on the most detailed data readily available and making reasonable assumptions.   Hudak has of course built his campaign around a claim that he’s going to create a million jobs through things such as corporate tax cuts, etc.   The credibility of those claims will be the topic for a subsequent blog post.
The following two tables provide these results: the first for the 15 largest cities (Census Metropolitan Areas) for which labour force survey data are available; and the second the public and private sector job losses for all the larger cities (CMAs) as well as the smaller cities and towns (CAs).

Estimated job losses and increase in jobless rate from Hudak’s public sector job cuts for the 15 largest cities (CMAs) in Ontario
City (CMA)	Job losses	Increase in unemployment rate	Resulting jobless rate (based on April 2014 rate)
Ontario	167,000	2.3%	9.7%
Ottawa	11,159	1.9%	8.8%
Kingston	3,333	3.8%	10.2%
Peterborough	2,057	3.2%	14.8%
Oshawa	6,134	2.9%	9.9%
Toronto	62,892	1.8%	9.6%
Hamilton	10,555	2.6%	9.0%
St. Catharines – Niagara	5,301	2.5%	10.7%
Kitchener – Cambridge – Waterloo	6,142	2.0%	8.8%
Brantford	1,782	2.4%	9.4%
Guelph	2,480	3.2%	10.4%
London	7,116	2.7%	10.7%
Windsor	3,964	2.4%	10.8%
Barrie	2,547	2.2%	9.4%
Greater Sudbury	2,785	3.2%	9.4%
Thunder Bay	2,460	3.8%	9.6%

 

 

Estimated impact of Hudak public sector job cuts on Ontario cities and towns
City or town (CMA or CA)	Public sector job cuts	Spin-off private sector job losses	Total job loss	% of provincial total job losses
Cornwall	471	316	787	0.5%
Hawkesbury	82	55	137	0.1%
Ottawa	6,682	4,477	11,159	6.7%
Brockville	322	215	537	0.3%
Pembroke	231	155	386	0.2%
Petawawa	60	40	100	0.1%
Kingston	1,996	1,337	3,333	2.0%
Belleville	686	460	1,146	0.7%
Cobourg	150	101	251	0.2%
Port Hope	155	104	258	0.2%
Peterborough	1,232	825	2,057	1.2%
Kawartha Lakes	716	480	1,196	0.7%
Wellington	250	168	418	0.3%
Oshawa	3,673	2,461	6,134	3.7%
Ingersoll	99	67	166	0.1%
Toronto	37,660	25,232	62,892	37.7%
Hamilton	6,320	4,234	10,555	6.3%
St. Catharines – Niagara	3,174	2,127	5,301	3.2%
Kitchener – Cambridge – Waterloo	3,678	2,464	6,142	3.7%
Brantford	1,067	715	1,782	1.1%
Woodstock	263	176	439	0.3%
Tillsonburg	86	58	144	0.1%
Norfolk	452	303	755	0.5%
Guelph	1,485	995	2,480	1.5%
Stratford	256	171	427	0.3%
London	4,261	2,855	7,116	4.3%
Chatham-Kent	764	512	1,277	0.8%
Leamington	271	181	452	0.3%
Windsor	2,374	1,590	3,964	2.4%
Sarnia	618	414	1,032	0.6%
Owen Sound	330	221	551	0.3%
Collingwood	133	89	222	0.1%
Barrie	1,525	1,022	2,547	1.5%
Orillia	293	196	489	0.3%
Midland	310	207	517	0.3%
North Bay	751	503	1,254	0.8%
Greater Sudbury	1,668	1,117	2,785	1.7%
Elliot Lake	78	53	131	0.1%
Temiskaming Shores	134	90	223	0.1%
Timmins	448	300	748	0.4%
Sault Ste. Marie	808	541	1,349	0.8%
Thunder Bay	1,473	987	2,460	1.5%
Kenora	203	136	339	0.2%

The Face Of True Partisanship - Christina Blizzard

I always get a kick out of reading the Toronto Sun, and watching the Sun Media channel. Some of their "reporters" are actually "reporters" who take the time to research the topics they report on. However in the case of Toronto Sun's Queens Park reporter, Christina Blizzard she, along with her buddy, Sue-Ann Levy are the most partisan "reporters" I've ever come across.

For example just read her recent article about the Liberals being a negative lot.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/05/21/libs-a-negative-lot

She starts off the article blaming McGuinty for everything that's wrong in Ontario, and she then tries to tie Wynne into what McGuinty has done. Here's a wake up call Christina, Wynne is not McGuinty, just like Hudak is not Mike Harris. Conservatives like her seem to forget that Ontario was one of the hardest hit Provinces during the great recession. Yes we lost jobs as our American cousins were not buying our products. We also lost jobs as companies relocated to places like China, India, and Mexico.

Blizzard goes on to say that because of McGuinty's economic policies, he drove business out of Ontario. Really....Do you have your head so far up your ass that you fail to realize that Ontario has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Canada, and that Ontario is the leader in the auto manufacturing sector in North America.

Your whole article is mainly about McGuinty this, McGuinty that. Again McGuinty is gone, and yes he did break promises after promises, but again Wynne is no McGuinty. While you always love to attack the Liberals, you fail to see how much the same your beloved PC party is. Take Tim Hudak's wife who was on the payroll for one of the companies involved in the gas plants. You fail to bring that up, and you also fail to bring up the fact that Hudak himself said in the 2011 campaign which he lost, that he along with Horwath would have cancelled the gas plants had they been elected into office.

You fail to mention that since Wynne took over as Premier, not one scandal has occurred under her watch. You talk about the Liberals going negative? How about them Federal Conservatives with all their negative ads against Trudeau.

The bottom line is that you are a puppet of the PC Party who only likes to report half truths to advance your partisan agenda. What will you say if the Liberals win again? That the election was fixed!!

Ontario Liberal Party Videos

On June 12th the voters in Ontario will cast their ballots and either kick the Liberals to the curb, or re-elect them to another mandate.

Below are a few video's from the Ontario Liberal website. Do you believe that the Liberals are different under Premier Wynne or is it still the same as under McGuinty.

 

Gas Plant Scandal or not?

 

 A lot has been said during the campaign about the gas plant scandal and how the Liberals have been covering up everything under the sun. Hudak and Horwath have gone on record saying that had they won the 2011 election they would have cancelled the gas plants. Anyway I received a very interesting email this morning in my in-box, and I wanted to share it with you.


 Hudak Conservatives mislead with gas plant cancellation costs.

Wikipedia Ontario "Gas Plant Scandal” ays

It is now said that the final financial impact of the Liberal cancellations of the Oakville and Mississauga gas plants will approach $1.1 billion.^[18] That figure however is much larger than that stated by the Auditor General of $675 Million. The figure stated by the Auditor General in turn is disputed by Ontario Power Generation. Ontario Power Generation still maintains "Although the OPA’s and the Auditor General’s cost estimates are different, we continue to support our assumptions, as this difference, as set out in the report, is for the most part attributable to the assumptions used to calculate future costs."

However the discrepancy is a bit simpler to understand. The 'Costs incurred' of cancelling the gas plants is $253 Million according to the Auditor General's report. The 'Estimated future costs' include gas delivery and management services for a new Napanee plant, gas and hydro connections for that future Napanee plant, the cost of additional gas for potentially less efficient turbines, transmission system upgrades (which were already planned ^[19]), line losses for the distance power has to travel from Napanee, and for replacement power beginning in 2017. The Auditor General subtracts future savings from that figure to arrive at $675 Million. Opposition parties use the total cost of cancellation and include the cost of building the Napanee replacement plant while leaving out the cost savings.

Note that these numbers are from the Auditor General and OPG, not the Liberal Party.

Hudak would be wrong for Ontario.

I've been very vocal on why I think Hudak would make a lousy Premier. Yes he's a great father, great husband, and most likely a great guy, but when it comes to politics, and leadership he sucks.

The main plank of his platform is the creation of 1 million jobs in 8 years. On the surface it looks great with all the fancy signage, posters, and news bits, but when you look into his plan in greater detail it's a flop, and here's why.

He starts off his plan by saying that he will fire 100,000 public service employees over 2 years. 100,000 people being let go works our to about 934 people for every riding in Ontario. The severance packages that most of these people would receive could cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Not all of these laid off people will be able to find work which means that they will be collecting unemployment insurance, or go on social assistance which puts a further financial burden on the taxpayers.

A plan to create 1 million jobs, by firing 100,000 makes no sense and several well known economist from across Canada and the United States agree with me. Hudak's plan is to also lower corporate taxes so businesses will once again relocate to Ontario and boost our manufacturing sector which has lost about 300,000 jobs since the great recession. Our corporate tax rate is one of the lowest in Canada, and trickle down economics has proven to be a complete failure. Lowering corporate taxes does not create jobs, it just makes the corporations richer, and richer.

Hudak also blames our high energy costs as another reason why businesses won't relocate to Ontario. Yes our Hydro rates are high, but Hudak has not said how he intends to lower them, he has no plan, and if he does he needs to tell voters. Energy is not just Hydro it also includes, ground transportation like trucking. No Premier has control over the price of gas, as that's controlled on the open world market. Our high wages in Ontario is another factor in the cost of why businesses don't relocate to Ontario.

Again some of the world's leading economists have said that no matter who's Premier, the Ontario economy will create over 600,000 jobs in 8 years. Our economy works in cycles, and every decade we seem to hit a low, and then go back to where we were before the low hit. Just take a look at the United States. Back in 2007-08 the US Economy was losing about 750,000 jobs a month as a result of financial policies at the time. Since 2009 when unemployment hit a record high of 10%, the US Economy has added millions of jobs and the unemployment rate is about 6.6% and projected to go down to the 5% range in the next 8-12 months.

Hudak wants to cut, cut, cut, when cutting won't be required. Even former Premier, Mike Harris only cut 13,000 public service employees, and looked what happen, strikes, lock-outs, protests at Queens Park, larger class sizes, schools in need of repair, nurses and doctors leaving Ontario for the United States. What affect would 100,000 people being cut would do for our social services? It would be nightmare, and much worse than the Harris years.

When I read news articles praising the Hudak plan, it's very upsetting that these people don't see what a Hudak government would do to Ontario, and hopefully voters will see Hudak for what he is, a complete failure.