First, no1important, thanks for actually reading. Or skimming. Even if I'd put $700+ billion it still wouldn't have affected pasting it into a word processor to do a word count to respond with -- on how to solve "Ontario's" fiscal and economic and political problems, because they tend to go hand in hand: pariticularly with Liberal tax increases that broke two laws and a contract they signed with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and more cuts to healthcare, in the GTA anyway, to end up with a higher deficit after Sobara was "busted" for cooking the books.
The $70+ billion came from something I stumbled across, I don't even remember if it was on the web, with a very clear Tory bias; or rather, anti Liberal/NDP bias, along with other things I've come across here and there stating that the first (and hopefully last) time the NDP were elected in Ontario, they ran up $10+ billion deficits every year for five years.
The Rae Government's Lesson for Today's New Democrats
In September of 1990, the NDP experienced its greatest victory: the election of a majority government in Canada’s largest province, Ontario. However, the new government’s honeymoon with the public ended, appropriately enough, nine months later with the delivery of a $9.7 Billion deficit – the largest the province had seen.
That was for fiscal 1990-91. The deficit not the 1991-92 budget. But due to exactly what happened when the McGuinty Liberals took over, and even still, no one really knows what the deficit was or is. The Conservatives had their hands on the books when McGuinty/Sobara took over and argued back and forth about what the deficit was; after the election.
The Liberals claimed to be surprised at how high it was (the usual excuse to break every promise made in election campaigns, which is why we need a law that can't be changed without a referendum, like a provincial constitution, aside from other things, making it mandatory for independent auditors to go over the books at least once a year before every budget and disclose everything--at least deficits, net and gross debt and in exact numbers), but Eves had documentation proving that he and Sobara both knew exactly what the deficit was (too bad neither party bothered to tell any of us until after the election): somewhere between $2.5 and $10 billion.
The Liberals wanted to make it higher, the Conservatives wanted to make it lower and the Conservatives finally admitted to $4.x billion, $4.5 at the most after they looked at statements they'd made to the Liberals that were documented, to prove that they knew the deficit wasn't any surprise. To McGuinty/Sorbara, not to us.
There's no reason for me to point this out but the snippet above makes it look like the Peterson Liberals left the province with balanced books. Look that up and if you can find five sources that somewhat agree on a number you'll find all kinds of different deficit numbers that the one (and only, hopefully) NDP majority in Ontario "inherited." According to the above, the Ontario NDP's ran up a $9.7 billion deficit in nine months. It may be true, maybe the deficit was higher and they're only referring to what the NDP ran up in nine months. Or, $9 billion of it may have been accumulated by the Peterson Liberals.
I've been looking for over three hours and I haven't found a single document or even newspaper article stating what the Ontario "deficit" (or even net or gross debt) was when the Harris Tories took over. And the same shit was flying around then as it does every time another party takes over and they didn't know how the high the deficit was so they have to break all their promises and even provincial laws around the McGuinty Liberals.
I didn't expect to find $70 billion, I know the document was biased, there are lots of ways to come up with "deficits" if "budget deficit" isn't stated and even if it is. I expected to find a whole range of numbers. But I can't find ONE.
NO DATE, some Libertarian blog:
Suppose spending were held constant. To wipe out the deficit then, tax revenues must grow from about $34-billion to $49-billion: a 44-per-cent increase in four years, or about 10 per cent each year. A longer deficit- reduction track, say six years, reduces the required growth rate to 6 per cent, but increases the chances of a recession intervening.
That's the basic arithmetic. What then are we to make of the parties' economic plans? In simple terms, all three are pledging to cut spending by between $1- billion and $3-billion more than they would cut taxes. The NDP would leave taxes unchanged, and cut program spending by $2.9-billion over three years. The Liberals would cut taxes and spending by about $2-billion and $3.3-billion, respectively. For the Conservatives, the cuts would be $4-billion and $6-billion. That surplus, of spending cuts over tax cuts, reduces the amount of revenues that must be raised from economic growth, from $15-billion to between $12-billion and $14-billion.
...
All three plans count on revenues growing faster than the economy. [Which would be called "raising taxes" wouldn't it?] The NDP's $3-billion net impact on the deficit means revenues must grow to $46-billion, or about 7.9 per cent a year. The Tories' $2-billion net impact suggests they are counting on revenue growth of 8.4 per cent. But then the Tories are promising to balance the budget not in four, but in six years. To increase revenues before tax cuts to $47-billion in six years implies an average growth rate of only 5.5 per cent a year
And of course the NDP would have cut spending and not raised taxes. Just as the McGuinty Liberals cut taxes and increased services and paid down the deficit by by raising taxes, cutting services and increasing the deficit.
CBC News: Ontario's deficit baloons after accounting change
TORONTO - Ontario's deficit for 2004 is likely to be about three times what the government predicted in the budget, the finance minister said on Friday, blaming a change in accounting for the difference.
Shit happens. Lots of shit around accounting and political snakes.
You must pass taxpayer-protection and balanced-budget laws immediately, a promise you made to taxpayers on the election trail of 1995, then broke. [The Harris Tories did both; for all the good it does around worthless parliamentary systems. Swear oaths to uphold the laws of Ontario and Canada and then break them and no one can do a thing about it. McGuinty/Sobara didn't hold a referendum, certainly didn't announce tax increases in the election campaign "referendum", and raised taxes anyway, breaking the law, let alone all of their promises. :eek It's agains the law not to produce a balanced budget but they didn't do that either breaking another law and breeching a contract they signed with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation before the election stating that they'd abide by both laws.]
Ontario taxpayers need laws to protect us from the tax madness of 1985 to 1995, when the NDP and Liberals hit us with 55 new or hiked taxes, including 11 raises in personal income taxes. Even with higher taxes, the deficit grew to $11.3 billion and the net debt to more than $100 billion. We must have severe penalties for any finance minister who doesn't balance the books, and we must let taxpayers vote on taxes.
The legislation is there but there are no penalities. And they can change it if they feel like it. But the above states $11.3 billion between 1985-95; Peterson Liberals and Rae NDP combined ... when the NDP had a deficit of $9.7 billion in less than a year after being elected in 1990 ... So they only increased the deficit by $1.6 billion the whole time they were in?
And what's a net debt? They're never reported; just gross debt. So the deficit was $111.3 billion.
It's only a shift of one column to put a deficit into the net debt column. From $101 billion to $121 billion to shrink a $20+$11.3 billion ($33.3 billion) deficit to $11.3 billion. Regardless of what column it was stuck in, net debt is deficit, not gross debt but we start paying interest in the same amount regardless of the spreadsheet column the figure is stuck into.
At least we don't have Alberta's "heritage fund" to stuff over-taxation, I mean "surpluses," into. If we ever have another one without restructuring this mess of a federation, from scratch.
Wall Street bond rating experts are watching. "The only way Ontario can start to recoup its Triple A credit rating is to start paying down the debt," warned Peter Plaut, a vice-president at Salomon Smith Barney during my recent visit to New York City.
They call deficits debts because it's exactly what they are and we start paying interest on them, combined with whatever "net provincial debt" and the gross debt, no matter what they're called.
The World Bank did better. They put "Ontario" on public notice, before Rae the Biggest Disaster Ontario Has or Ever Will See NDP/Harris Conservative election, that if it didn't get its economic house in order it'd be slapped with a
third world credit rating over the strangely massively growing "net debt." And the deficit too and the gross debt as well.
Go ahead, cut income taxes by another 20% and create more jobs and revenue. But let's follow Alberta's lead and go to a simple tax system, instead of living with a complicated mess such as blending Rae's obscene 14% surtax on incomes over $53,000 and 20% surtax on incomes over $69,000 with the Fair Share Health Tax on incomes over $50,980. What a mess
I'm still looking for something clear, any document, but interesting tidbits are turning up in the process and all that really bugs me is this idea that Harris just decided to slash and burn everything in sight because he felt like it. We were in an unprecedented economic/fiscal mess after the Peterson Liberals and Rae NDP. But in just 15 years, Ontarians forgot what disasters we end up in when the Ontario Liberal (with a capital red L; red being the color of debt in accounting and the official color of the party too) Party is in power.
And everyone's forgotten about what happened in 2003. Nothing got nailed like Toronto did over SARS and the power outage, natural disasters that any other province would have demanded federal relief over but not this stupid province. And it's where the bulk of the current deficit is from; along with Eves capping electricity prices. Either consumers paid through the teeth, the price of electricity doubled in Toronto over one summer (but I hear Brampton got a good deal -- and why not? It's the most important town in the country, f*ck Toronto as usual) and there were contracts and either Toronto and other cities went bankrupt trying to pay for electricity in things like big office towers or the government paid the contracts.
Eerie Eves led by disaster, running from one to the next and legislating problems away. Without Mike Harris he was hopeless. He almost made Bob Rae look good and that's quite a feat.
It also bugs me when "experts" (with agendas) claim that Ontario's taxes are low when they're among the highest in the country.
But even though taxes aleady have been raised, provincially, in return for longer waiting times due the nurses they fired due to the extra tax money they're sucking out of Toronto, cutting budgets on our hospitals, de-listing coverage from OHIP and still running up the
debt period, and municipal taxes have gone up all over the GTA, probably all over the Ontarios, not that it matters much outside the Oshawa-Niagara Falls corridor, "Extended Golden Horseshoe Area" and so what if we just paid $2 billion, $3,868.47 per capita to the spoiled little brats in NL with -2% of the GDP and all of 7 MP's for throwing a tantrum because they going to have to finally abide by the rules of the equalization welfare handouts we pay for in South Ontario.
Do some flag-flapping, get 7 MP's to throw a stink in the less than worthless (to us) House of Commoners and they get $3,868.47 per capita, which would be $47,940,788,169 in Ontario, not even $48 billion, and with our equalization handouts the government of NL that gets to keep 100% of our federal offshore oil/gas revenues tax-free along with 0% of it being applied against NL's equalization welfare handouts for another 8 years (along with NS, which was handed almost a billion dollars of our money when NL was handed $2 billion for no apparent reason, but not Saskatchewan; it has to play by the rules of equalization with only 70% of provincial revenues from natural resources applied against equalization welfare handouts paid for by South Ontario) the NL government just turned out a rosey budget and will have over $2,000 more per capita to spend on their "deficit" and provincial services/citizens than the ONTARIO government will have per capita out of its revenues, to pay for its deficit, and our services/citizens.
But we're supposed to raise taxes yet again and make more cuts because this federation is a worthless mess?
"Ontario" is a worthless mess. McGuinty claims that Ontario is only paying out $23 billion more that it gets back? Ontario paid out $19 billion and $85 million just in personal income taxes in 2002-03 (Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
www.taxpayer.com). And around this "fiscal gap" the Toronto Star published that it was only $2 billion paid out of Ontario ten years ago.
$2 billion out of this province? It woudn't even cover the interest on the federal debt and nothing can possibly come close to what Ontario pays out in taxes and doesn't get back compared to every other jurisdiction in the "federation."
It's not as though the territories, NS, NB, PEI, NL, Saskatchwan, Manitoba, hell even B.C. is on equalization welfare, over half a billion a year, are "cash cows." They all suck more out of this "federation" than they pay into it. The only constant is that Ontario has always paid more into the "federation" than it's taken out of it. Nothing else and B.C. and Alberta pretty much amount to the City of Toronto in revenues they pay out.
There's the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, which includes the "Extended Golden Horseshoe Area" and that's it for this mess. The Calgary-Edmonton corridor doesn't even add up to the City of Toronto proper; in any way, shape or form.
Vancouver's lower mainland and the south end of Vancouver Island, is the only other area that StatsCan singles out as a population center. And growing, while the rest are stagnant or declining. But then they have to use averages and percentages to make anything outside the Toronto area, and what they map out as the Extended Golden Horseshoe Area, actually look like something. Aside from everything else, Toronto out-populates (has more markets to sell to) than the province of B.C. by about half a million people.
Montreal out-populates Alberta by about 300,000 people.
Even if they had 100% growth rates, they'd still take probably a century to catch us. They get a few percentage points in higher population growth, got between the 1996 and 2001 census. But in real numbers the percentages are totally meaningless. It's the same around real economic growth, which tends to show up as new full-time non-seasonal jobs and one of the main spin-offs of those, and consumer confidence, the number of new "houses" (residential whatevers) going up each quarter or year.
Numbers are stated for some thing called "Canada." The vast bulk, like if 50,000 new full-time jobs are created in a month, subtract 2,000 and you've got the number of new jobs South Ontario created. Mainly the Toronto area and from Oshawa to Niagara Falls; which is being called the Toronto area (Oshawa to Hamilton) because it's where all the real growth is.
Percentages mean nothing in this "federation" because there's South Ontario with 93% of Ontario's population, South Quebec with 87% of Quebec's population, called the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, Mixedwood Plains around environmental issues, Inner Canada around economics, with 57% of "Canada's" population in a sliver of land compared to the Outer Canadas, paying up to 70% of all federal revenues.
So what are we doing in this worthless "federation?" Let's vote NDP and Green in the next federal election. We sure as hell can't vote for Harper. He's already stated his "hidden agenda" (which has never been hidden other than to morons) of kicking the economic backbones of the "federation" in the teeth as a "Western Canada" prime minister.
The only "conservatism" around that idiot is like Jimmy Swaggart "conservatism". Fiscally, it's the NDP. Expand government, expand spending, cut taxes, free lollipops for everyone too and they'll still balance the budget. And kick the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, Toronto and Montreal in the teeth.
No new deal for cities because there are none out west. And if he gave those puny towns money it'd be divided per capita (much like NL) and then where the hell would he come up with money for the real cities?
Windsor-Quebec City corridor
Mixedwood Plains because it's environmental.
...
Of the nation's 25 largest cities, 13 fall within the ecozone. The largest -- Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Quebec City -- are connected by extensive networks of expressways.
Home to 11 million people in 1971, the entire ecozone supported 14 million just two decades later.
...
It's old:
www.ccea.org/ecozones/mp/human.html
Harris ousted the socialist New Democratic Party, whose astoundingly incompetent term in office was characterized by labor strife, bloated budgets and spiraling deficits.
CATO Institute..
www.cato.org/dailys/10-14-03.html
I'm still looking but that's the problem. I've stumbled across all kinds of articles and documenation from this and that organization/instutution, nothing ever matches up but I found them because I wasn't looking for them.
The facts are simple and obvious:
<!--EZCODE LIST START--><ul><li> There is no such thing as "Ontario"; 93% of the population lives in the Ontario portion of the Windsor-Quebec City corridor which has a completely different economy so completely different fiscal/economic/political priorities than the rest of the Ontarios and Canadas does. Other than the Quebec end of the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.</li><li> There is no such thing as "Quebec"; 87% of the population lives in the Quebec portion of the Windsor-Quebec City corridor which has a completely different economy so completely different fiscal/economic/political priorities than the rest of the Quebecs and Canadas does. Other than the Ontario end of the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.</li><li> Neither are oriented to the rest of the Canadas. The rest of the Canadas are oriented to the Windsor-Quebc city corridor due to simple rules of supply and demand. They have no markets of their own to speak of/sell to, have import bans and tariffs slapped all over them by the U.S. and good for them, it's about time they woke up and figured out which century this is.And they can do that with their own money with their own governments without having despised "Ontario" and/or "Quebec" in their hair. Or much more importantly, them in ours. It's time for them to figure out how to change their diapers and wipe their noses. We certainly don't need their advice about anything. We need to pay less for supply and to keep our taxes here where they belong.</li><li> We have our governments, that act as federal governments, the rest can have whatever it wants other than our land (the rest of the Canadas) and our money. We'll have enough trouble paying their debts down, taking the federal debt on, and trying to repair the results of 25 years of tax looting at the same time, in South Ontario.</li><li> The federal government is not only worthless to South Ontario but is trying to kill us and it's working quite well. We're at war with the Ontario feds in Toronto, let alone the confederate feds. They're both gone. All they do is divide the Ontarios more and more and divide the Canadas more and more. They're trying to force identical poles of magnets together.As long as enough "distance" is left, fiscally, economically, socially, politically, then the "poles of the magnets" don't get so close that they repulse each other.But it's worse than that trying to pretend that worthless British parliamentary systems provide representation for anything but political parties. And the same can be said of the system in the U.S. But if not if political parties are made illegal and all political advertising/polling six months before fixed term elections (no cheating; no trying to get up in the polls before calling an election. We have elected dictatorships), no TV shows, circus acts, operas to prove that some thing called a political party can represent a district.It's impossible. A combination of 200+ years of foresight in hindsight of a sort of U.S. system, but in each jurisdiction and with a structure that actually makes sense, with a much-simplified sort of EU structure, no central government trying to tell us all what to do and making worse than the mistake of Communism, provinding no real incentive to put in all the hard work and take the risks to get ahead, even as a city or region. Economic success is automatically penalized to automatically reward failure and with zero accountability. Communism doesn't tolerate failure. It'd be an improvement to the mess we have now; but there are much better options.</li></ul><!--EZCODE LIST END-->
We can have the best structure and first real (accountable and responsible) "political" systems on the planet. It's just a matter of taking the best of the best from ourselves and around the world, leaving the mistakes behind, merging and improving. And making sure that it's flexible enough to deal with anything but not so flexible that it falls apart. And has the ability to keep revising/improving based on realities, not based on media (selling ad space) and political or religious marketing bullshit.
A real House of Represenatives that deals with its jurisction, like South Ontario, with boundaries that can change whenever, if all parties agree to another district or county being part of North Ontario or South Ontario or whatever the structure ends up as, with no political parties, your rep runs on his/her merits to actually represent your district instead of hiding behind the skirts of a marketing campaign of a thing called a political party.
You separate the Executive/government into a separate branch where it belongs. But they're still our employees and won't be allowed to live in mansions connected to their offices, calling press conferences whenever they feel like it. They'll be harrassed by the press as usual, every day they show up to work. We could schedule 30 minutes at the start of their day to deal with the press and 30 minutes before we allow them to go home to deal with the press.
The only real opposition there is to governments is freedom of speech and freedom of the press. They're our employees and are not to be revered like the freaks at Castle White House. Their job is to make sure that our lives (economies) are the best in the world. But they can't know that and why we need real Houses of Represenatives filled with real representatives who will form and disband alliances with other reps with common interests/priorities of their employers/electorates, at will. Not because some party startegist/handler/marketer says so to the leader of the party to pass on to the party whips.
The Exec Branches have to get cabinet members approved by their respective House of Reps, high court judges and they create bills to pass across, not up or down, to the House of Reps.
Then with majority votes, the bills can be re-written wholecloth by the House of Reps of the "province" or whatever we call jurisdictions like South Ontario. But maybe the jurisdiction the feds have already set up due to reality: the "Extended Golden Horseshoe Area." It's diverse enough economically and demographically to form a jurisdiction. And it certainly has the population and economy to form one. The City of Toronto does in this "federation." It former smallest suburb of East York is a province if PEI is a province.
In a real House of Reps, everything is always a "common vote," there are no 'back benchers" who might as well not exist; every rep has the same power, has an equal voice, always gets to vote on every bill, can find other reps to get votes to amend bills and aside from auditors and much better laws and courts, the government/Executive Branch is held accountable by the House of Represenatives.
And with proper structures there's no need for Triple-E Senates or any Senate. "Proper" structure will change but it just means jurisdictions with common goals and reps that identify with those goals. And are held accountable themselves by their employers/electorates.
Recall legislation is lame. It'd certainly be an improvement, the McGuinty clan would be toast if Ontario had recall legislation. But they would have been fined and fired automatically with proper legislation.
Canadians have to think way outside the box. So much potential is in this country being pissed away year after decade by the Outer Canadas and strangled in the Inner Canadas to pay the debts, bills and handouts (to buy votes) of the Outer Canadas.
$70 billion is what the Harris Tories had to deal with, because I say so. There's no accountability and it's not even close to what they had to deal with. Deficits, accumulated budged deficits, net debt, gross debt, debt is debt.
And taxes are taxes and there is no "Ontario" period, let alone can the economic engine of the Canadas, Toronto, deal with even more taxes and cuts.
Has anyone noticed what the name of this forum is? Is it Suburban Toronto? Suburban Bramton, Orangeville, Mississauga, Woodbridge, Pickering, Ajax, Markham, the village of Richmond Hill, Whitby, East Gwillimberry, Ditchville, Mineville, Farmville, Lumberjack Town, Peterborough, Uxbridge, Beamsville, Grimsby, Hamilton, Oshawa, let alone anything outside South Ontario?
Is Windsor in Urban Toronto? NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland ... Atlanta, American cities are more relevant to Urban Toronto than anything in the Canadas is. Montreal.(head offices) and that's it. Toronto controls (coordinates ... with $11 billion of our tax revenues missing) the Onario end of the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, and is forced to deal with the rest of the Canadas by the feds, which isn't in the interests of either, even around finance it has to be de-centralized, which means dumping the confedrate feds and nothing but South Ontario and South Quebec can do that.
We don't need to and can't afford to raise taxes. The rest of the Canadas has to be forced to figure out that they don't have contracts that mean anything, if South Ontario could its act together and work with itself for itself, because we don't have any contracts either, stating that we have some right to do whatever we want and have our lives paid for by the rest of the Canadas.
Who got a contract when they were born stating that life owes them anything? Let's see the contracts and the "authoratative" signatures on them. Dead Brits are still executing contracts?
There are plenty of web chat boards to spread the bullshit of the Outer Canadas around. Or the bullshit from the rest of the Ontarios. And it's simple to spot because the only political issue in Urban Toronto is getting more of the tens of billions of tax dollars it pays out back into it.
Toronto needs a new deal because:
21. Premier Dalton McGuinty says so:
"If I don't get (Toronto), in particular, firing on all cylinders, I won't have the capability to build stronger Kapuskasings and Timminses and small communities around the province of Ontario. This is my engine and it's missing right now."
...and
20. Neglect of cities, most evident in Toronto's decade-long decline, is so startling that even Prime Minister Paul Martin is sounding like a new deal apostle. He said in 2003:
"Contrary to 100 years ago, today new Canadians overwhelmingly settle in cities. Does this not cry out for an updated partnership between us? While immigration is a federal matter, cities are the ones that actually welcome most new immigrants with housing, with social programs, and outreach in all its forms."
All talk and no action. As usual. And why is there some apologetic notice necessary to give Toronto enough of its
own taxes back that it stops falling apart ... so that "the Timmonses and Kapuskasings" can get our money?
Of what economic interest are either to Toronto? We have summer houses/cottages, dump money into economies in the north from Toronto and other cities, pay for tourism ads for this "Ontario" thing with Toronto taxes, pay for their law enforcement, there's "equalization" going on in the Ontarios, it's just not on the table, and our summer house in Simcoe-Whatever county and the money we spend up there along with thousands of others, doesn't mean that we have anything in common with them economically or socially (drinking beer and barbecuing is a no-brainer in Vericone, Greece; I mean Macedonia again) or have to pay their debts, bills and give them handouts other than for our agriculture.
And in another currency for the Outer Canadas.
NO DATE, and from the infamous
www.truemantuck.ca
Specifically
www.truemantuck.ca/11About-Conservatives11.html
But it's actually from the CP. And the infamous Colin Perkel.
Ontario has $5.6-billion deficit
<<<
Back to About the Conservatives
By COLIN PERKEL (CP)
Despite repeated assurances that the books were balanced, Ontario's
defeated Conservative government left the province facing a
whopping $5.6-billion deficit, an independent assessment revealed Wednesday. [Of some century.]
In a
scathing review of the state of Ontario's finances, former provincial auditor Erik Peters provided a
grim indication of just how
difficult it will be for the new Liberal government to keep election promises [tee hee] that include
new spending, no tax hikes and balanced books.
"Ontario now has a
clear and unvarnished understanding of our current fiscal situation," Finance Minister Greg Sorbara, said after the report was released.
"It is
shocking. It
exemplifies a
history of mismanagement and misrepresentation on the part of the
previous government."
The size of the projected fiscal shortfall,
deliberately revealed after the markets had closed,
exceeded most predictions.
Nevertheless [Liberal], "financial analysts" said the immediate impact would be
small.
Now that's marketing. The defeated, whopping, scathing, grim, difficult, shocking impact will be small.
Why? Because of the "new Liberals" that include
new spending, no tax hikes and balanced books are in charge of the defeated, whopping, scathing, grim, difficult, shocking impact, that's why.
Okay, paste it in and post a word count in reply -- because none of you have the spines of jellyfish in a jacuzzi to address facts.
Like why is whatever "Ontario" is on some high-wire while NL and NS and everything else gets more of our own money than we do?
But I'm still trying to figure out the "we" on the
Urban Toronto Forum.
Oh, and this comes after the above article. In the same article.
SARS, a rising dollar, a weakening economy and a massive blackout threw the already questionable projections further out of whack.
Peters refused to accuse the Tories of lying for claiming the province was in the black, saying his report was based on more current information.
However, he urged the new government to consider legislation to make budgets more transparent.
However? Obviously is the word I would have used.
...
Premier Dalton McGuinty, who was
scheduled to outline for a business audience on Thursday what he would do to address the financial problem,
did not make himself available to comment.
Deputy Opposition leader Elizabeth Witmer accused the Liberals of
hiring "a private consultant" to
provide them with an excuse to
back away from their unrealistic
promises.
"The Liberal government, under McGuinty, has set the stage for
tax and spend [tax and not spend, make more cuts, actually] over the next four years," a defiant Witmer said.
"They've certainly now
told us they
can't keep their commitments[/campaign promises or even uphold the lase of Ontario], they
can't keep their pros."
Witmer insisted a re-elected
Conservative government would have
balanced the budget this year as it had done in recent years, and
argued McGuinty could do the same if it wanted to.
Sorbara conceded there would be
delays in implementing the Liberal platform, which includes smaller class sizes for younger students, but [
lied yet again and] said the government won't be driven off its [non-existent]
agenda.
...
The
situation is
reminiscent of 1990, when the Liberals campaigned for re-election promising a budget surplus and the incoming New Democrats instead discovered they faced a $2.5-billion shortfall.
...
www.truemantuck.ca/11Abou...ves11.html
A $70+ billion again increase to the debt is what we're facing with Liberals in power in the confused, dysfunctional Ontarios due to confused (to say the least), dysfunctional systems and structures.
