It cannot have escaped the attention of many that Ontario is most unsettled these days. That its industries are anxious, its debt colossal, its citizens not in a pleasant mood. Ontario is in a lot of pain. But let me assure readers outside Ontario that it has not all been for nothing. There are rewards. They are subtle, intangible, but they are real. Let me explain….
h/t nold
Wynneing!
Wynneing!
Be afraid: The brains behind Ontario’s energy disaster are now running the country
Wynneing!
Alleged bribery: Top Liberals face Elections Act charges in Sudbury case
Wynneing!
Let’s play blame the bookkeeper!
In the government’s public accounts for 2015-16, the Independent Electricity System Operator reported a “previously unrecognized actuarial loss and past service costs” of just over $80 million.
The provincial agency which oversees Ontario’s electricity market says it will raise fees it charges the power industry to recover the losses as part of its accumulated deficit charge.
Wynneing!
Abitibi Consolidated to close in Kenora 360 loss jobs, company cited ON's high energy costs as one reasons for closing mill. @anthonyfurey
— Karen (@KarenPtbo) October 22, 2016
Wynneing!
According to figures obtained by Global…
By the end of next year Hydro One’s urban customers who use the most power will see distribution rates go down as much as 19 per cent, making their bills up to 4 per cent lower. Hydro One is Ontario’s largest energy utility.
But customers living in the lowest density rural areas, who use the least amount of power, will be hit hardest, with distribution soaring by as much as 25 per cent. The increase will mean total hydro bills will be up to 11.5 per cent higher by 2017.
Enjoy those renewables, comrades.
Wynneing!
I asked you to keep me informed about the $1.9 billion you are extracting out of the Ontario economy in new carbon taxes. I was excited when you promised lots of new jobs and reductions in carbon emissions. Then I saw the July jobs report. Wow, 36,100 Ontario jobs lost in a single month, the worst decline since the recession, and you still haven’t told me any good news about carbon emission reductions. I guess your new plan is not working.
Maybe it would have been better to leave that $1.9 billion in the hands of the Ontario businesses that were using it to hire employees before you taxed it away from them.
However, I hear it’s not all bad news on the Ontario job front. While the private sector is losing jobs by the tens of thousands under your new tax policies, you have been busy creating some really interesting opportunities for your staff. I don’t know how I missed this, but apparently you lost $70 million setting up and then cancelling the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) in June. While in operation only six months, you hired some really special people that walked away with millions of taxpayers’ dollars for apparently doing nothing. It sounds so ridiculous that I am assuming I must have it wrong, and that’s why I’m putting pen to paper.
So here goes, true or false?
h/t Mike
Wynning!
I think it’s just a question of paying teachers more.
Elementary school math results continue to fall.
Half of all Grade 6 students did not meet the provincial math standard in 2016.
Grade 3: 68% (2012) - 5% (2016) = 63%
Grade 6: 58% (2012) - 8% (2016) = 50%
Wynneing!
And they told us the Sponsorship Scandal was just a “Quebec” problem.
Political staff of many Ontario cabinet ministers double as fundraisers for the Liberal Party, encouraging companies that do business with government to buy tickets to private events hosted by the same ministers who make decisions on contracts and policy.
The Globe and Mail has obtained several invitations to Liberal fundraisers that list ministerial aides as contact people selling tickets.
And more than a half dozen sources in companies doing business with the province say it is commonplace for staffers to invite them to donate to the politicians they deal with.
Wynneing!
… the world’s most indebted sub-sovereign borrower, will increase its current total debt of $300 billion by a staggering $50 billion in just the next four years.
By 2020-21, the Liberals will have recklessly hiked Ontario’s debt 152% from the $138.8 billion they inherited in 2003.
Wynneing!
Life is a charging station, gonna charge it all night long…
The full network of stations will allow electric vehicles to travel from Windsor, Ont., to Ottawa, or from Toronto to North Bay, Ont., as well as in and around major urban centres.
The stations — which will be placed at more than 250 locations including highways, workplaces and public spaces — are all expected to be in service by the end of March next year.
The government says the $20 million investment in the charging stations comes from Ontario’s $325 million Green Investment Fund, which supports projects that fight climate change.
Hey, it’s only money debt.
Wynning!
Wynning!
If we don’t tell him, he can’t call us liars.
“The difficulties I have faced in accessing the information my office needs to produce relevant and timely analyses are much greater than I expected they would be,” LeClair said. “Ministries have repeatedly refused to provide my office with information on grounds that are not founded in my enabling legislation.”
More Pavilions At Folkfest
James, via email,
Ontario, which prosecutes ordinary folks for slaughtering beef for neighbours, has sneakily allowed 40+ facilities to provide “ritual” Halal slaughter services.
This means that Muslims, without any training or certification, can go to these places and can cut their own goat’s throat without stunning the animal – that would land anyone else before the courts.
And here’s the kicker: the “certification” of these facilities as places where ritual Halal slaughters may be conducted was not granted by any Ontario or federal government agency, but rather, by a Muslim council.
Wynneing!
Ontario’s big, green assisted economic suicide plan
…this new plan, billed by the Liberals as a “once-in-a-lifetime transformation” for Ontario’s economy, may also prove the end of Ontario’s lifetime of economic progress. In an era where assisted dying is the big thing with Liberals, this could be the first case where it’s tried on a province.
The leaked cabinet document, reportedly signed-off on by Premier Kathleen Wynne, lists a jaw-dropping 80 or so policies including: The eventual ban on heating new homes and buildings with natural gas, with only electric or geothermal being legal; $4 billion to be doled out by a “green bank,” funded by carbon taxes, to subsidize retrofits of buildings to get them off natural gas; the requirement that homes undergo an “energy-efficiency audit” before they can be sold; and a stack of rules, regulations and handouts to get an electric car into every two-car household within eight years, including rebates, free electric charging, and plug-in stations at every liquor store. Naturally, there will be billions more in traditional government-spending programs on public transit, bike paths, upgrades for schools and hospitals, and “research” funds and centres of climate excellence, not to mention new ethanol fuel standards that will gratify the Liberals’ top corporate donors in the biofuel lobby.
All in the family: Wynne’s Brother-in-law the new CEO of EHealth, BUT he also has deep ties to the Wind Industry
Wynneing!
Ontario’s industrial structure continues the decade-long shift from its traditional pillars of manufacturing and finance to government-directed investments in transportation and utilities. Before the recession, capital spending by manufacturing and finance reached $18.3 billion. Now, they total half that. In their place, investment in transportation and utilities has doubled from $10 billion to $20 billion. Instead of world-class factories and banks, Ontario now invests in mass transit and green-energy projects, mostly dictated by government.
[…]
The contrast between business investment in Quebec and Ontario shows that the billions poured into government infrastructure and green-energy projects has not “kick-started” Ontario’s business investment as the government hoped. In fact, the high taxes and electricity rates needed to pay for these schemes seems to be driving investment out of Ontario, especially from its manufacturing core. Slumping investment is hardly surprising since business confidence in Ontario is the lowest in Canada, with only 30 per cent of firms saying the province is headed in the right direction. Not even a lower dollar has made it worthwhile for firms to expand. Instead, Ontario’s building a magnificent transportation infrastructure to carry imported goods that used to be made here and to ferry commuters to jobs that will not materialize as long as business investment flounders.
Shocker, I know.
Wynneing!
Despite 18 months of problems associated with the software responsible for tracking Ontarians on social assistance, the Ontario government has awarded a two-year $32-million IT contract aimed at servicing the software to the same company that created it. […]
“It should be fixed under warranty,” said Smokey Thomas, the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents caseworkers who deliver services to social assistance recipients across the province.
“So they hire IBM, and pay them even more money to fix the problems that they created with the system they sold.”
h/t Bob
Wynneing!
Conservation pays: Low power use in the winter means Hydro rates increase
Wynneing!
A chicken in every pot, a gun to every head;
Things just got a whole lot brighter in Canada for the dismal electric-car business. Word has leaked that the country’s largest province is preparing to help buy a plug-in vehicle or hybrid for millions of families across the province — or will at least force those families to buy one. The details of how Ontarians are getting all those green vehicles weren’t clear in the confidential draft version of the Wynne Liberals’ “Climate Change Action Plan” leaked to The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. But the goals are crystal clear: A promise to get 1.7 million low-emission cars on the roads in the next eight years, and pull seven million gas-powered cars off in the next 14.
That’s in addition to making sure 80 per cent of us ride transit or walk or bike to work, and ensuring the majority of the buildings in the province are “emissions-free” by 2050. And to engineer this great, gleaming, green society, the Liberals will create a brand new monopolistic government behemoth, a “new ultra-low-carbon utility” that will have a sweeping mandate to micro-engineer how you get to work, how you heat your home, and how the economy is powered.
Or, there are always elections.