Liberal Screwup Roundup, Sept 18th

How, I ask you, how can these Liberals keep finding news ways to shoot themselves in the foot? It's getting difficult to keep up with them. Even though Dalton took the day off yesterday, we still have a short, but sweet list to run through.

First of all, if you haven't read it yet, the PC Party has provided reporters with the deets regarding the cozy relationship between the Ontario Liberals and the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association. Liberals provide taxpayer dollars, OSEA provides supportive ads. Now we're not saying one hand is washing the other.....we're just saying it really, really, really, really, really looks like one hand is washing the other.

Then we have a column by Martin Regg Cohn in the Star where he - unbelievably- asks some tough questions about Dalton McGuinty's platform and vision. I do believe that if this continues, people may start to suspect Dalton can't be trusted.
But the Liberal platform also has its share of fiscal backflips. My favourite is McGuinty’s plan to pay for his laudable $500 million tuition rebate partly by stepping up enforcement against contraband tobacco (worth $175 million). On the eve of an election, the Liberals conveniently inserted this “found” money into their platform and redid other budget projections to free up a total of $1.5 billion.

If these updated balance sheets don’t materialize down the road, how will the Liberals bankroll their tuition rebates and extra home care spending? The Tories warn that McGuinty will raise taxes, as he has after previous elections. The Liberal promise they won’t, just as they’ve pledged in the past.

"Just as they've pledged in the past." And does anyone remember whether the Liberals honoured those pledges? Hmmm?

While Cohn asks the question of "Where Are We Going?", Christina Blizzard in the Sun asks the question of "How Did We Get Here?"

Public sector salaries are out of control. With those salaries comes the ticking time bomb of cushy, defined benefit pensions.

Despite a stern finger-wagging from Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and a pledge to freeze civil servant salaries in the 2010 budget, only a handful of government workers actually had their pay frozen.

Ontario provincial police, got an 8.5% pay hike — a deal that has municipalities across the province up in arms, as they know it sets a precedent for their forces.

The government negotiated a secret deal with OPSEU that gave them 1.75% in 2009, 2% in 2010, 2% this year — and 3% next year.

Yikes.

And for those of you who feel Hudak is not being tough enough on Dalton McGuinty, well, check out this open letter where he tears Dalton a new one:

I am increasingly concerned at the evidence showing that the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games is unraveling. Ontario families were sold on the Pan Am Games with your bid chair David Peterson’s promise that it would be “a great party, without a hangover.” Warning signs of problems came earlier this month, when the City of Hamilton revealed that the velodrome venue is not on time and not on budget. Headlines like “Pan Am Games team stumbles out of the gate” in today’s Toronto Star do nothing to restore shaken public confidence that you or your hand-picked organizing committee is getting control over the problems with organizing the Games.

You have put Ontario families in a difficult position with the way you and your hand-picked Liberal appointees to the organizing committee have structured the finances of the Games. In addition to assuming responsibility for 35% of the cost of the Games, you made the Province of Ontario the guarantor for any deficits and cost overruns for venues. Now it has come to light that with less than four years until the opening of the Games there has been no progress on site selection, let alone construction of venues.

Central command assures me that tomorrow is going to be another tough day for Dalton and the gang, and you can be sure that the ever-popular screwup roundups will cover all of it. And hey, I hear some new polls are coming out that shows the NDP are starting to climb! What do you suppose that means?