And The Award Goes To.....

The Working Families Coalition are so good at what they do that Campaigns And Elections, "The Magazine For People In Politics", have seen fit to reward them with one of their prestigious Reed Awards. Take a bow, Arrow Communications Group and Jackson Communications Group, for your victory in the category of "Best International Campaign!"

Aren't you proud that a group of local Ontario boys with absolutely no connection whatsoever to Dalton McGuinty distinguished themselves by taking home the same trophy as the people who masterminded Lulzim Basha's campaign for Mayor of the city of Tirana, Albania? Lovely Tirana, birthplace of George Soros! This proves Ontario can take on the world and win, or at least beat out the guys who got Greg Selinger elected Premier of Manitoba. In your face, Winnipeg!

This is exactly the type of international success story that Dalton should be promoting on Twitter. Nope! He decided to block his account to outsiders like me.

If you needed more evidence of the WFC's election-related wizardry, consider that few, if any, people reported the fact that their recent court "victory" actually stemmed from the fact that the judges didn't think investigating the totally unproven links between them and the Liberals was something they should be looking into. Essentially, "The panel concluded that any objection to the group’s participation in elections should be dealt with by the Chief Electoral Officer, or ultimately, the Ontario Legislature." Pffft. Right after the Premier stands in QP and honours Arrow Communications for their outstanding work, I'm sure he'll get right on that.

School's Out?

Hmmm. Suddenly those rumours of a teacher's strike this fall are looking a lot more credible. 

Not so funny when unions turn their guns on you, is it, Liberals? I'd recommend they read our new White Paper on labour laws. 

The Definition of Insanity

Oh good. Yet another legal victory for the Working Families Coalition. 

And it comes not two days after it emerged that tradespeople were being pressured to campaign for Liberals. Trade unions, in case you didn't know, are a big part of the WFC. 

You know, I want to be mad about this, but I really can't be. If this decision convinces people within the PCPO that you can't beat these people by whining about how unfair it all is, then as far as I'm concerned it's well worth the 100K in legal costs. 

Personally, I see no reason why we shouldn't have had our own coalition of supporters, and why we didn't have one from the start. Putting together one now will give the Liberals the opportunity to ask us why we changed our minds on coalitions of supporters, but things being the way they are, I guess it's a case of better late than never. 

Remember: there are two things keeping the Liberals in power. One is the fact that the PC Party doesn't want to do what is necessary to win, and the other is that people will accept any kind of bad behaviour from the Liberals, so long as it remains socially acceptable to vote Liberal. We can solve one of those problems. The other will have to solve itself. 

In a few short weeks, we will have the opportunity to see whether the PC Party of Ontario is willing to do what is necessary, on a particular issue. 

Stay tuned. 

The Breaking Point

This Star story, which reveals that workers at your child's school were being forced to campaign for Liberal MPP's and handpicked school trustees under pain of possibly losing their jobs, is going to be circulated pretty widely.

I don't know if it really qualifies as news. I see it as a newspaper finally doing its job.

Also, it's going to be pretty hard for the Liberals to employ their standard tactic of "We didn't know about this/It's Mike Harris' fault". We'll see what else they come up with.

Now. If Tracy Wieler cannot hold the riding of Kitchener Waterloo after this revelation, then there is really no hope for our province.

What A Complete Waste Of Time That Was (Again)

The above tweet is what is commonly referred to as "covering your retreat." Or, "covering your retweet", as it were.

We, the PC Party of Ontario, a.k.a. "The People Who Dealt Ourselves Out Of This Budget Fraud From The Very Beginning", will remind the voters of Kitchener Waterloo about this latest sorry episode of Liberal-NDP budget brinkmanship during the upcoming byelection.

The Show Must Go On

You know, I thought Ontario politics had reached its nadir back in April with the passage of Dalton McGuinty's budget after a month of the NDP pretending to oppose it, and the media pretending that Horwath had wrung substantial concessions from the Liberals (instead of just giving them an excuse to raise taxes again).  

But to have to go through the whole thing again? Over the same budget? And to have to watch #onpoli lose its collective mind again over an election that will not happen? It's clear that there is no bottom.

And it's also clear that Dalton is going to threaten an election every time he doesn't get what he wants, and that the threat of an election is going to be very effective, because despite all the moaning about the current government, nobody really wants to get off their asses and work to change things.

Here's what Dalton expects you to believe, Mr. and Mrs. Ontario voter:

1) That Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, can threaten an election because nobody is allowed to make amendments to his budget, while the Premier's brother, Liberal MP David McGuinty, stands in the House of Commons for 24 hours at a time trying to make amendments to the federal budget, because the federal budget simply can't pass without amendments (because it's a Conservative budget)

2) That Dalton McGuinty told the other parties that he wanted them to work together on the budget, and when the PC Party and the NDP voted together to make amendments to the budget (i.e. work together on the budget), Dalton threatened to call an election

3) That if Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals defeat their own budget by dissolving the government, voters will punish the other parties for causing an election.

Now, if you would prefer to not notice the above contradictions, there's very little that I can do for you. You're in very good company. But as long as you keep your head in the sand, things are only going to get worse.

Meanwhile, the PC Party of Ontario has been consistent in opposing this fraud from the beginning, and they are right to have done so. If you want to try being consistent for a change, I recommend you stand with them.

Yurek Wrecks Duncan

Wow! Looks like PC Party MPP Jeff Yurek also wants to know about Dalton McGuinty's reasons for appointing union economist Jim Stanford to the Jobs and Prosperity Council.

Warning: This video contains graphic scenes of Dwight Duncan failing to answer a question.  Viewer discretion is advised.

By the way, did you know that Jim Stanford held a public meeting bashing the Drummond Report around the same time that Dwight Duncan said he was going to implement half of it? Duncan ended up implementing basically none of the report, and Stanford got himself a new gig working for Dalton. How exactly did we get from Point A to Point B on that one?

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

The Ontario Ombudsman is one of the few people in Ontario who can be relied upon to poke his nose into Dalton McGuinty's dirty business with regularity.

Right now, the Ombudsman is concerned that Dalton McGuinty's budget bill limits the number of organizations that can be looked into. There may be a bushel of ORNGEs out there in Dalton's vast patronage network, but we'll never know about them now that the budget seems set to pass. Of course, Liberals such as Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi don't share the Ombudsman's frustrations.

Now I'm willing to bet that most Liberals, Naqvi included, have a huge problem with Harper's budget bill. Don't try pointing this discrepancy out to Liberals, because it just might make their heads explode.

For my part, I could be like David Wilks and express concerns about the federal budget bill. But because the Liberals are only against the federal budget because it's a budget brought forward by a Conservative government, doing what David Wilks did would be silly.

Job Qualifications

According to his rabble.ca biography, economist Jim Stanford is "an Economist in the Research Department of the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada's largest private-sector trade union" and is "co-editor (with Leah F. Vosko) of Challenging the Market: The Struggle to Regulate Work and Income."

Also, he has a rabble.ca biography.

All of this would make him the perfect candidate for Dalton McGuinty's "Jobs And Prosperity Council." Yep, there he is, second name from the bottom. (Who'd think to look down there?)

But why is he listed as just an "economist"? Why not "the guy who wrote a chapter in a book called 'Replacing Capitalism'"? How about  "the guy who recently protested a CPC Minister's constit office and enthusiastically tweeted about it?" And who could forget "a man who praised Dalton McGuinty for bashing the oil sands before Tom Mulcair made it cool to do so?"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if Dalton wants to take advice on how to create jobs from people who are trying to pull the Ontario Liberals out into left field, he should be open about it.

The Blind Lead The Blind

We have:

-A report that says the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is $14 billion in the hole

-A Dalton McGuinty minister who buries a report saying the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is $14 billion in the hole

-A former PC MPP appointed to head the WSIB and deal with this mess (and the fallout from the mess, because she was affiliated with Mike Harris at one point)

-A journalist who discovers all of the above almost a month after it happened and proceeds to complain about "how politics is practiced in Ontario" - but still blames Mike Harris

-A voting public who couldn't give a toss about any of the above.

For once, I side with the voting public.

On The Waterfront

Hey look! There's "divisions within Premier Dalton McGuinty’s caucus on the issue" of building a casino on the Toronto waterfront.

Any similarity to real events within OLP caucus meetings are purely coincidental.

Funny how an issue that divides the downtown Toronto people is the one- the only one that I can think of- that divides Dalton's caucus, isn't it?