Yeah, yeah, Wynne is Premier and everything, but let's not kid ourselves; we know who's setting the agenda. We had a bunch of NDP budget demands that were agreed to, a LCBO strike that was averted through Lord knows what kind of concessions, the head of the OLG getting unceremoniously dumped to head off the building of a casino that downtown Toronto NDP NIMBYists didn't want, and now, more budget demands that are getting agreed to.
Is this really what the OLP wanted when they appointed Wynne Premier of the province? Letting the NDP basically run things? Are they that interested in achieving a consensus? Looks like it.
Do we, as a province, ever ask ourselves where this ends? No we don't. And is the NDP satisfied with what they're getting? Well, just days ago the unions were running radio ads calling the LCBO evil and greedy for not meeting their demands fast enough, accusing them of not allowing LCBO workers to make a living. Now that the LCBO situation has been temporarily taken care of, you can better believe that they will be right back with a list of other atrocities that need to be rectified yesterday. What the hell has this government done for them lately, anyway?
Wynne can blow all the cash she wants, and we can natter on all we want about the need to find common ground with the perpetually aggrieved underclass, but as I've been documenting here on my little blog, these people are never going to run out of stuff to be mad about.
For example, was the recent BC election bought by corporations, resulting in a BC Liberal election victory? Most definitely! But somehow those big corporations couldn't stop Christy Clark from losing her own seat. Maybe that's because the local NDP campaign gave a damn while the rest of the NDP were trying to take the high road. But it's much easier to blame evil corporations, so let's go with that.
Let's take another example from the world of stuff people care about. At this moment there is currently a low-level backlash about the fact that in the new Star Trek movie, the bad guy, Alternate Universe Khan Noonien Singh, is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a white person. These Internet anti-racism crusaders are furious about this "whitewashing", and that a terrorist is not being played by a.....brown person......uh ohhhhh..........
No, hold on a minute.....they're mad about the fact that a genocidal maniac who revels in his superiority over other humans and is proud of his own abilities- who says in the trailer that he's better at everything than everyone else- is portrayed by a......white person......ummmm.....
Well, he was brown-ish in the original Trek continuity, and he was depicted in the original TV series as an exotic tyrant who conquered most of Asia and the Middle East, which doesn't at all play into the stereotype of Asia and the Middle East being a playground for dictators and people who hate freedom........and because America and Europe are so advanced, the idea of white tyrants would just be craziness, and, um......
You know what I would like to see? A backlash against the fact that the threat of a strike led to a massive run on LCBO's across the province, coincidentally just in time for the Victoria Day long weekend! If the LCBO was anything other than a government monopoly, these same people would be questioning whether the whole thing was a false flag operation to drive up sales. We can accuse the LCBO of being greedy, even evil, but we're never going to spin conspiracy theories about its bottom line the way we would about big corporations.
It's about continuing to find "evidence" of systemic discrimination, then using that evidence as a pretext to rage and to win more concessions from privileged people. But if you imagine that we're eventually going to get to a point where nobody is privileged, then you're as naïve as Kathleen Wynne. It's not about eliminating privilege- it's about appropriating privilege. Remember- these people are the wealth redistributors, and it must therefore follow that they're also the privilege redistributors.
Kathleen Wynne thinks that she can reach out to the NDP and bring them onside. She is wrong. As she, and (I hope) Ontarians will soon discover, feeding everything she can find to the crocodile is only going to ensure that it eats her last.
20 years ago Alberta got out of the retail liquor business, leading to lower prices, better service and more selection. Why is the Ontario government in the retail liquor business?
ReplyDeleteHudak should be on this one come the next election.
Well, since the fed libs/ndp/bloc joined themselves by signing onto coalition agreement so can Ontario Provincial government.
ReplyDeleteWhat is keeping all parties ratelively safe from the public is credited to the MSM.
All three Ont parties have failed to act on privatization when they did form the government. Liberals obviously are loathe to part with the retail and wholesale margins on liquor products, while the NDP also is bound not to alienate the unionized store clerks. The PC talk a good line in opposition, but we will see when they form the next government.
ReplyDeleteThe $1.5 B profits that accrue to government coffers now is a red herring; this is always raised as an reason why government couldn't possibly get out of the liquor business. This sort of reasoning would argue for a Soviet style involvement in all sorts of retailing, gasoline, tobacco. furnace oil etc. No justification can be given for Ont being in the liquor business except it makes a profit, I say since 1927 Ont has made enough gouging consumers on liquor prices.
If a government like the present one simply squanders the profits on wind turbines, e-health registers, just name your favourite, then what difference does it make?
I would sooner see the government raise necessary revenue through taxation, then through bogus retail activity, in a field they have no reason to be involved in. After all with monopoly power over liquor sales to 13 m people, why wouldn't they turn a profit, the real question is why is the figure so low.