More “to-be-broken” promises from Liberals
“Ontario’s Green Energy Act will create 50,000 new jobs” says the Ontario Liberal government. And if you believe that, I know some land in Florida you can buy very cheaply.
I don’t know why they stopped at promising only 50,000. They should have said 75,000 or 100,000. These predictions and promises are worth as much as Liberal promises not to raise taxes. You know a carbon tax or ECO type tax is coming if they win again in October.
Listen, the only tactic the Liberal government has against Tim Hudak and the PC party is to try to scare Ontario voters by saying that the PC’s will cut funding to education and healthcare. That Ontario residents will be attending bad schools and have longer waits for operations and long term care if Hudak wins. But the PC’s have promised not to do this. In fact, they have gone out of their way to say that they will keep increasing investments in these two areas. According to Tim Hudak, healthcare and education will be improved under PC governance. Do you believe that?
There are people who will vote for the Liberals knowing that Dalton McGuinty will not follow through on his commitments but they just like him. I am cool with that. Who I want to address this post to are the voters who say they don’t believe Hudak’s pledge but live everyday with McGuinty’s broken promises. I hear many say that both leaders are not truthful and neither will keep their promises. If that’s the case, why re-elect a Liberal government? It’s not working for the economy as proven by our notional standing in economic performance. Our taxes and hydro rates keep going up with no improvement of any tangible measure to show for it. And this is the current record of the Liberal government – not one of eight and twelve years ago.
It seems to me that this election the Ontario Liberals have adopted a policy to promise the moon and to promise big. They hope people would buy it and if they get re-elected, they will do whatever they want to do regardless. And why not? It worked in the last election for them.
So I come back to the green energy job growth pledge. Why are the Liberals only promising 50,000 jobs and not more? But does it really matter? They won’t feel compelled to deliver on it. The onus comes down to the Ontario voters elect a government with a least the hope that they would deliver on their promises. McGuinty has proven he can’t do that.
I think Blake presents some good ideas and things to think about. However, there are some rational reasons why Ontarians fear Hudak and his slate of candidates.
First, is Rob Ford. Ford came into power on a notion of a “gravey train.” He insisted that he was able to find a positive balance, and a way to control, the financial challenges in Toronto. While he came into power with a lot of hope, within less than a year he has disappointed many citizens in Toronto – and those near the GTA have noticed. He promised so much, and has delivered so little. His ideology has gotten in the way of pragmatism. Ford tried something new, but dug in on an ideological perspective, instead of a pragmatic perspective, and hence many of the vote rich areas of Ontario (Toronto and the GTA) have seen this and are cautious about Conservative leaders and what they say.
Secondly, Harper has dug into ideological values as well. By doing so he has seemed to upset those who supported him in the last federal election. The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) is going to be demolished, despite western farmers voting and pleading with the federal government to keep the CWB. Harper, based on ideology, is going ahead with an idea he thinks is right and ignoring the voices of those that voted for him. Secondly, the federal government has just released a huge – and quite possibly a very expensive – crime bill. His crime bill is ideologically based and very expensive. Both left many people wondering how is he going to pay for this? Does Canada have the financial backing for such an expensive bill? Is he, because of his ideological perspective of crime, going to put Canada deeper into debt? Ultimately, both of these choices have a huge conservative ideologically philosophy to them, with very little pragmatism and any real research put behind the decision.
Thus Ontario voters hear Hudak say, and I paraphrase, “I will not cut health care spending or education, in fact I will make it better…” Many people have to ask, how so? Furthermore, many citizens from Ontario will be asking, is Hudak just saying this to get our vote and once elected will he then turn his public policy around based on his ideological philosophy (much like Ford and Harper), or will he be honest and stick to a pragmatic approach to solving our current conditions?
People truly do want change and they want a government that is held accountable. The challenge for Hudak is something totally out of his control – Conservative governments (such as Ford and Harper) who choose to be ideologically bent and not pragmatic. Hudak can promise the world, he can promise to increase spending on social programs for all the Ontario citizens can care. Citizens could possibly fear that Hudak is just saying things to get elected and then will in turn start governing on a Conservative ideological philosophy as opposed to a pragmatic one.
Cheers.
Personally I think the Liberals (all) were smart when they changed their party name from the Wigs to the current Liberal. On the other hand the Tories changed to the Conservatives…Progressive Conservatives…Conservatives again I think.
Ask someone if they are Liberal in life or conservative. So that I believe is one of the main reasons the Liberals have enjoyed so much success despite decisions they should have been hammered at election time for.
As always, we get the government we deserve because as voters we put them in. The day the average voter pulls their head out of that deep dark orifice it resides in vis a vis political chicanery is the day politicians live in fear of. The politicians are safe because people are much more adept at figuring out the intrigue in Sookie’s life than why tax freedom day comes later every year.
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