Apolitical Staples

Anyone remember how much the health premium/tax that McGuinty added was supposed to raise? Was it anywhere near $32 million? — John M Reynolds

This is why Ontario doesn’t have the money to pay its social service bills to Toronto - it’s handing out “love Liberal” money.

And today McGuinty announces the long awaited increase in police officers, hires 200 more. Cost :$26 million.

When Mayor (Chicken Little) Miller tore up his NDP card, he should’ve immediately signed up to be a member of the Liberal party.
He surely would get the money he wants for Toronto - no strings attached except for the requirement of throwing a celebratory dinner for Dalton.

Liberal membership has it’s privileges.

Looks like Dalton’s chances for a majority have gone down the crapper. If he keeps this up a minority may be in doubt, too.

Things never change - read the following:

Friday, May 18, 2007 Page: 4 Section: Editorial Byline: Kelly, Paul

The Ontario Progressive Conservative party is up in arms about the Liberals spending money. Seemingly (and allegedly), of a $32 million dollar program a couple of $100, 000 grants have found their way into groups that have - brace yourself - Liberal supporters.

You must be thinking that it would not happen in a PC government. Well, I beg to differ. At the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources between 1997 and 2002, there was a program called the Fish and Wildlife Protection and Enhancement Fund.

It was a three-year, $10 million program divided yearly into $5, $3 and $2 million respectively. It was extended for another $10 million for another period of time.

The first year it ran, it was for $5 million in unspecified spending but the projects somehow had to be linked to the crown jewel of Mike Harris’s government - hunting and fishing.

MNR district offices submitted proposals for programs developed with local outdoor clubs - a core constituency for the Harris Tories.

The list was sent to a small group of Progressive Conservative MPPs for “review and approval.” The group was the ‘MNR Caucus’ and it included several current Progressive Conservative MPPs.

When the committee got the list there were two items they could not touch: $400,000 for Premier Harris’s riding - a group dealing with Lake Nipissing - and some $60,000 for an advertising campaign with a high-profile angler with close links to the premier.

To mess with those two projects was to invite almost certain career-ending death. Another tab was for a fish hatchery in Haliburton (the riding of a very powerful minister, Chris Hodgson). It was another $164,000.

There were some other projects in the Haliburton region that came in for another $50,000. There was no end to the demands for more money.

The MNR committee quickly went to work ‘liberating’ money. The first round was a ‘rapid fire’ round of killing things for what they sounded like and where they were. If it typically had anything to do with conservation or ‘tree huggers,’ it died an ugly death.

If it was in an opposition member’s riding it was killed with glee.

This money was ‘Conservative money’ and was to be spent on Conservative projects.

I could look at a list even today and tell you where it came from and who spoke to it.

Once the list was tidied up and some money was freed up, these MPPs (and usually they were the only ones who knew about the fund) would come back with their own ideas or those of other government MPPs.

There would be the small boat launch for $10,000 and the larger Lake Erie studies for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There would be a new release, photo in the newspaper and a lot of “Me and the premier brung you this cheque” giddiness.

My own personal favourite involves a current MP and MPP. At the time Gord Brown, current Conservative MP for Leeds-Grenville, was chairman of the St. Lawrence Park Commission.

Over lunch at a Yonge Street restaurant, he mentioned needing money for a project. I suggested a letter from cabinet minister Bob Runciman to the MNR might help. And, $60,000 later, it did.

All of it was done perfectly legal.

Contracts were signed, guidelines where adhered to, memorandums were approved, etc. The auditor could check it today - all rules were followed.

Was it a ‘secret’ fund? No. Was it an obscure fund? For sure. Was it a ‘slush fund’? In many ways, it was.

So what is the point of all this? Well, the Tories raising a stink about this against the Liberals are hypocrites and, even more so, frauds.

In the global scheme of multi-million dollar budgets - in fact, billion dollar budgets - this is all nickel and dime stuff.

More so, if the Tories were in power they would do the exact same thing. I have seen it done. At one point in time, the Tories had the wife of a cabinet minister secretly checking on groups applying for Trillium grants.

This is what politics and being in power is all about.

The ability to throw around a small amount of money to groups that support you and that you are involved with comes with the territory. To the victor goes the spoils.

I have no axe to grind with any of these people. I turned the page on this chapter of my life long ago. But this is a clear demonstration of the pot calling the kettle black.

Nowadays with so few people involved with volunteer groups, it is noticeable the people who are involved in the political process and are also involved in local community groups, festivals and such.

So you are never going to get an organization without one link to any political party. So are they to receive nothing? I don’t think so.

But to sit back and watch the Tories attack the McGuinty government for doing such a thing is a laughable sight.

Laughable because not so long ago, they did - and would do again - the very same thing.

Questions? Comments? Contact the author at: positivelypaulkelly@sympatico.ca

So is Paul Kelly and Sara suggesting that the PCs are upset that the Liberal’s 32 million slush fund was larger than the PC’s 20 million potential? Then again, Paul did not provide any proof that any of the 20 million went to projects that were outside of the purpose of the Fish and Wildlife Protection and Enhancement Fund. As he said, “all of it was done perfectly legal.” Perhaps the two situations are not as conguent as Paul Kelly suggests. One difference seems to be that many people knew about and applied to the PCs fund. As the blog entry above notes in its last sentence with respect to the Liberal fund, “Groups without those ministerial connections didn’t even know about the program, much less how to apply.”

Sorry for not signing the last one, but I just had another thought. As Wikipedia notes, in 1999, “Harris announced a program called Ontario’s Living Legacy. The initiative added 378 new parks and protected areas, bringing the total in Ontario to 650 and increasing Ontario’s protected areas to more than 95,000 square kilometres.” Perhaps the tree huggers did not get funding because this huge tree hugging plan was in the works. — John M Reynolds

Amazing - accepting the hypocracy because the amount was different.

Are you people for real? Ah, havent’ heard Harris acknowedge, arrange for and audit or apologize.

Oh well, we know Conservatives don’t apologize.

Parks - wow - parks but closed down hospital beds, reduced hospital staff, etc. etc. etc. Hmmm….pardon me if I’m not impressed.

“X” did it then, so have no right to complain “Y” is doing it now. Ah, nothing changes.

Sara, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you and John are 100% correct, and that the Ontario PCs are criticising the McG government for things that are, basically, the same as what the Harris Tories did. You seem to have a problem with this.

But by that logic, the federal Libs shouldn’t be criticising the federal Tories in respect of - well, almost everything, really, but especially anything in respect of subjects like ethics, Afghanistan or even income trusts (“u will b happy” e-mails and the like).

It is annoying when a party that was in power finds religion only at about the same time as loses an election and is cast into the wilderness.

But [he says with a heavy sigh], that’s politics. Unless you’re dealing with a ‘93 [federal] or ‘95 [ON provincial] level meltdown, you’re likely going to have the party that was just in power acting as the Official Opposition, and it stands to reason that as an Opposition, they’re going to raise issues that they would’ve ignored while in government. The Ontario PCs are hardly the first, or only, party to play that game.