Two provincial issues with local links
Premier Dalton McGuinty, announced two funding endeavours today: one was to spend 26 million dollars and the other to try and get some of his slush fund money back.
Firstly the OPP issue, it is more than a bit galling to discover that the money will be going to fund more OPP officers of a general nature, and only a few to go to an anti-gun squad. That means that urban taxpayers will once again be subsidising the rural policing efforts. What is more than galling is to realise that at present urban taxpayers are still subsidising rural police users although Mr Harris tried to end the practise by making rurals pay for their policing. He did institute a charge for policing but then issued grants to offset the costs. Of course urbans, like Cobourg and Port Hope ending up paying twice; once for their own police costs and then again for the police grants to the rurals. But it gets worse as the urban taxpayer has to pay more toward the rural police because of a way that the OPP staffing is structured. It is a fact that about one third of all the local complements budgets come from a allocation called "Provincial Complement" and is used to pay for events and circumstances beyond the normal rural policing as well as to pay for replacements to the complement due to sickness and absences. For example when the Havelock detachment has to be expanded for the Jamboree the Municipality doesn't get billed, the Provincial Complement pays for it. Correspondingly in Cobourg we pay for everything. We know that all the extra costs of the Waterfront Festival are our costs. Perhaps we should have the Festival at the Pentecostal Camp, in Hamilton Township, and the province (meaning us) will pay?
The second issue of trying to get the slush fund money back will be problematic as all the grants were unconditional and the organisations that received the money can do what they want with the money. But here is a suggestion, now would be the perfect time to give Mr McGuinty his 1.3 million dollars back and the Fountain/ Rink controversy will go away!
1 comments:
This isn't so much about the Province giving more cash to the OPP, or even the debacle of the slush fund buying junk like Cobourg's proposed fountain/rink, but more about the politicians' efforts in general to buy themselves a mandate in October.
As disgusted as I am by the wanton cash give-aways and the Liberals doing it, I worry more about the kind of government we will get if people are dumb enough to bring the Tories back.
So many of the desperate problems the Province is dealing with are legacies of the Tories, and now we have the irony of the current Tory regime promising to fix them all.
Will people forget that it was the Tories who caused the problems in the first place?
The only difference I can see between the old Harris/Eves crowd and the new guy is that the new guy is more urban, more sophisticated, and more likely to be sympathetic to the problems of our cities. But while the spin may be a bit different, the basic conservative philosophy is still the same, and we will be even more screwed if he becomes premier.
It's a matter of degree, but I guess I'd rather get screwed by Liberals than Conservatives. At least you can talk to the Liberals, the Tories are so sure they are right they won't even listen to people who don't wear their tory blue membership card on their sleeve.
The NDP is just dead in the water as far as I am concerned. They abandoned their base years ago, and now can't even bring themselves to acknowledge the injustices perpetrated against the have-nots, let alone campaign to bring justice to that rather large chunk of Ontarians left out in the cold.
Is Howard Hamptom leader for life or what? Do they even bother to hold leadership reviews anymore?
This might just be the election that I ignore. There's no one to vote for anyway.
DJO
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