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Ontario's 2012 Budget: Put-up or Shut-up Time for Tim Hudak's Progressive Conservatives

March 27, 2012 by · Leave a Comment 

It is widely regarded as true that, in the lead up to, and during, the most recent Ontario provincial election, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak spent his time telling Ontario voters what the governing Liberals were doing wrong, but came up woefully short on how his PCs would govern differently. That pattern has continued since the October election. In fact, as recently as February 23, 2012, the PC-friendly Toronto Sun published a column by Queens Park columnist Christina Blizzard in which she submitted that Hudak continues to lack “a cohesive strategy for the party that will give them a clear and intelligent message”. Her recommendation to Mr. Hudak:

“Come up with an alternative budget. Set out a clear, coherent document that shows exactly how he’d get the budget back in balance by the target dates set out by Drummond.”

Of course, Mr. Hudak and the PCs did not oblige (though Freedom Party of Ontario did, with its March 21 release of its “2012 Opposition Budget“). Instead, Mr. Hudak opted to submit an OpEd to the National Post, which printed it today: budget day. Those who read it will, I expect, shake their heads in disbelief. In his column, Mr. Hudak continues with the same strategy that allowed him to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory during election 2011: lots of over-played ranting about what the government’s doing wrong, and absolutely nothing in terms of specific proposals to which the public could hold Mr. Hudak and his PCs accountable.

To see what I mean, I’ve broken his submission into individualized paragraphs, and I’ve summarized each paragraph where the paragraph actually talks about things done wrongly, or things that should be (or should have been) done differently. Don’t look for anything like a promise going forward: Mr. Hudak speaks only of what he would have done, looking back over the last several months since the election. However, even where Mr. Hudak speaks of what he and the PCs would have done had they won the election in 2011, notice that Mr. Hudak’s would-haves are hopelessly vague and ambiguous. Read more

University of Toronto Objectivist Society: Shrugging Off Atlas Shrugged?

March 26, 2012 by · 2 Comments 

Early this morning I received from a FaceBook friend an invitation to an “Atlas Shrugged”-themed dinner hosted by the University of Toronto Objectivist Society. The dinner is tonight, and going would involve about three hours of driving. However, I would not be going were the dinner held next door.

The full title of the dinner is: “Atlas Shrugged and Ontario Politics Dinner With MPP Randy Hillier”. Randy Hillier is a member of the Ontario Legislature. He sits as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. The invitation claims he is an “Ayn Rand fan”.

Years ago, Randy Hillier joined the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. He actively sought and obtained that party’s endorsement for his candidacy. The endorsement arguably allowed him to win a seat in the Ontario Legislature.

What is the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario? It is one of the three socialist parties holding seats in Ontario’s Legislature. In fact, it is the mother of Ontario socialism. Read more

Survivor, Colton Cumbie, and the World's Perception of America's Racist Snobbery

March 8, 2012 by · 9 Comments 

It was a disturbing reverberation from the dark attitudes of the early 1960s. On CBS’s long-running show “Survivor”, a contestant by the name of Colton Cumbie stood up at “tribal council” to let us all know that there remains a southern U.S. sub-population of people who think that their genetics and their inherited wealth make them better than those who work hard to pursue their happiness. Read more