He Loves To Tax

Back in the days when Citizen Ellie worked in the media, a picture was always worth a thousand words. Still true today.
A friend recently sent me one of those a "thousand word" pictures via e-mail. Thanks, Brad. Pitchfork readers may have received the same picture from someone they know.
As you scroll down the e-mail it becomes apparent that pigeons are the stars in this picture. Hundreds of them. They are gathered at what appears to be the foot of a statue -- or the base of a plinth if you're one of those "correct use of language" types. The caption ? "Audience anxiously awaits the unveiling of a statue of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty."
Doesn't this just say it all ! Citizen Ellie bets there are many people in this province who would dearly love to do what the pigeons in that photo have in mind for the McGuinty statue. Especially now that we've had 10 days to feel the effect of the HST on our pocketbooks and are just now catching on to the fact that we're also being hit with new "eco fees" which in Citizen Ellie's view are another form of taxation regardless of what they call it or how the Dalton Gang tries to whitewash it.
When we get our next hydro bill we'll all be howling in pain. The HST came into effect while the province was experiencing the worst heat wave in recent memory, increasing the use of air conditioners and fans. And the worst isn't over. Long-range predictions indicate we're in for a much hotter summer than we've had in previous years and unless folks are prepared to sweat it out, those air conditioners and fans will be working overtime. Let's pray for a milder winter . Maybe we can save a little on heating costs.
Perhaps this is a good time to look at what our beloved premier has done to this province in the seven years he's held office. Remember -- this was a man who ran his initial campaign on the promise that there would be no tax increases during his reign.
He'd hardly warmed the premier's seat in the legislature than he implemented what he called a "health care premium". A tax by another name -- $900.00 per year for singles and as much as $1500.00 per year for couples with or without families.
Then he increased license fees -- another form of taxation. If you own a boat or a car, if you fish or hunt, you're paying more.
Hydro charges were increased by 10% on April 1 and on May 1, the tax on liquor and wine went up by 10%
And then there are all those "eco fees" -- on electronics, tires, paint, laundry detergent, window cleaners, cleaning solvents, aerosol cans, prescription drugs -- the list is endless -- and according to a story in today's paper, even his own cabinet ministers are unable to answer questions on exactly where this windfall of cash is going, especially since us ordinary folk are still using the blue box to dispose of our empty laundry detergent bottles etc. and our black box for paper and cardboard and we're paying a through our property taxes for the blue, black and green box programs.
Sooner or later we're all going to be forced into the SMART meter program which looks like a good thing in that there will be different charges for hydro consumed at different times of the day. We will be required to pay rent for these meters. You will pay less, for example, if you turn on your dishwasher or do your laundry in non-peak periods -- i.e. late at night, in the wee hours of the morning. But we Ontarians are not stupid. In order to save a few bucks, we'll all be doing our laundry and turning on our dishwashers late and night and in the wee hours of the morning. Soon those non-peak periods will become peak periods and predictably, if the Dalton gang are still in power, the charge for consumption during those hours will be steeply increased.
And what benefits have we Ontarians received in the seven years the Dalton gang has been in power ?
There was the e-Health scandal --$2 billion wasted or paid out to friends and relatives of the principals with Dalton giving the CEO of this financial boondoggle a $300.000 severance package. Not a bad payoff for someone who'd only been in the job for seven months. Citizen Ellie bets the laid-off Nortel workers in Ottawa wish they were so lucky !
There have been countless scandals involving Ontario Lottery and Gaming.
Instead of finding a company in Canada or even in North America to manufacture the windmills for hydro generation, Dalton awards the $7 billion contract to a company in Korea. Were there no Ontarians who could have done this work ?
Emergency rooms in Port Collburne and Fort Erie hospitals were closed on the grounds there was no money yet a Toronto hospital got $3 million -- right at the time when a by-election had been called due to George Smitherman resigning from cabinet to seek the Toronto mayor's chair.
And now we have this outfit -- Stewardship Ontario -- a government regulated body which is responsible for the "eco fee" program. It's supposed to operate at arms length from the provincial government -- but wasn't e-Health Ontario opperating at arms length from the Ontario Government and don't we know how that turned out ?
While we're being bled white, MPPs voted themselves a 14% pay increase.
Citizen Ellie could go on and on. But it's sufficient to say that the Dalton gang has taken Ontario from being one of the most prosperous "have" provinces in the country to one of the poor "have not" provinces in just seven years. Thanks to the Dalton gang, Ontario now has a deficit of $27 billion and we have another 18 months before we can send this bunch back to the political wilderness. Just think, Dalton has another 18 months to feast on the Ontario taxpayers' carcass. Our bones will be picked pretty clean by the time October 2011 rolls around.
Don't forget, folks, Mayoral candidate Jim Watson was a member of the Dalton gang. Sitting on the front benches, no less. Watson's got to wear some of this !

New posts usually on Sundays