Fagedaboudit

When in doubt, flail wildly, and whatever your arms hit in the process, eliminate. That will be construed as positive action for by their removal you will have seemed to have done something positive toward adversity. Something like Ontario's Premier Dalton McGuinty, who hardly knows where to turn to divert attention from the quite obvious fact that his double-tenure has been somewhat of an economic catastrophe for Ontarians.

His oversight has been so poor that management of government agencies have managed to dredge funding from an already-tight treasury to enhance the bottom line of the managers, while producing nothing of any value for the province and its taxpayers. The province had been warned for years that its business taxes were too onerous, resulting in a reluctance of businesses to establish there, but he did nothing to ameliorate that.

Now, we've got another taxation device from a premier who sailed into office on his sterling promise to hold the line on taxes which quickly tarnished when he re-imposed a universal health tax, which itself did nothing whatever to improve health services or waiting times for the province. But the harmonized sales tax, while imposing another burden on the middle-class will help business avoid its classical tax overpayment.

Now this genius who is functionally incapable of understanding that fundamental good management practises are key to good government, finding himself the premier of a province that was once the engine of the Canadian economy faltering because of a loss of production jobs, thinks it's good politics to make propaganda war on Alberta and Stephen Harper to endear himself with the electorate through his climate conscience.

A climate conscience so uniquely his own that his pledge on entering office to close down all those filth-spewing coal-fired installations has quietly succumbed to the inertia of lost memory. To save several hundred automotive-industry jobs he has indentured the province's taxpayers to a long haul of debt-recovery at a time when it could be least afforded. Of course in lock-step with the feds who also saw profit in 'saving' those jobs.

While workers in other industries saw their livelihoods slowly melting away in the direction of the far east because people everywhere, including all those ordinary consumers in Ontario are so taken with the notion that buying cheap is better than buying local - yet another human fallacy beyond redemption. We all have short memories and scant discretionary spending powers.

Isn't that why we elect a politician who claims omniscience and the kind of practical know-how to guide us toward a better future through his uncanny ability to sort out the things that puzzle the rest of us? He's sorted those puzzles out so very well that he's prepared to go the way of Great Britain in its shambles of privatization - come too think of it, perhaps more like Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its resulting impoverishment.

Our miserable deficit has left the man and his Cabinet with a pounding headache, but they're bulling it through, coming up with an absolute brainstorm of an idea. De-acquisition! Sell off that which results in topping up government coffers, along with those government assets held for the people by Queen's Park that have been inordinately poorly operated, further straining the budget.

Short-term measures for short-term gain that will inevitably result in private enterprise - which is not invested in gain for the public weal but gain for private enterprise - rendering to the public sub-par services while reaping the windfalls that the Government of Ontario couldn't wait to pat securely into their laps. Sounds kind of painful in the long run; government spiting itself and the taxpayers.

Essential assets like Ontario Power Generation, and Hydro One, perennially poorly run, always appearing in deficit-and-debt mode, are signal assets that should never fall into the hands of private operators; instead their importance to the province should be recognized by the due diligence of adequate oversight. The result of their sale will surely conclude with higher prices to the consumer.

And the same goes for the Liquor Control Boards. Though it's anachronistic in this day and age that tight controls are maintained over sale venues that could be incorporated into a set of new operating regulations without surrendering control of the Board. As for Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.; its golden shakeout of easy-made revenue presents a moral issue, one to be resolved intelligently.

This Liberal government of Premier McGuinty's has surpassed that of former NDP Premier Bob Rae in a sense; when in an intolerable economic crunch, Mr. Rae sought to impose 'Rae Days' on the unions, Mr. McGuinty prefers surrendering to union wage demands beyond need and caution. So, the taxpayers of Ontario should be shouting loud and clear that sure, an election's coming up, and their short-term memory is good enough to aid their choices.

And selling off the province's key revenue assets to private interests will not result in Mr. McGuinty's experiencing hearty applause and a gentle shoe-in for a third term.