Ontario's "Prosperity Fund"

"We need to be aggressive and creative in striking partnerships that are in the short- and long-term interests of the people of Ontario."
"We simply cannot expect to keep Ontario competitive but then pretend we're not in a competition."
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne

 

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne speaks to The Empire Club of Canada in Toronto on Monday, April 28, 2014.  Photograph by: Frank Gunn , THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

Just doing what all focused political parties engage in just prior to an election; sprinkle what appear to be goodies at various sectors to gain a presumed advantage through votes that will either return them to power, or enable them to gain power. This is a government that regained power through the corrupt manipulation of voters' opinions when they threw away over a billion dollars of taxpayers' money to cancel unpopular gas plants in Toronto.

Not that the gas plants were representative of the provincial Liberal government's only fiscal misdirection, for there was a billion lost through the dysfunctional eHealth initiative, more of the same with the operation of the Ornge air ambulance service, and untold billions more wasted on an ongoing basis, dredging out of taxpayers' pockets every last cent to pay for inflated energy costs the province has paid absurd prices for, garnering more energy than it can use, and selling it under production cost to Quebec and New York while stiffing Ontarians.

Ontario now has the highest debt and deficit of any of the provinces; in fact it is so high that it is equal to the deficit of all other provinces combined with the exception of Quebec. And so, Premier Wynne has announced plans to be fully revealed when the budget is brought down, for a $2.5-billion "jobs and prosperity fund", arguing that other provinces, states and countries subsidize businesses and so then must Ontario as well.

We did go through a rather unfortunate ritual of 'subsidizing' General Motors and Chrysler during the global 2008 economic downturn; agreed to support the failing automakers and they were supposed to pay back those loans that kept them afloat. On the way to doing that General Motors declared bankruptcy and reinvented itself into a new business, and as such no longer recognizes a need to pay back the taxpayer because that 'other General Motors' was responsible.

The federal government supports and subsidizes industry and so does Ontario. There are never any guarantees that whatever arrangements are agreed to with more employment opportunities arising from the financial support of business sectors, will be honoured. All too often, manufacturers who have pledged their long-term presence in the province suddenly realize they can make more profits abroad, despite the handsome tax break Ontario gave them, and gone is the industry and the jobs.

Ontario, under the provincial Liberal government has been behaving like an alcoholic on a binge, spreading largesse good-naturedly in a spirit of inebriated good fellowship. And so, businesses from high-tech companies to auto-parts warehouses, to pharmaceuticals have been happy to receive hundreds of millions of dollars to encourage their growth and presence in Ontario.

The overburdened taxpayer really doesn't have to subsidize businesses who are there to gain profit, and do, but for heaven's sake, not on our collective backs.