government

Thursday September 6, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday September 6, 2012

NDP hope to block Liberals from getting majority

Premier Dalton McGuinty’s bid to win the majority government he was denied last October will be decided by the voters of Kitchener-Waterloo in one of two provincial byelections Thursday that could dramatically alter Ontario’s political landscape.

“I don’t know of a parallel situation in Ontario’s history…where one byelection could make the difference between a majority and a minority government,” said Barry Kay, a political-science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.

The governing Liberals are expected to easily win the other byelection in Vaughan, retaining the seat vacated by Greg Sorbara, the veteran cabinet minister and strategist who quit to devote more time to his other job as chair of the party’s re-election campaign.

After falling just one seat short of a majority in the Oct. 6 general election, McGuinty engineered the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection by convincing veteran Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer to give up the seat she’d held for 22 years to take on a $188,000-a-year job as chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

“It’s always a little bit easier when you have a majority to act on a mandate, whether you’re trying to introduce a budget or move ahead with a ‘Putting Students First’ act,” McGuinty said this week.

Voters in Kitchener-Waterloo appear to have been turned off by McGuinty’s attempts to get a majority, said Kay.

“I thought that would play better than it has,” he said. “I think they are disinclined to give the party a majority. It’s not just a neutral factor. I think it’s a negative factor.” (Source: CTV News) 

 

Wednesday May 9, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday May 9, 2012

Lower fees forced on Ontario doctors

Sending a signal that will reverberate throughout Ontario’s broader public sector, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have broken with their conciliatory past by forcing a tough new deal onto Ontario’s doctors.

Less than two weeks after negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association fell apart, and despite requests by the OMA to call in a conciliator, Health Minister Deb Matthews announced Monday that a package of cuts to doctors’ fees will be unilaterally imposed through regulations, retroactive to April 1.

The abrupt manner in which the cuts were unveiled, amid claims by the OMA that Ms. Matthews has misrepresented discussions at the bargaining table, sets an aggressive tone for other negotiations – including with the province’s teachers. And it epitomized the shifting focus of a government once known for its big-spending ways.

The 37 fee-schedule changes announced Monday focus heavily (although not exclusively) on a relatively small number of high-paid specialists – mostly radiologists, ophthalmologists and cardiologists – and by the Liberals’ estimate will save $338-million in 2012-13 and $440-million in 2013-14. But sources say there are more broad-based cuts to come, to get the rest of the way to a two-year freeze in doctors’ total pay envelope.

Still on the table is the elimination of a “retention bonus,” which the Liberals had brought in to dissuade doctors from leaving the province. That benefit currently peaks at $5,000 every three years for doctors who have practised at least three decades.

The government also wants to revive so-called clawbacks of doctors’ fees once they exceed a level at which their ratio to overhead costs becomes skewed. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Friday April 20, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday April 20, 2012

Ontario NDP drops push to cut HST

The Ontario NDP is withdrawing a push to exempt home heating bills from the harmonized sales tax, in a significant concession that ratchets up the pressure on the governing Liberals ahead of a budget vote that could trigger a provincial election.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in a Thursday morning news conference that it’s become clear in recent days that Premier Dalton McGuinty “strongly disagrees” with an HST exemption for home heating.

“Now, I hope that over the term of this minority government, I can convince the premier that he’s wrong. But I have to be frank. I just don’t think that that’s going to happen within the next couple of days,” she said.

“And for that reason, I am letting it be known today that we don’t expect the HST to come off home heating in this budget.”

Horwath said that a number of other NDP demands tabled in the leadup to the vote on the provincial budget next Tuesday — including a tax increase for the wealthiest in the province — remain in play.

The ball is now in McGuinty’s court, she said.

“Mr. McGuinty has to make a choice. Is he going to stand with the mom that needs a child-care space for her son or daughter? Or is he going to stand with the millionaire? Is he going to stand with health care improvements, or with millionaires?”

She criticized both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives for being inflexible when it comes to the budget. The Progressive Conservatives announced before the budget was tabled that they would not be supporting it. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Thursday April 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday April 5, 2012

NDP isn’t drawing a line in the budgetary sand

For a fleeting moment earlier this week, it appeared Andrea Horwath had finally set a make-or-break condition for supporting Dwight Duncan’s budget.

With Tuesday’s call to apply an extra tax to anyone making more than $500,000 per year, the Ontario NDP Leader served up the kind of attention-grabber from which it’s difficult to back away – and that, if rejected by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals, could make for an NDP-friendly wedge issue during a provincial election.

And yet, no sooner had Ms. Horwath gone public with her demand than she was once again reminding journalists that she has no intention of drawing “lines in the sand.” The implication was that she’ll be satisfied if the Liberals instead grant a few other, less showy concessions from the list of requests she’s slowly rolling out.

It was the latest signal that, against the advice of some of the more hawkish members of her party, Ms. Horwath is determined to play the long game.

If she were primarily concerned with the here and now, Ms. Horwath would be leaning toward helping Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives bring down Mr. McGuinty’s minority government.

Doing so would carry less risk for the NDP than for the Tories, who are still going through a behind-the-scenes shakeup that has them a long way from election readiness, and have struggled to convincingly explain why they’d force an election over a right-leaning budget. By contrast, the New Democrats could rely on the same campaign team they did a few months ago, and make a coherent case against austerity measures – from social-assistance freezes to the shutdown of northern transit services – that run contrary to their policies and principles. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

Saturday January 14, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday January 14, 2012

Federal Liberals endorse marijuana legalization

Last May’s federal election marked the first in history in which the Liberals failed to become Canada’s government or its official opposition. The hodge-podge of dubious policy resolutions up for debate at next weekend’s national Liberal convention suggests that, eight months later, Liberals still aren’t sure how to rehabilitate a party that, some say, has no real reason to continue existing as an independent entity.

Rather than moving on to new challenges, the Liberals seem intent on refighting old wars. One resolution urges the party to support the Canadian Wheat Board and to reinstate the board’s monopoly over Prairie wheat and barley sales, when and if the Liberals return to power. But that is a genie that cannot be returned to its lamp. Whatever one thinks of the Tories’ recent decision to remove the board’s control over Western grain farming, once tens of thousands of farmers begin marketing their crops independently, it would require years of police action and scores of high-profile criminal trials to force anti-monopoly farmers back under the purview of the board.

Another policy motion asks the party to reaffirm its commitment to a national daycare program. That’s a notion that has been circulating at Liberal conventions since the 1970s. Not even the majority governments under Jean Chrétien in the economically robust 1990s and 2000s were able to pull it off. The provinces – which have jurisdiction over daycare – resisted the federal intrusion. Most parents were indifferent to the idea. And taxpayers balked at the price tag, which is conservatively estimated at more than $5-billion a year. What makes the current generation of Liberals believe Canadians and the provinces have changed their minds?  (Source: National Post)