Earlier this week, Hudak and his Ontario PC Party released its "million jobs" platform and details as to how they believe they are going to achieve this. Any Ontario voter can go to their website and ask for them to send you emails on their election campaign and they will. I did and I downloaded their campaign policy, which Hudak says focuses solely on job creation and the policy package around it.
The policy document is of course printed in bright blue colours and printed with full page colour images of Tim Hudak - the first one showing a serious pose and the ones toward the end of the document, where he is using construction sites and other businesses as a backdrop for his announcements, he is smiling. Up close you can see his nice pearly whites, which would indicate he has neither missed many meals or neglected to receive top quality dental treatment that many Ontarians cannot afford.
He starts off by saying, "Where we are now ..." It states To solve Ontario's problems, we must begin by analyzing the scale of Ontario's jobs and debt crisis. Ontario didn't become a province known for high unemployment, reckless overspending and ballooning debt overnight, nor did it achieve that status by accident. We can't explain it all away by talking about the recession - that ended five years ago - or the troubles of the world economy.
Ontario was put in this situation largely due to a series of deliberate decisions by the current government, decisions that have cost our economy and Ontario families dearly. Here are some of the key figures ...
300,000 manufacturing jobs lost since 2003 (Only manufacturing? There were hundreds of thousands of other jobs lost too as well)
150,000 people who left Ontario for Western Canadian provinces (yeah, that might be right, but I can't see that as indicative of anything, because people do move between provinces all the time)
7 - the number of years Ontario has had a jobless rate higher than the national economy (thanks to free trade, perhaps and globalization of our economy in general?)
800,000 - the number of men and women in Ontario today without a job
$46 billion - the total cost of Ontario's subsidies for wind and solar power that could have been spent to build all of the new subways and other public transit in Toronto and the GTA to break gridlock ... (What about transit in your own backyard, Mr. Hudak? Not everybody in Niagara drives or could afford to ...)
$289 billion - the total amount of debt accumulated by the Government of Ontario, double the level when McGuinty-Wynne government was first elected (Let me ask you, Mr. Hudak, if you didn't have this great publicly funded job that you have right now, and were instead on Ontario Works, forced to fend for yourself at food banks and surf other people's couches, would you give a damn about the debt? ... I thought so).
$1 billion - the amount of new debt the Ontario government adds every month (Ibid, above)
80 - The average travel time in minutes, to and from work, in the GTA - the longest commute in North America (wrong, ask people who are forced to use buses and have to transfer multiple time to get to places that a car might take thirty minutes to get to, aka in Niagara region).
0 - the number of Premiers excluding Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, who were in power when Ontario collected equalization payments as a have-not province (Interesting analysis, particularly as we were not a have-not province under Bob Rae, and the Atlantic provinces under a series of Conservative Premiers, were have-not provinces over the years ... so, what's your point?)
So, Hudak's solutions?
Replace corporate welfare with lower taxes. Ontario's taxes are already among the lowest in the free world. Yet this fact did not generate more jobs, just more money for corporations to hoard and store in overseas accounts.
Increase opportunities in skilled trades. Hudak will wave a magic wand and suddenly, 200,000 new jobs in the skilled trades will appear as a result of dissolving the much hated College of Trades and to allow more apprentices to one journeyman. I don't think so. While I agree, the skilled trades needs to be promoted as an option for young people, it is not for everybody. This man is a magician, if you believe he can pull 200,000 jobs out of a hat all of a sudden. If this were true, then provinces that don't have the same ratios and do not curry to a College of Trades ought to be swimming in these jobs, right? Not so.
Make energy affordable. Hudak might have a point here. High energy costs do drive some companies away, but I am not sure this is why we lost so many jobs ... I think lower wages in Mexico, southern US states and places like India and Malaysia are more the reason, if you ask me. But, would Hudak do anything to lower our household energy bill? Probably not.
Save small businesses time and money. Hudak would do this by cutting what he refers to as "red tape" or regulations, etc. Regulations like what? Water treatment protocols? Meat inspection? Propane storage regulations? Health and safety regulations? Yes, small business can use a 'one door approach" to deal with systems, etc., but the interesting part is that Hudak also included as # 9 Eliminate hundreds of unnecessary rules that bog down the social assistance system so that it is easy to understand and focuses on helping people find work. (More on that later, folks)
Compete for skilled immigrants. This will be done by linking skilled immigrants that come to Ontario with jobs that cannot be filled by Canadians, suggesting that other provinces are doing great using federal levers in this strategy. Another name for this is the Temporary Foreign Workers program. Does this sound familiar? Bring in new immigrants to work in hospitality, call centers, hospitals, clinics, offices, factories, etc. because "no local workers can be found". Yeah, right.
Reduce the tax burden on Ontario families. After the budget is balanced, families and individuals will get tax cuts. Where have we heard that before? Tax cuts mean there is less money for government to spend. For every tax cut, Hudak should tell voters what health care service, what hospital, which schools, what social programs, etc. will be cut to make up for the revenues lost this way. To me, these kinds of tax cuts don't mean overall savings for people, as they will find themselves having to pay for more and more out of pocket for things that used to be covered by general tax revenues.
Generate Dollars for the Public Good. While the silence is deafening on Hudak's prior announcements about privatizing the LCBO, Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation, etc., there are still plans here to privatize others things like gambling operations, infrastructure (more 407s, anybody?), public transit, and some selective government services. The problem with this is the bidders will be people in the private sector that have money to spend and the priority of the service will no longer be public service, but shareholder profits. I am sure Hudak and Co. has a number of friends they want to reward with these opportunities.
Get GTA Traffic Moving Again. Somehow, a Hudak government will take over all major highways, roads, public transit and railways in the GTA and connectivity to the "905" area (which we know will exclude Niagara) and have it run all under one umbrella without raising taxes. Another miracle pulled out of a hat. I wonder how these magical subways will be funded.
Create Jobs and Growth in Northern and Rural Ontario. More regulation cutting, pro-rated funding for northern development projects, more gas tax to build more roads ... oh yes, we must not forget that everybody up north drives, even their pet gerbils. Local control over more initiatives sounds great, but guess what local control means under Tory-talk? Local costs, downloading ... you betcha.
Help People with Disabilities Succeed. Another magician's act where attitudes of employers are suddenly going to become more enlightened and they will be hiring people with disabilities? Yeah, right. The current government passed the AODA and it has done squat about getting more people with disabilities into jobs. Proposals such as post-secondary education to gain job related skills is great, but how is it going to be funded? Will we be saddling people on public assistance with excess student debt? The other suggestion is blandly saying we need to recognize the abilities in people with disabilities and not just the barriers ... like, where did we hear that before?
Re-Balance Labour Laws. This is the same blather the federal government wants to pass about union finance transparency and giving members the right to opt out of causes not related to the collective bargaining, etc. Well, does this apply to corporations as well? Say, if I plan to go to eat at Swiss Chalet, would I as a consumer have the right to know if their head office contributes to political parties like Hudak's or others that I don't like? Then, perhaps give me a choice as a consumer and boycott it? I also think as a consumer, or even a potential employee, I would like to know how much their CEO earns, how much the regional directors earn, etc. so I can decide if the company is fair or unfair to front line staff. What's good for the goose is good for the ganders. While the term "right to work" has not been explicitly mentioned in here and Hudak (sort of) backed off on this after a near intra party mutiny over the term, I suspect this might come up again if they do make it to government. We have not heard the last of it.
Give Our Colleges Bigger Roles. Again, arguing the skills shortage that even Don Drummond disputes that exists ... with the theoretical nod to creating programs to give these skills to workers to fill unfilled jobs. In my learnings, colleges like anything else is a business. They don't care if the students taking their programs end up in jobs in their field. They just want to put more bums in seats. This is one reason why we are seeing such a surplus in many professions, such as legal, social services, personal support workers, etc. The colleges seem to just keep pumping them out, not caring whether their students that seem to accumulate huge amounts of debt actually get a job after. That's not their problem.
Strengthening the Link Between Universities and Jobs. Ibid, same as above. We keeping pumping more teachers out of teachers colleges that the majority of those graduating will never get to teach or step foot in a classroom. Shocking, eh?
Expand Free Trade. This is trade between the provinces, something that should have been done ages ago.
Now it gets into the controversial stuff ... "A Government We Can Afford" My question is: A Government WHO can afford, or a Government that WHO wants to pay for ... This is not taking into account the theory of public service administration, but government as business, which has never worked. This section is all about the theory that there is a ton of gravy in government and lots that can be cut without affecting services. Where did we hear that before? That's right! Mike Harris promised a 30% tax cuts to everybody and deep cuts to government which won't affect services. We all know how well that worked. Think Walkerton. Dudley George. Kimberly Rogers. Creeping privatization of health care. Labour unrest. Nope, it did not affect services whatsoever, even though people in the field can all reminisce about the increased rate of suicides, property crimes, homelessness and so forth.
Some of the plans show promise in my view, such as increased competition between providers of service, reducing huge pension outlays, increasing efficiencies, etc., but we know this is not what this is about ... Hudak said and told us all last week that he will start the track of creating a million jobs by outright firing, terminating, laying off, not replacing, whatever ... 100,000 well paid civil service jobs and replace them with ... low wage, part-time, precarious jobs with no benefits. Another magician's sleight of hand. Hudak will make 100,000 jobs disappear and somehow in the other hand, another million will re-appear. How come I have my niggling doubts?
Health Care Pay attention to this one. They want to reduce layers of bureaucracy and so forth and take the power away from planners and put it into the hands of people that directly provide the care. This sounds great in theory, but who plans the care over the regions, how much money to allocate to regions, studies the demographic needs of regions and then implements timely strategies for the same? Direct service providers don't have that kind of time. However, there is a proposal to create Health Care Hubs, which means basically hospitals planning health services for the area? Pots calling kettles black? This is sort of like the police force determining what its own budgetary needs are and dictating to governments what we must pay.
The rest of this sounds so lofty I don't even want to bother with this, because our health care system is designed so much around the issues, but does not tackle the issues. For example, I gave scenarios of two elderly residents: Rick, who is 73 years old, requires dialysis and takes medications for high blood pressure and diabetes, lives in a retirement residence where he pays $5,000 a month for apartment style living, where he has access to communal dining, scheduled activities, in-house pedicures, nursing care, transportation to medical care, etc., while he can also purchase private duty care when needed. Rick will likely do well for a long time because in these situations, the care is good, the food is high quality and the resident can acquire their own amenities should they choose, as well as come and go as they please. Mabel is also 73 years old, on dialysis, and has suffered a stroke and complications of diabetes. She has not retired well and lives only on OAS/GIS and has had a wait to be placed in her nursing home, where she shares a room with another resident that keeps her awake all night. This home is often short-staffed, many times not getting to her when she needs to use the washroom, so Mabel is forced to wear diapers even though she can eliminate independently, with some assistance getting her there. Mabel is likely going to get her doctors to tell her family to reconsider her life span and to stop care, especially if her needs exceed the maximum allotted. How does Hudak want to resolve this?
Mabel could have lived in her own home if she was able to purchase some accessibility modifications, such as a walk-in tub, daily assistance with bathing and some housekeeping, as well as a home dialysis program while she sleeps, which would allow her independence during the day. But Mabel was living on a fixed income and was unable to afford this care and therefore, was forced into a nursing home. I don't see how this saves the province any money. Perhaps, the whole concept of home care needs to be included fully into the OHIP schedule and skilled providers give this care, depending on the level of care needed. Rick chose to move to the retirement residence he is in, which still allows him to live independently and he gets night time dialysis in his own unit, monitored by staff in the home. Rick still has health insurance from his job he had before he retired.
Mental health care has always been an interesting political football. Unfortunately, mental health is the symptoms of a social safety net that has been shredded. Instead of viewing homelessness as a failure on the part of the social safety net to assist with affordable housing, it views homelessness as a disease. It perpetuates the myth that people are poor or homeless or whatever because ... of some brain disease. Science has never established a direct connection between so-called 'mental illness' and a disease or disorder of the brain, although we are amok with a ton of disconnected theories and correlations. Yes, mental health is a priority and should be, but I don't sense that Hudak will provide a government that will allow such persons to remain in dignity and have the same choices as others do with other health issues. It is a sensitive portfolio that needs to be dealt with sensitively and without stigmatizing people or treating them in ways differently than other people, and to offer those that suffer a way out of their situation, whether that be treatment for addictions, help with life-induced trauma, help with dealing with job stress, etc. These aids have to be tangible and measurable and results-based and not simply moved to pharmaceutical management.
On the topic of education, it is even more witty. Today's teaching students are taught new skills such as how to teach math so that more students are able to grasp it. Unfortunately, very few of these new teachers are ever going to see a classroom to provide these skills. Match this up with Hudak's plans to cut almost 10% of workers in the education system, including teachers ... citing that larger classrooms and so forth might result. I don't see that as a good thing. However, something that no political party other than the Greens ever suggested that could save a lot of money from the education portfolio is to stop funding Catholic schools and create one public school board system. That should remove many of the Sunshine Club mandarins that Hudak likes to hate and bash in public. At the same time, one religion will not be given privileges over others, where parents of other faiths that want to educate their children in their own faith, such as Jewish, Muslim, etc. have to pay privately. Maybe Hudak remembers John Tory's foibles at trying to suggest all faiths get public support in some way, but this is distinct and different, and represents a clear separation of church and state. Follow the lead of the Greens and do this, and yes, some savings will be realized.
While Hudak did not go into significant details about his plans for social assistance and for persons with disabilities, my readers can find his plans for this based on one of their policy papers published last year at the same time he released his most controversial paper on 'right to work' (which is still on their website, despite their disavowing it recently when it came under attack). This paper, Paths to Prosperity; Welfare to Work is offensive, if not more so, than the "right to work" ideas. While decrying over-regulation and red tape for business, Hudak's plans for people on disability or Ontario Works effectively adds to the layers of bureaucracy and discrimination people already feel. First, he wants to put people with disabilities back on welfare and have this new unified program delivered by the municipalities. While we realize this was a proposal from the Social Assistance Review Commission, the Liberals outright rejected it because of major opposition from almost everybody ... we all know the problems with this approach.
People with disabilities who are likely to remain on assistance programs for a longer period of time and some of them possibly for life, need to have a different set of rules, such as collecting benefits as a single regardless of their relationship status with somebody else, the right to earn more money without it being clawed back, a higher level of assets (including ALL retirement savings) and other rules. People on Ontario Works can conceivably be off the system within months and do not need the same set of rules. By combining the two programs, each set of recipients will be treated the same by the municipalities. When this idea was first put forth, virtually everybody I spoke to that received ODSP told me about horror stories of what it was like to deal with the municipality and Ontario Works, especially cheque holds, suspensions, being called into the office without transportation to get there, etc. Some have lost their housing because of this.
Other plans such as the use of debit cards instead of cash that would be programmed only to allow food purchases would certainly be difficult, if not impossible to properly develop, especially given that 73% of those on assistance pay market rents which means they pay part or all of their "basic needs" budget on housing. Unless Hudak has some magical plans to force all landlords across Ontario as well as all banks that hold mortgages of recipients where they do exist, to charge only what social assistance maximums are for shelter allowance, then I can't see it working. In addition to that, this infantalizes people. Unless politicians, who are also paid by the public purse, are willing to be paid in a debit card that cannot be spent on trips abroad, personal meals, alcohol, etc., then they cannot impose this thinking on others. This creates an additional layer of bureaucracy and regulations that nobody else has to abide to and can also impede working. The social assistance paper is a nightmare and I would suggest all people who have been on OW or ODSP or have loved ones on these benefits, to read that paper closely with the link provided above and try to envision oneself and how they would cope under these circumstances, especially in a world where there is nothing going to be done about jobs. Hudak might be trying to sell us a million jobs, but I strongly suspect as many others that these jobs are not the kind of jobs that pay ... perhaps, they can be better be related as 'snow jobs', 'imaginary jobs', etc. because as I often stated before, and has been proven so far, tax cuts do nothing towards creating real jobs. It takes consumers with money to create jobs.
In finality, I want you to watch this video and this tells you exactly how jobs are created:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g
Rich People Don't Create Jobs
If Hudak wants to fire 100,000 real people with good paying jobs, and restrict unions and so forth, as well as cut or freeze social assistance benefits, then there will be less consumers that are able to buy goods and services the businesses, big or small, have to offer ... I know if I have a lot of people wanting my services, and I can't do it myself, I have to hire somebody else to help produce ... and once that person becomes over-busy, then we need another person. But if consumers don't have money, it doesn't matter if businesses even pay zero taxes, they will not add people to their workforce. What would these people do? Just hang around and pick their nose? Listen to that video and then ask your Conservative candidate how their proposals to cut, cut, cut will lead to all these jobs ...
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