On the NDP is nuts front, Stiles says that truck 407 tolls disappear on day one if she wins and she will negotiate to remove all tolls from 407. That is certainly possible but when you are trying to negotiate with a very profitable monopoly, the only way they concede is if you pay more than the future value of their expected profits and with no limit on how much they can increase tolls and 70 years left, that is a hell of a lot of billions. Of course Stiles made zero effort to determine cost or funding for her quackery. Continued NDP tradition of looney tunes ideas that sound good but are completely non-viable when reality is part of the picture.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles is promising to open negotiations with the owners of Hwy. 407 to try remove all tolls for drivers if her party is elected in the upcoming provincial election.
I would like to gently remind everybody that Stiles is simply stealing Doug's idea. He reaffirmed his own desire to buy back the 407 earlier this month... on top of the tunnelling under the 401 idea, which would potentially be one of the most expensive infrastructure projects this country has yet seen.
While they criticize Dofo for the healthcare situation the libs don't mention that it was a mess when they were in power too. I think Dougie's doing a pretty good job and needs more time to rectify things. He inherited a huge healthcare deficit and he's had to deal with a significant increase in refugees allowed in by the feds which causes an additional strain on the healthcare system and housing. As for schools, it's the same situation. They didn't all of a sudden need 31 billion dollars a year for repairs. It's been building up from years of under funding by governments, you can't just lay it on Dougie now. Why didn't McGuinty and Wynne address it when they were in power for ten years before Dougie? They would have us just forget the 1 billion dollars it cost to cancel the gas energy plants and having to sell Hydro One to pay off some of the deficits they built up while under funding critical areas of need.
Then there's the Rae NDP which campaigned on government run car insurance. As soon as they got elected the insurance companies bought them off and that was the end of that. On top of that they gave the healthcare workers and other government employees unpaid workdays (Rae Days). I was a life long NDPer but when that happened it showed me I can never trust that party again and I haven't voted for them since either federally or provincially. And how is Bob doing theses days after screwing Ontarians? Making over $300,000 a year as an ambassador with free housing and a 33% bonus clause. Still milking the public trough as the politicians look after each other while we the people pay for it.
I think they're all crooks, you just have to pick the one that you think will do the best job for you while you hold your nose and they get rich..
Doug in my opinion is doing ok . Yes Ontario place didn’t align with my vision , and the science center thing is ugly . But I liked his get beer and wine into corner stores , did it really cost six hundred million ? Possibly , but the F you to the LCBO and brewers retail was worth it . Health care has been shitte for thirty yrs , he didn’t blow it up and you won’t fix it in one term , maybe two terms .
Premiers should be ( and are ) weighing in on tariffs , since some American tariffs are actually enforced province by province , NB may pay less than Ontario shipping certain products into America. Doug should be loud and blustery , his American opponents like that .
And at this point he is clearly the best choice , regardless of how many things he got wrong . He didn’t get as many things wrong as Wynn and he won’t be as long term expensive as Crombie .
Doug in my opinion is doing ok . Yes Ontario place didn’t align with my vision , and the science center thing is ugly . But I liked his get beer and wine into corner stores , did it really cost six hundred million ? Possibly , but the F you to the LCBO and brewers retail was worth it . Health care has been shitte for thirty yrs , he didn’t blow it up and you won’t fix it in one term , maybe two terms .
Premiers should be ( and are ) weighing in on tariffs , since some American tariffs are actually enforced province by province , NB may pay less than Ontario shipping certain products into America. Doug should be loud and blustery , his American opponents like that .
And at this point he is clearly the best choice , regardless of how many things he got wrong . He didn’t get as many things wrong as Wynn and he won’t be as long term expensive as Crombie .
DOFO is doing a better job than Wynne - 1000x better. We're not losing private sector employment, we're not expanding Ontario's public sector at double the private sector rate to groom employment numbers.
Wynne had 160K nurses in Ontario with a 1-for-1 replacement plan. DOFO hit 180K nurses by opening funding and cutting the influence of unions on nursing college enrollment. We're not there yet - remember there's a 4-year lag between adding a nursing spot at university and that nurse hitting the workforce. With 12K nurses in training, we're now exceeding the attrition rate for the first time in decades.
Despite massive increases in health care spending, and aging population and the decade-long lag time for training new doctors continue to make this challenging. They haven't made headway into wait times or family doctor coverage.
Breaking the Beer Store ended in a $100M settlement. The province collects nearly $1B in taxes on beer sales before the change, they will collect between 5 and 6% more each year making the payback on the deal less than 2 years. That doesn't include the benefits to small Ontario breweries capitalizing on market access to a much higher degree than multinational brewers. Another BIG win for Ontario.
While budgets have been an issue, it's hard to factor in pandemic spending. Massive amounts were spent to hold up the economy, then another monstrous amount on LTC, schools, and public building air handling - pandemic spending ended 2023 budget year. 2024 Ontario deficit is a manageable 2.2B, 2025 has a projected surplus.
Missteps? Yup - there are a few, but there will always be a few. I guess the good news is the media's been thru his trash like a pack of hounds and found nothing.
IMO (not politically inclined opinion) Doug isn't doing all that bad...but the implications and appearances of being buddy buddy with the developers (to me) looks very bad and makes me weary of giving him another term.
But...there really are no viable alternatives....maybe Crombie...I don't even know who the leaders of the other parties are.
So for now...I'm going into research mode because Doug isn't great, but if he's the best chance we have...damn.
Other items that give me pause....
- Sudden closure of Ontario Science Center
- whole Thermea Spa debacle
- cost of allowing Ontario access to alcohol in grocery / corner stores was NOT worth just waiting it out the final year (600M or so)
- Green belt scandal
I wish we had better alternatives...I really do.
Now, on the eve of the election call Doug magically finds ~1.4B for healthcare spending...where was that money the last few years when he was in power? Why now? Why not earlier?
He's not horrible (regardless of what reddit says), but I really wish we had stronger contenders.
Sources say the bulk of potential spending on new programs will require legislative approval, which could not take place until Parliament resumes in March
www.theglobeandmail.com
Money printer go brrrr….
EDIT: ‘we will ruin Canada further into the depths just so we can stay in power’
Exactly. You need to look at the bigger picture and follow the money. Hazel was loved but ran mississauga like a ponzi scheme. Fun while it lasts but it always ends in tears.
I would like to gently remind everybody that Stiles is simply stealing Doug's idea. He reaffirmed his own desire to buy back the 407 earlier this month... on top of the tunnelling under the 401 idea, which would potentially be one of the most expensive infrastructure projects this country has yet seen.
Those were both ridiculously impractical ideas when douggie proposed them too.
MS did an interview this morning. Interviewer asked her straight up many times for a cost or funding estimate for removing tolls. MS refused to even consider answering the question. "We will negotiate and get it done". What a piece of crap. You can't campaign assuming you have unlimited money for pet projects. I'm just all of the people outside of the GTA will vote for her as they love spending billions to subsidize GTA drivers.
Caryn Ceolin joined by NDP Leader Marit Stiles who shares her party's plan to scrap tolls on Highway 407 within their first 100 days in office. But the hit to public coffers is unclear.
Those were both ridiculously impractical ideas when douggie proposed them too.
MS did an interview this morning. Interviewer asked her straight up many times for a cost or funding estimate for removing tolls. MS refused to even consider answering the question. "We will negotiate and get it done". What a piece of crap. You can't campaign assuming you have unlimited money for pet projects. I'm just all of the people outside of the GTA will vote for her as they love spending billions to subsidize GTA drivers.
Caryn Ceolin joined by NDP Leader Marit Stiles who shares her party's plan to scrap tolls on Highway 407 within their first 100 days in office. But the hit to public coffers is unclear.
Even if she won, she'd waste time and money on the negotiations and then either have to bankrupt the province to keep her word or shake her fist and say it isn't possible and the evil corporations have screwed us with the help of the cons issuing the lease. I personally believe that was one of the largest con screwups. Very short term gain in exchange for a century of pain.
EDIT:
While I don't expect MS to have a final number, it's simple enough to calculate a best case number and then show how you are going to fund it. Even the best case number is too big to pay. If gov't could figure out a way to make it less valuable or take it back by force it would be cheaper. That could be as simple as prioritizing traffic on government controlled roads and leaving 407 ramps red for 10 minute cycles. People stop taking the 407 as you lose all the time you gained waiting at lights, trips and revenue drop and therefore value drops.
I’m amazed at the cost of negotiations, how does renting a hotel suite , ( not using one of the zillions of spaces we own ) cost tens of thousands a day ?
I’m amazed at the cost of negotiations, how does renting a hotel suite , ( not using one of the zillions of spaces we own ) cost tens of thousands a day ?
Hazel was lucky enough to get elected at the perfect time. There was billions and billions of dollars pouring into the area, one of the biggest urban expansions ever... they were writing building permits as fast as they could write.
The Royal Bank gave my father an office in Erin Mills to sell mortgages, and a budget. He sold the year's budget in 90 days, they gave him an increased budget, he sold it in 30 days. Set mortgage sales records, didn't get a raise.
Hazel cashed in on lot levies. The urban developers paid for Mississauga.
It kept resident's taxes artificially low, THANKS HAZEL.
When Mississauga ran out of land to build on, Hazel retired... and reality set in.
Crombie thought she could pull off a Hazel 2.0, but she had no land to tax and didn't have Hazel's personality... and Hazel had personality.
Overall he's on track, there are a few times he is intentionally obtuse. Arguing that removing bike lanes on 1% of the roads will have no effect is a garbage argument. Same fact phrased differently is adding 50% to 100% more vehicles lanes to the busiest streets in toronto. There are enough good arguments, there is no need to bring misleading statements into the fight.
He's wrong in that his piece selectively omits the core issues that critics present:
Contribute to traffic congestion by reducing road space for cars - remember 70% of commuters are in autos.
Underutilized/over-provisioned, why are they designed to handle thousands of bikes/hr when PBH is in the hundreds?
Disproportionate benefit - 1.2% of commuters use bicycles, 70% use autos, a very large benefit to a very small group of users.
Loss of parking spaces, which can negatively affect local businesses, and congest adjacent residential streets.
Activist infiltration - Public consultation (what little was done) and what little has been considered suggests activists have seized control of decision-making
I like that cyclists are passionate about building a sustainable, bike-friendly city. I'm not sure that such a small group deserves the amount of resources and the capacity to interrupt 70% of the population to achieve their goals.
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