Good Riddance, Dalton. Hello, Kathleen.

So, this past weekend, Ontarians said goodbye to a cynical opportunist who managed the near impossible task of turning Ontario into a have-not province.  His successor, Kathleen Wynne will no doubt emphasize the novelty of her own approach to government and make all the right noises about working with the opposition, unions, the private sector, etc.  That’s all well and good but we can’t forget that she was a senior member of Dalton McGuinty’s government all through is campaign of mismanagement.  What did she do to stop him?  Why should be trust her now after she participated in McGuinty’s cynical assault on the people of Ontario?

Dalton McGuinty’s mismanagement of Ontario cannot be put down to mere incompetence.  Incompetence implies he didn’t know what he was doing.  He knew what he was doing when he signed outrageous deals with makers of windmills that he knew would never be a reliable source of power for the province.  He wanted the political credit that comes with being perceived as an environmentalist and he largely got it.  He knew he was causing major harm to rural land owners with the continued building of unviable wind farms but he cynically calculated that the political gain would outweigh the political cost.  He knew what he was doing when he imposed costs of $500 million plus on Ontarians for the last minute cancellation of a gas-fired electrical plant in the middle of an election, just for the sake of trying to keep a few Liberal seats in the GTA.  Anyone who ran a private business and was that reckless with the money of the investors would face criminal prosecution.  Did Kathleen Wynne do anything to stop it?  Or did she play along and try to appear benevolent while McGuinty was passing on monstrous debts to future generations?  We know the answer.

A good government is one that allows people and businesses to prosper through their own efforts, not one that hands out dubious “gifts” like all-day kindergarten and then sends the bill to already over-burdened taxpayers.  Individuals and businesses will have to pay elevated taxes for years to pay for McGuinty’s schemes.  This is in addition to paying elevated electricity rates to pay for the windmill fiasco, essentially a form of disguised taxation.  How many Ontarians will fail to find proper jobs because potential employers have been driven out due to elevated taxes and elevated electricity rates?

It will take years to undo the legacy of Dalton McGuinty’s gross and deliberate mismanagement of Ontario.  The real victims of are not the whiny union thugs who have been protesting outside the Liberal convention.  They were McGuinty’s closest political allies until he ran of other people’s money to throw at them.  The real victims are the present and future taxpayers who are stuck with the bills for the McGuinty governments cynical spending decisions.  Who’s demonstrating on their behalf?  What does Kathleen Wynne have to say about this?