Musings on Greenwood

So, the Tories have started their campaign the way they start every campaign under Stephen Harper; bumbling and stumbling out the gate.

In four days Harper managed to get caught in his own deceit about forming a coalition back in 2004, piss of the French (not like it matters), he had to fire Sebastien Togneri who is under RCMP investigation anyway and skewered his own tax philosophy by promising income splitting AFTER the deficit is eliminated (bare minimum of five years away).

This is deja vu. None of this is enough to defeat the government but it’s exactly why Harper has never won a majority. He surrounds himself with five-year-olds like Doug Finley then wonders why his campaigns always fall short.

Then there’s Ontario politics.

Dalton McGuinty brought down his eighth and final budget this afternoon. He probably hasn’t even read it and doesn’t have a clue of what’s actually in the document.

McGuinty reminds me of the Matthew 19:12 biblical verse:

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive [it], let him receive [it].

Unfortunately, Ontario is no heaven on earth. Our financial situation is like Apocalypse Now. It’s so bad, I’m guessing the McGuinty Government is banking on voters not being able to get their heads around how bad things actually are.

This is why McGuinty is the perfect brainless frontman for this hollow government. Since he doesn’t have a clue of what’s going on in his own cabinet, he can genuinely stand before an audience and whistle a happy tune.

Indeed, McGuinty will go down in history as the most spineless, gutless, hapless and clueless Premier in the province’s history. The damage he has done is irreversible.

To illustrate this, allow me to reference my brother’s blog:

http://financialinsights.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/scotia-on-the-tapped-out-consumer-td-on-ontarios-debt-problems/

and my own previous writings:

http://rabidoux.tumblr.com/post/3200120558

and for good measure:

http://rabidoux.tumblr.com/post/498267688

In short, McGuinty will have doubled the provincial debt by next year and we still have a $17 billion deficit for this year.

McGuinty has managed to pull this off despite rising transfer payments from Ottawa, the “Health” tax, the HST, rising revenues and record low borrowing rates (interest on our provincial debt was 8% in 2000, it’s 4.5% today…read Ben’s article).

We’re also sitting on a massive housing bubble which has been responsible for the bulk of our so-called economic recovery. Ben documents this everyday on his blog. Even the mainstream media is starting to clue into this reality. Maclean’s ran a big article this week about how the CMHC is enabling a housing bubble in Canada.

In short, McGuinty has driven Ontario into the mother of all fiscal holes with no way out. All the economic and financial headwinds are blowing against us over the next few years.

We’re bankrupt.

Today’s budget was completely predictable. It did absolute nothing but kick the can down the street a little further to delay the tough decisions until after the election this fall.

This isn’t nostalgia: things used to be better. We used to have real leaders who made the tough decisions and kept the province and country on track.

Today we’ve got Harper and McGuinty. In eunuchs we trust.

Ethan Rabidoux