It’s official: Mike Colle (Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence) is the first causality of the upcoming provincial election here in Ontario. The Toronto Sun is reporting that Colle resigned today after the provincial auditor found millions of dollars were sent off to various agencies without proper scrutiny and, in some cases, without the agencies even asking for the sums they were given. This has potential; finally the Provincial Liberals are caught with something that has traction for the opposition parties, and frankly it couldn’t have come at a worse time for McGuinty given that Simcoe Day, not Labour Day, is shaping up to be the beginning of the campaign period. Will it last until October 10th though? Well, I personally that it just might since it’s a tangible beef for Ontario voters to digest; unlike most of McGuinty’s lies, this is an obvious and unjustified misuse of taxpayers’ dollars and it still has echos of the federal Liberals’ sponsorship scandal despite the auditor finding no direct connection between these misplaced funds and the Ontario Liberal Party. A less polite way of saying that is that he didn’t find anything, but he didn’t give the Liberals a free pass either.
The bigger question right now is how well Howard Hampton and John Tory are able to use this message to wedge their way into voters’ consideration. Before voters will start looking at the PCs or NDP, they first need to be convinced in great numbers that the Liberals have to go. So far though, the NDP has lacked the influence and the PCs the nerve to make this happen…
Sara wrote:
Interest read:
Friday, May 18, 2007
Page: 4
Section: Editorial Byline: Kelly, Paul
The Ontario Progressive Conservative party is up in arms about the Liberals spending money.
Seemingly (and allegedly), of a $32 million dollar program a couple of $100, 000 grants have found their way into groups that have - brace yourself - Liberal supporters.
You must be thinking that it would not happen in a PC government. Well, I beg to differ.
At the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources between 1997 and 2002, there was a program called the Fish and Wildlife Protection and Enhancement Fund.
It was a three-year, $10 million program divided yearly into $5, $3 and $2 million respectively.
It was extended for another $10 million for another period of time.
The first year it ran, it was for $5 million in unspecified spending but the projects somehow had to be linked to the crown jewel of Mike Harris’s government - hunting and fishing.
MNR district offices submitted proposals for programs developed with local outdoor clubs - a core constituency for the Harris Tories.
The list was sent to a small group of Progressive Conservative MPPs for “review and approval.”
The group was the ‘MNR Caucus’ and it included several current Progressive Conservative MPPs.
When the committee got the list there were two items they could not touch: $400,000 for Premier Harris’s riding - a group dealing with Lake Nipissing - and some $60,000 for an advertising campaign with a high-profile angler with close links to the premier.
To mess with those two projects was to invite almost certain career-ending death.
Another tab was for a fish hatchery in Haliburton (the riding of a very powerful minister, Chris Hodgson). It was another $164,000.
There were some other projects in the Haliburton region that came in for another $50,000.
There was no end to the demands for more money.
The MNR committee quickly went to work ‘liberating’ money. The first round was a ‘rapid fire’ round of killing things for what they sounded like and where they were. If it typically had anything to do with conservation or ‘tree huggers,’ it died an ugly death.
If it was in an opposition member’s riding it was killed with glee.
This money was ‘Conservative money’ and was to be spent on Conservative projects.
I could look at a list even today and tell you where it came from and who spoke to it.
Once the list was tidied up and some money was freed up, these MPPs (and usually they were the only ones who knew about the fund) would come back with their own ideas or those of other government MPPs.
There would be the small boat launch for $10,000 and the larger Lake Erie studies for hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
There would be a new release, photo in the newspaper and a lot of “Me and the premier brung you this cheque” giddiness.
My own personal favourite involves a current MP and MPP. At the time Gord Brown, current Conservative MP for Leeds-Grenville, was chairman of the St. Lawrence Park Commission.
Over lunch at a Yonge Street restaurant, he mentioned needing money for a project.
I suggested a letter from cabinet minister Bob Runciman to the MNR might help. And, $60,000 later, it did.
All of it was done perfectly legal.
Contracts were signed, guidelines where adhered to, memorandums were approved, etc. The auditor could check it today - all rules were followed.
Was it a ’secret’ fund? No. Was it an obscure fund? For sure. Was it a ’slush fund’? In many ways, it was.
So what is the point of all this? Well, the Tories raising a stink about this against the Liberals are hypocrites and, even more so, frauds.
In the global scheme of multi-million dollar budgets - in fact, billion dollar budgets - this is all nickel and dime stuff.
More so, if the Tories were in power they would do the exact same thing. I have seen it done.
At one point in time, the Tories had the wife of a cabinet minister secretly checking on groups applying for Trillium grants.
This is what politics and being in power is all about.
The ability to throw around a small amount of money to groups that support you and that you are involved with comes with the territory. To the victor goes the spoils.
I have no axe to grind with any of these people. I turned the page on this chapter of my life long ago. But this is a clear demonstration of the pot calling the kettle black.
Nowadays with so few people involved with volunteer groups, it is noticeable the people who are involved in the political process and are also involved in local community groups, festivals and such.
So you are never going to get an organization without one link to any political party. So are they to receive nothing? I don’t think so.
But to sit back and watch the Tories attack the McGuinty government for doing such a thing is a laughable sight.
Laughable because not so long ago, they did - and would do again - the very same thing.
Questions? Comments? Contact the author at:
positivelypaulkelly@sympatico.ca
h/t Southwestern Ontario Liberal
Posted on 27-Jul-07 at 10:42 am | Permalink