2011 Provincial Elections―Another Game, Same Players ―Renu Singh It makes me laugh how during elections time, the candidates become people’s best friends. When voting nears, it becomes all about the people. Endless promises with fake smiles. Every candidate portrays him/herself as a liberator of ordinary people. The drama that goes along with it is hilarious and pathetic at the same time. The loud promises to―serve people, fight for the working class, lower taxes, increase government services, improve healthcare and education system, transparency and what not! We have heard it all and seen it all. We, the people are not stupid. Neither are we that naïve. WE GET IT! So, this is what I have to say to all candidates―all 656 candidates begging for votes for the October 6th elections―STOP CLOWNING AROUND! It is frustrating to watch this political circus every election year when neither of the candidates have people’s best interests in mind. The three (3) major political parties in Canada have no genuine pro-people agenda. They go with the flow of power. After all, it’s not about people. It’s all about being in power and money to be made while in power. Every election comes with a circus loaded with acrobatic moves of these parties, trying to put as many votes in their illusive hats as they can. And when the circus is over, they cunningly put the winning hat on and march away, trampling the promises they have made to people under their legislative shoes. Starting with the Ontario Liberal Party, a party that claims to be the centralist with a pro-people agenda has a track record of supporting corporations and rich land developers. When Liberals broke through the 42 years of Tories rule in Ontario in 1985, promises made to the people of Ontario were quickly tossed away and David Peterson, the party’s leader then and Premier of Ontario made sure the corporation and land developers got quick access to untendered contracts. Peterson’s father-in-law was one of those land developers and he made millions from the opportunity. The scandal became known as the Patti Starr Affair. Patti Starr, a Liberal fundraiser who had connections to very wealthy land and housing developing companies. Contracts went flying. Housing prices went skyrocketing. These companies made fortunes while ordinary people were suffering, as always. In 1985, 1988, and 1989 budgets, personal income taxes, payroll taxes and PST were increased throwing an already struggling ordinary person into the vicious claws of further hardship while the Liberal party members including their leader enjoyed the luxuries of post-electoral life. New Democratic Party (NDP) came into power in Ontario in 1990 but the party didn’t really have an agenda. The party never had its own concrete agenda. But the party made promises to Ontarians, and the most important one was to implement a public-auto-insurance system, only to be broken as soon as NDP took power. Bob Rae did exactly what Tony Blair did in UK, and he called it the Social Contract, which was a direct breach in NDP’s alliance with the labour movement. But, after many unsuccessful years of pleasing the voters, NDP is campaigning again with promises to voters who have been fooled not once, not twice, but over and over again in the circus called ‘elections’. Conservatives took the power back in Ontario in 1995. PC party leader Mike Harris’s foremost agenda was to rebuild party’s finances, not people’s finances, but party’s finances. He was quick to get cozy with the business community with the help of Bill Farlinger, who was a party insider, and later became the head of Ontario Hydro. Bill Farlinger was also the key figure to propose the privatization of Ontario Hydro. Conservatives ran the Common Sense Revolution (CSR) campaign, but behind the superficial slogans of “protecting health care” and “maintaining classroom spending”, the campaign was loaded with pro-big-business and pro-corporate agenda, most of which went unnoticed by the media(?) and of course, by the people of Ontario. Behind the promising slogans, there was a hidden agenda of division and coercion. His message that people of colour and women should not be given a head start on employment against hardworking and worthy white males aimed at increasing class division in Ontario. After selling Hwy 407, privatizing parts of Ontario Hydro, talks of privatizing LCBO, TVO, and other government services, as 1999 elections neared, the Conservative campaign started making promises again for increase in healthcare funding and education funding. But the reality is that during the Harris rule, the capitalist classes continue to thrive and the working class continued to suffer. The wages declined but the capitalist gains boomed. Many of Harris men made lucrative amounts of money in untendered multi-million dollar consulting contracts. So much for the Common Sense Revolution! How did Harris government win the elections twice…twice in a row? In 1995, and again in 1999. Shouldn’t we, the people be more cautious as to who is getting our vote? Because, the party that gets most of our votes rules our lives for the next four years. We, the people must stand up and not let these political clowns trick us into handing them our votes. In 2003, the power rolled back into Ontario Liberal Party’s hands. Because looks like that’s all we have for political leaders―Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP―the recycled politics that we keep crowning every four (4) years. When will we get tired of the status quo and demand politics of people? ‘Not to raise the taxes’ was a major campaign pledge of the McGuinty Liberals. But it was the first, but not last promise to be broken when the Liberals took the reign in 2003. During his campaign, McGuinty denounced the Private-Public-Partnerships (P3 deals) for infrastructure deals to build hospitals, but afterwards, he allowed the P3 deals to continue as arranged by the Conservatives, letting the rich private corporations take over the hospital infrastructure. Read the report on www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca And let’s not forget the e-Health scandal of 2008. How 1 billion of taxpayers’ money got doled out on― limousine rides, CEO Sarah Kramer’s $380,000.00 a year pay cheque to, a $317,000.00 severance package, and $114,000.00 bonus for just 10 months on a job (for e-health that never happened). Sarah Kramer was hired by chair Alex Hudson “with the support of premier, Dalton McGuinty. Consultants hired by e-Health under Kramer’s direction were paid $2,750.00 a day, and all of their out-of-pocket expenses all the way to tea/coffee and cookies were covered. Millions of dollars in untendered contracts were given to consulting companies that have ties to the Liberals. The Smart Systems for Health that set up e-Health quietly shut down in September 2008. Over a billion dollars made a lot of McGuinty people rich―one billion dollars of taxpayers’ money. And now Mr. McGuinty is making 5% cuts to public service laying-off employees, taking already struggling middle class workers’ livelihoods away to impress voters. And not to mention the HST implemented by the McGuinty government. What a shame that we pay 13% HST, tax on not only the price of gas but on the Provincial Sales Tax of 14.7 cents/litre and Federal Excise Tax of 10 cents/litre)―basically paying tax on taxes! It’s time that we, the people of Ontario should stand up for our hard earned tax dollars, assess the candidate, the political party, and then hand our votes. Every single vote matters. I would rather hold on to it rather than handing it to impostors posing as public servants and who have nobody else’s but their own best interests in mind―corporate puppets in political disguise. What will do they do if we don’t vote? Think about it. After all, it’s all about the votes. We must start learning the value of our vote. Four years is a long time to let someone decide the fate of our hard earned tax dollars and the services we get in return. It is our tax dollar that would pay the hefty salaries of the elected leader and his/her members. Don’t forget that this entire financial system is running because of the working class and that makes the majority of us. The unreal financial structure of banks and government treasury would cease to exist if there is no ‘real’ money going in. We matter. Our voices matter. Our votes matter. —–

-Renu Singh