If Ontario Was A Third World Country.....

......Ontarians would be rioting in the streets or at the very least hanging McGoonty in effigy. They did it during the Harris era but I guess today the public service and teacher's unions are happy with the way they are running the system and the schools.

John Ivison: Can Ontario's spendaholic premier go cold turkey?

Posted: October 27, 2009, 4:50 PM by NP Editor

Dalton McGuinty's stock response to any doubts about whether Ontario could afford his shopping list of 200 or so election promises back in 2003 was that the province couldn't afford not to.

He made a similar claim Tuesday, as he unveiled an all-day kindergarten program that will enrol 35,000 four and five-year-olds from next September, increasing to 50,000 in year two, at an initial cost of $500-million. That cost is likely to rise to $1.4-billion when the program is fully implemented, which is considerably more than the provincial early learning adviser, Charles Pascal, proposed in his report earlier this year. The reason for the spike in costs is that, under the McGuinty plan, it will be teachers, rather than less expensive early childhood educators, who will be in charge all day -- a transparent, but costly, attempt to buy peace with the teaching unions.

At this stage you're probably wondering: isn't this the government that recently estimated its fiscal deficit will hit nearly $25-billion this year? Indeed it is. Just last week, Dwight Duncan, the provincial Finance Minister, ramped up an already blood-curdling $14.1-billion deficit projection by another $10.6-billion. If you live in Ontario, do you feel poorer? You should because that's an additional $2,000 debt for everyone in the province.

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