{"id":8732,"date":"2018-06-14T05:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justrightmedia.org\/blog\/?p=8732"},"modified":"2018-12-07T09:43:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T14:43:53","slug":"560-ontarios-majority-mandate-for-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/archives\/8732","title":{"rendered":"560 – Ontario’s majority mandate for socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Doug

On the heels of Ontario\u2019s newly elected Progressive Conservative<\/strong> majority government under Doug Ford, expectations of \u2018change\u2019 \u2013 for the better \u2013 are high. It would be difficult to imagine anything worse than what Ontarians endured under the ousted Wynne Liberal Party, which no longer holds official party \u2018standing\u2019 in the legislature.<\/p>\n

However, it must be recognized that the conditions under which Ontario currently suffers are a consequence of the cumulative actions and directions taken by all of the parties in the legislature. Kathleen Wynne and her government merely continued in the political direction (Leftward) already established and entrenched by previous governments \u2013 including those of the Progressive Conservatives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict or evaluate what the PCs may do under Ford, since the party won its majority mandate under a single objective: getting rid of Kathleen Wynne.
\n <\/strong>
\nIn the absence of any substantive or credible commitment to actually \u2018change\u2019 the Leftward direction in which Ontario is heading, Ford and his PCs have left us little to speculate about. After all, how does one reconcile a promise \u201cto increase government spending, reduce taxes, and balance the budget?\u201d<\/p>\n

What we do know about the PC party is its history and tradition.<\/p>\n

That history includes: the state takeover <\/strong>of Ontario\u2019s once privately provided electricity supply (giving us the unaffordable \u2018power at cost\u2019 electricity model we have today); the introduction and establishment of rent controls<\/strong>; the creation of the LCBO <\/strong>and the \u2018Beer Store<\/strong>\u2019 monopolies (one \u2018public,\u2019 the other \u2018private\u2019); the establishment of Ontario\u2019s Human Rights Commission<\/strong>; the establishment of Ontario\u2019s \u2018universal\u2019 single payer<\/strong> health care system; the abolishment of competitive (with the government) health care insurance, the introduction of Ontario\u2019s income tax<\/strong>, the establishment of TV Ontario<\/strong>, among many other Leftward initiatives.<\/p>\n

Are these the kind of Progressive Conservative \u2018traditions\u2019 that will be continued under Ford? So far, there has been no evidence to suggest otherwise, as among the very few clear statements made by Ford include his support for a state monopoly on cannabis sales<\/strong>, and for spending extra Ontario taxpayer dollars on Toronto\u2019s transit system and on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in London.<\/p>\n

However, that having been said, our panelists (Bob Metz, Robert Vaughan, Mary Lou Ambrogio and Danielle Metz) have done their best to put a silver lining on Ford\u2019s election as they reflect on some of the promised PC planks that might be a positive for the province.<\/p>\n

Along the way, their conversation reflects on other issues, from women in politics (should they be?), parental responsibility, identity politics, the nature of elections and the electoral process, the power of effective protest, and of course, the eternal dilemma faced by voters in every election.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s funny how difficult it was \u2013 to find anything in the (known) PC mandate that we could consider Just Right.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the heels of Ontario\u2019s newly elected Progressive Conservative majority government under Doug Ford, expectations of \u2018change\u2019 \u2013 for the better \u2013 are high. It would be difficult to imagine anything worse than what Ontarians endured under the ousted Wynne Liberal Party, which no longer holds official party \u2018standing\u2019 in the legislature. However, it must [Continue Reading]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,51,69,538,28,165,6,120,598,607],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-conservatism","category-economics","category-feminism-society","category-latest","category-political-parties","category-politics","category-socialism","category-society","category-taxes","issues-election-ontario-2018","issues-feminism","issues-justice","issues-tommy-robinson","personalities-doug-ford","personalities-tommy-robinson","category-12-id","category-51-id","category-69-id","category-538-id","category-28-id","category-165-id","category-6-id","category-120-id","category-598-id","category-607-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8737,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8732\/revisions\/8737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}