Burlington resident asks provincial premier candidates : How do you plan to pay for the plans you have?

SwP thumbnail graphicBy Pepper Parr

May 28th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

How many people in Burlington watched the last debate before the provincial election on June 7th? Who knows?

The election result is certainly going to be pivotal for the province. The choice is not an easy one. The Liberals have more than worn out their welcome.

debate audience May 27

Small audience – significant debate, which no one actually won. Burlington resident puts the question to the candidates.

Doug Ford doesn’t appear to be holding on to the massive support he had when the race started. It was hard to see anything new in his message Sunday evening – he stuck to a script that was a combination of being simplistic and fear mongering.

Andrea Horwath was strong and stood up well to both Kathleen Wynne and Doug Ford.

There is a risk with voting in a New Democratic government – we have been down that road before as Ford put it. However, it would appear that not as many people want to go down the road Ford is urging us to do with his simplistic statements. He seems to have become as good as Wynne became with the spending.

Martin Badger

Martin Badger – Burlington resident.

The bright spot – the first question asked by members of the public who made up the debate audience came from Martin Badger, a 19 year old Burlington resident voting for the first time who asked: How do you plan to pay for the plans you have?

He got good answers. Was he satisfied with the answers?

That’s the question people across the province are going to ask themselves – which of the three political parties do you think can solve the problems?

Tough question!

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7 comments to Burlington resident asks provincial premier candidates : How do you plan to pay for the plans you have?

  • Steve D

    I will have to vote for the least left wing candidate.

  • D.Duck

    I did not think that any of them actually answered Martin’s question!

    I was hoping he would have stood up again and said;

    Please stop interrupting each other and have some civility for democracy AND please answer this simple question without spin-doctoring the verbal rhetoric. It is making me nauseous.

    • Tom Muir

      I almost agree that no one answered.

      Wynne came the closest as she is going to pretty much stay the Liberal policy course, which has been well explained, the line item state of the books and economy is open to view, and reflects where she will get the money, and we are living in that world, that she will continue, but tweak a little.

      What you see is what you get. It’s all in the public domain, in the open.

      Ford and the PCs don’t have a platform that is line item funded or costed, with budget balances showing where the money got reallocated to finance his promises. Because, if elected, he will get the same current economic growth momentum in revenue as the others will, but will have to cut funding to something to finance something else that’s new, if there are no revenue or debt increases. Elementary book-keeping.

      They have abstract promises to cut the gas tax 10 cents, which has been done before, but just disappears after a time in the ups and downs of the price at the pumps, and gives the gas providers more room to play. Some of the dime will disappear into their margins.

      The 20% tax cut, three years out, is hard to take seriously. In politics, 3 years is an eternity – the political world can turn in a week; how about one day. Something in 3 years is a fantasy today, I’m afraid.

      Who will get it, and how much will it cost the budget and where will it come from are unanswered questions. It has been grossly misrepresented as time went by, so now it appears like everyone will get it.

      I cringe when I hear him say, “when the economy gets going, we are going to”. I have been around a while and I have heard every opposition politician seeking power at election time say basically the same thing.

      Andrea and the NDP don’t want to say where the money will come from either, as they don’t really know. And they too seem to have big buck policy plans that are new, so they will have to cut something else, find new revenue sources, or increase the relative deficit and debt.

      Every ordinary person knows that with a fixed budget pie, if you make one piece bigger then some other piece has to be made smaller. If your income (revenue) falls, or you spend more than the pie, then spending has to change on something , or you go into debt.

      At one time I worked as an economist for the Province in the Treasury, at Queen’s Park, and heard this kind of thing every budget, where numbers were fudged if not favorable, and especially around elections, as you can imagine.

      All the Parties did this, and now they all have their own capable budget and policy analysis shops. But they all have to work with the same dollar arithmetic, with their own slants to bend it with.

      We can’t cover all the other policy and budget bits we hear about, and might like to see, but they are all part of the same story.

      So whatever sentiment you might have politically, for all the candidates, just know that what you see is what you get.

      But beware those who don’t seem able to make change.

  • Penny

    Is this the best that Ontario has to offer in the way of leadership? I remember the last time people voted for the NDP as a protest vote and what a mess that turned out to be. All the promises made at election time typically don’t ever happen, how people can still vote on “promises” never fails to amuse me.

  • Susan L.

    My priority is health care. When asked about health care during the debate, Doug Ford said, “When the economy gets going, we’re going to ….”

    You can hear him say it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LerC609ml3A at minute 1:47:00

    When the economy gets going? Looks like he plans to keep hallway medicine for the foreseeable future. Now, that scares me.

  • Finally – a PC that recognizes what a buffoon they have leading them. And he decides to support the Liberals and urges his friends to do so as well. This from a life long Liberal – I am voting for the NDP – Wynne has failed to delver on the promise and chose to spend as if the Royal Mint was provincial property. The federal government prints the money.
    Time for a change – with some luck we will see an NDP minority whch I can live with. Join me.

  • Gary Parker

    As a now disenchanted Liberal I was all set to join my predominantly Conservative friends, then they chose Ford to lead them. After watching the debate last night I wrote the following note to those friends:

    Dear fellow conservatives ( and friends ),

    I’m writing to you while the content and tone of last night’s debate is still fresh in my mind and before I read or listen this morning to any of the talking heads. The feeling I (we) came away with after it was over was that the much maligned Kathleen and her band of merry bandits would likely be a much better choice for Ontarian’s on June 7 than either our buffoonish leader or the fairy princess that represents the hapless NDP. I know I will be roundly castigated for taking this position but thems the facts. I won’t dwell on the delusional world presented by our would-be fairy godmother but can’t help but point out a few things about our guy. To say he was awful probably gives him way too much credit. He appeared to have memorized about six numbers and three or four facts – some of which were dubious at best. He obviously likes to talk in multiples of ten offering us ten cents off at the pumps, a 20% reduction in our income tax and noting that things will be either ten times better or ten times worse depending on whether we vote for or against him. He’s also developed a fixation on the Trumpian use of the ‘T’ word. But in this case ‘terrific’ has been replaced by ‘terrifyingly’. And so, at least for now, I bid farewell to my brief political association with my friends who wear the blue. We can still be friends though and maybe next time you will get the leader you deserve.

    Sven