Canadian Cincinnatus

One Ontario public sector union leader gets it, the Wynne Liberals will cut government jobs

According to the Toronto Sun:

‘Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne is lying when she says she will not cut public sector jobs, the top boss of the Ontario Public Sector Employees' Union said Tuesday.

Warren "Smokey" Thomas accused Wynne of burying $1.2 billion in cuts in the dead-on-arrival budget earlier this year.’

The stupidity of people who think they can avoid a fiscal reckoning by not electing Conservative leader Tim Hudak simply amazes me. Earth to Ontario liberals: there will be a reckoning no matter who you vote for, and sooner rather than later. Why do I know this?

Think about it in terms of the power grid. With the power grid, supply has to meet demand. There is no choice about it. The grid cannot remain out of balance for long. The only real choice hydro controllers have is whether supply and demand will be balanced in a controlled manner, or in an uncontrolled manner - such as with a blackout resulting from blown circuit breakers and exploding transformers. There are no other options. 

The budget is kind of like the power grid. Where supply has to meet demand on the grid, expenses have to meet revenue in the balance sheet. The only difference is that financial books can remain out of balance for more time than a power grid, allowing some Ontario residents to indulge in the fantasy that Ontario’s books don’t ever have to return to balance. This is a childish wish, and given that the province's operating deficit is projected to be $12.5 billion this year, and that it has been at or over $10 billion for the past four years, the day of reckoning will be sooner rather than later. 

As with the power grid, the only choice the financial controllers have is whether spending and revenue will be balanced in a controlled manner or an uncontrolled manner. As voters, our only choice is whether to elect budget controllers who wish to balance the Ontario budget the first way or the second way.

In promising to spend, spend, spend, Ontario Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne is either lying to the voters or she will precipitate Ontario’s fiscal collapse. If the former, then the choice Ontarians face is between honesty and dishonesty. If the latter, then it is between avoiding a debt crisis and having one.

Even ol’ ‘Smokey’ seems to grasp this: 

‘While Wynne has tried to scare voters with warnings that Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak would weaken government services with his plan to cut 100,000 government jobs, Thomas said at least Hudak is "honest and straightforward" with what's he's proposing to do.’

Then again, maybe not. Later on in the article he talks about voting NDP. Hmmm, I wonder how well he thinks his members will make out when the government loses its ability to borrow money.

Why the bottom isn’t falling out of Kathleen Wynne’s reelection campaign

At first it seems like a paradox. The 11-year reign of the Liberal Party in the province of Ontario has brought more misfortune – and certainly more farce – than the misbegotten NDP government of Bob Rae in the early 1990’s. And yet, public support for the current premier, Kathleen Wynne, is holding up much better than it did for Bob Rae. Considering all the billion dollar boondoggles her government has precipitated – almost all of them self-inflicted – this is almost unbelievable. Why?

The theory I have been nursing for a while is that, while a political party can lose an election for a whole host of reasons, it will only get creamed when it betrays its base.

Take Bob Rae. His party wasn’t wiped out in the 1995 provincial election because he completely mismanaged the provincial economy and drove the provincial government to near bankruptcy. Those things would only have resulted in a dignified loss. What turned defeat into unmitigated disaster was that he had attacked his base – the unions. His imposition of ‘Rae Days’ (unpaid holidays for provincial civil servants to save money and thereby avoid mass layoffs) was considered to be a fundamental betrayal. As a result, on Election Day, he had no supporters left. His base thought he was traitor, everybody else thought he was incompetent. 

When former premier Dalton McGuinty suspended collective bargaining rights for teachers, that was his Bob Rae moment. The teachers were outraged at McGuinty. Everybody else was outraged at the teachers – and McGuinty. Not having the integrity of Bob Rae to try and fix the mess he created, McGuinty took the coward’s way out and called it a career.

His successor, Kathleen Wynne, seems to have learned the ‘Bob Rae’ lesson: don’t abandon your base. She quickly awarded sweetheart deals to the unions and they are now joined at the hip with her Liberal Party. The unions, for their part, also learned a lesson. Don’t declare war on your patron. In going after Bob Rae in 1995 for “Rae Days’, they ended up with Mike Harris, the most libertarian provincial leader ever elected in Canada. Layoffs followed. 

(As an aside, I wonder if Wynne is planning on stabbing her union buddies in the back after the election – assuming she wins a majority. That would be the smart Machiavellian thing to do. With $12 billion deficits year-in-year-out, something drastic has to happen. Better to get the unpleasantries over with right away. Four years later, the unions will still hate her, but the rest of the people might see four years of prosperity and restraint, and award her a second majority.)

The lesson transcends Ontario politics. This is the reason Barack Obama’s poll numbers have not tanked like Jimmy Carter’s. Carter saw the error in his ways and began real reform. Airline deregulation and trucking deregulation were the first moves in Reaganomics, but they began under Carter. Conservatives saw malaise and defeat. Socialists saw a betrayal. In contrast, President Obama has the American left locked down. As a result, Obama’s popularity has a floor of 40% in the public opinion polls, below which it won’t go.

The lesson also transcends the political divide. The reasons Red Tories and RINO’s lose all the time, in spite of their vaulted ‘moderation’, is because their base - the people whose donations, volunteer time and moral support they need - hate them. The reason the poll numbers tumbled so badly for George W Bush was not Katrina, it was the immigration debate immediately preceding Hurricane Katrina, so that when the hurricane cane ashore, the people who normally would have stepped up to the plate to defend their President, didn’t. When Bush did all those bailouts and stimulus deals in the final year of his presidency, that sealed the deal. Conservatives abandoned him in droves, and he discovered that, as a result, there was no floor to his poll numbers. Iraq didn’t kill Bush (by his final year, he was winning that war), amnesty for illegal aliens and the bank bailouts did.

It’s also the reason John McCain (amnesty and McCain-Feingold) and Mitt Romney (Romneycare) lost to Obama. The base didn’t trust them.

The first rule of politics is, protect your base. The low information voters can always be can be corralled in at the last minute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Time for Attack Ads on Tim Hudak's Real Opponents: The Unions

Rob Ford didn't get elected mayor of Toronto because he has good hair, like the former mayor, David Miller, or because he's slim and has a good pedigree, like Justin Trudeau. He got elected by promising to go after the city unions and their spend-happy councillor enablers. Ford wasted little time talking about his main opponent, George Smithermen. He just kept pounding home the message that he would stop the gravy train and ensure, "Respect for Taxpayers." For anyone in Toronto, that was code for, "I'll get those greedy, arrogant garbage workers who forced you to endure a five week strike in the middle of a hot summer last year."

The memory of that strike was very fresh four years ago. One story that did untold damage to the union reputation was of a senior citizen forced by union members to walk a 1/2 kilometer in the hot sun, carrying her one allowed bag of garbage, so that she could drop in on the stinking temporary pile. Of course she had to walk back to her car too. This is just one example of how the union enraged the voters. Worse, Mayor David Miller spent most of the strike haranguing citizens and promising that they would be severely punished if they illegally dumped. Everyone knew he was in the union's pocket, especially after he caved in to their demands. I suspect he took one look at the polls after that debacle and decided to quit rather than face humiliating defeat.

In Ontario, people still remember last year's teachers' work to rule, and believe me, we parents are still peeved. I recall showing up at 6:30 at my son's middle school for a parent-teacher night. Many parents had rushed home from work, wolfed down a quick dinner, and hurried over to find out how their children were doing at school, only to discover that the teachers had all left in protest without notice three hours earlier. Most of us are on the school's e-mail list, so sending out a warning that the teachers would not be there would've been simple, but the teachers kept their protest a secret until the last minute because they wanted parents to be inconvenienced. They wanted to hurt us under the mistaken assumption that we'd all blame McGuinty and call our MPPs. It never occurred to them that we would blame the people who beat rush hour every day by leaving for home as early as 3:30 pm, even when there isn't a work-to-rule.

The greatest damage to the tories is being done by the Working Families, so it's time to attack them. It's very simple. Make the following statements over ominous music:

The unions, including the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, fund the advertising of the Working Families.

In the last election, Working Families spent big money on ads attacking Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives.

The Teachers' unions also supported Kathleen Wynn's bid to become the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party.

Now they're again attacking Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives.

Why?

What are they afraid of?

It's time for a government that represents all the people of Ontario, not just union members. Paid for by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

This ad will make all the advertising of the Working Families toxic. Each attack ad aimed at the tories will suddenly sound self-serving. Remember, most voters don't know who funds the Working Families, which is why their advertising is so effective. Educate voters and you will irreparably damage the brand of the Working Familes, and all their future advertising will only hurt their cause.

Obviously, numbers would be good. I'm pretty sure researchers can say exactly how much Working Families spent on attack ads in the last election, and I'm pretty sure it's a matter of public record about who contributed to Kathleen Wynn's bid for Liberal leadership and how much. It wouldn't hurt to mention that Wynn gave the teachers a huge settlement in exchange for labour peace as soon as she took control.

In order to pay for this advertising, simply cease all attack ads against Wynn. She looks like a grandmother, like everyone's grandmother, and attacking a grandmother makes you look weak.

Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives need to remember that no union members are going to vote for them anyway. Attacking the unions is win-win.

Mike Downtown

OPP officers should be nonpartisan in uniform

I am sure everybody who is reading this has seen the Ontario Provincial Police Association (OPPA) ad against Tim Hudak, attacking him for promising a pay freeze on OPP officers (after McGuinty had given them an 8.5% raise). While some have criticized the OPPA for making political statements - particularly with two OPP investigations against the ruling Liberals on the go - I have a different criticism:

The ad showed an OPP officer in official uniform. The OPP uniform represents the province’s law enforcement power and should therefore be treated with great care. Once in uniform, officers are no longer acting as individual citizens but as representatives of the province. Whether individual police officers (and their union) should be allowed to express their own political opinions in public is a separate question. It nevertheless remains the case that the symbols of Ontario police power do not belong to them. For this reason, OPP officers should not wear their uniform except on official business, and they absolutely should not express their own personal political opinions while in uniform. This is a clear conflict of interest and an abuse of the public power granted to them. And that goes for the police car as well.

Mayor Rob Ford was criticized for having an election campaign photo op in front of a fire truck even though everybody knows that Ford is not a fireman, and firemen are not cops. This infraction is a thousand times worse. Shame on the OPP officers involved in this ad.

The Walkerton Tragedy is fair game in the Ontario Provincial election

Now, you and I know that the culpability of the Mike Harris Conservatives was blown all out of proportion by the opposition in the Walkerton Tragedy, in order to discredit the then-Ontario government’s privatization program and spending cuts.

The main culprits in 2000 were the Homer Simpson brothers managing the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission, as the resulting public inquiry noted:

“The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission operators engaged in a host of improper operating practices, including failing to use adequate doses of chlorine, failing to monitor chlorine residuals daily, making false entries about residuals in daily operating records, and misstating the locations at which microbiological samples were taken. The operators knew that these practices were unacceptable and contrary to Ministry of Environment guidelines and directives.”

In other words, not just incompetence but active sabotage - by people who were not even provincial employees, and whose employment predated the Harris government. Ignoring all that, the media focussed on the fact that water testing had been privatized, never mind that the water testing results were perfectly accurate.

In spite of all this, it nevertheless remains the case that it is a perfectly legitimate move on Kathleen Wynne’s part to call present-day Ontario Conservative party Leader Tim Hudak out on Walkerton, after Hudak proposed to cut hundred-thousand jobs in the Ontario civil service. Why is this legitimate, even though the popular Walkerton narrative is mostly bogus? 

Because conservatives often paint themselves into a political corner with their own anti-government rhetoric, that’s why. A prime example is Ronald Reagan’s famous quote, “government is not a solution to the problem, it is the problem.” Look, I’m against government overreach and over-regulation as much as anybody. But if conservatives don’t rhetorically draw a sharp distinction between legitimate government functions and extra-constitutional power plays, we run the risk of making ourselves out to be reckless anarchists in the eyes of the public. If we do that, and we are in government, and something goes wrong, people will point to us and say, they meant to do that! 

None of this is to say that I don’t agree with small-government policies or that I disagree with what Mike Harris did, or with what Ronald Reagan did for that matter. I am not arguing for Red Tory moderation/surrenderism here. I ask for no substantive policy dilution in Tim Hudak’s election platform to appease the sainted (and completely misunderstood) ‘moderates’. What I am arguing for are political arguments that defend the minimal night-watchman state but which don’t open us up to credible charges of irresponsibility.

How do we do that?

We do that by announcing clearly that we are all in favour of legitimate government functions even while we are against illegitimate power grabs by empire-building bureaucrats and politicians who want to bribe us with our own money. In this vein, we can argue that government bloat imperils necessary government because it makes the whole organization more complex and difficult to manage. We can also argue that government deficits and fiscal irresponsibility ultimately endangers all government functions, including legitimate, necessary ones. In drawing a line in the sand between legitimate government functions on one side, and bloat and overreach on the other, these arguments and many other besides, can now be marshalled for our benefit. Of course, for tactical reasons, the precise line between legitimate and illegitimate government can be kept hazy, or even shifted around from election to election, for reasons of expediency.

How does Tim Hudak do this?

Actually he is already took the first baby steps in this direction by stating that doctors, nurses and cops will not be part of his cuts. To win, he must go further by doing two other things simultaneously: extolling examples of legitimate government functions and explain how they are placed in danger by the Liberal’s reckless spending; and by holding up examples of regulatory excess and government waste.

If he does both these things adequately, Tim Hudak will not only win a mandate for small-government change, but also inoculate himself to any Walkertons in the future.

Warren Kinsella agrees with me on Tim Hudak

This is a rare moment on this blog: me agreeing with Warren Kinsella; but in his Sun Media article yesterday, Kinsella presents the best analysis I have seen to date on the dynamics of the recent provincial election. Here’s the punch line (but, by all means, read the whole article): 

 “According to the last couple of Ipsos polls, Hudak’s support is growing – while that of his Liberal and New Democrat rivals is shrinking, in some places dramatically… If Tim Hudak is still stiff, awkward and therefore inauthentic, why is that happening?

“Because of the other part of [pollster Allan] Gregg’s observation, that’s why. The part about ‘direct and honest engagement of difficult subject matter that has the potential to cause media controversy.’ And that is precisely what Hudak has done, with his announced plan to cut 100,000 positions in the broader Ontario public service.”

“He may never be seen as the most ‘authentic’ politician, true. But he’s the one presently engaged in ‘direct and honest engagement of difficult subject matter that has the potential to cause media controversy.’ 

And he’s winning because of it.”

This is exactly right. People really appreciate politicians who level with them. Few of them do because they realize that it opens them up to controversy, painting a bulls-eye on them. But, by and large, they appreciate it when somebody tells them the truth.

The classic mistake that many politicians – particularly Red Tory moderates – make is to try to avoid controversy. (This was why Hudak snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2011.) Big mistake! In an election there will always be controversy. You cannot escape it. You have to be a fool (or a Red Tory) to think you can avoid it. But, if you are willing to be proactive, you have the ability to choose your controversy. If you choose right, you will be controversial in ways that play to your strengths and your opponent’s weaknesses.

In the present provincial election, both Tim Hudak and Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne promise to balance Ontario’s out-of-control budget. Hudak has told voters what he will cut to achieve this goal. Wynne is more vague, preferring to emphasize her new spending initiatives. So, who sounds more believable now?

 

P.S. I did not know that Kathleen Wynne has hired Paul Martin’s brain-trust to get her re-elected. More good news!

 

This time, people will believe that Tim Hudak will cut their taxes

According to the National Post: 

“Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are promising to cut personal taxes once they balance the budget in 2016-17.

They say they plan to phase in a 10% cut over four years, but could do it sooner if they have more money.” 

Hudak made a similar promise in the 2011 but nobody believed him. Why? Because Hudak couldn’t say how he could balance the budget. Where would he cut the waste? Oh, the proverbial waste, fraud and abuse. Yeah, sure.

But this time people will believe him. Thanks to his promise to cut 100,000 provincial jobs, its obvious. This is the fruit of levelling with the voters and telling them the ugly truth first.

The people want to be told the truth. They don’t want to be gladhanded.

 

Hudak is right to promise 100,00 layoffs

When I first heard that Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak promised to lay off 100,000 Ontario civil servants, I cringed. My gut told me that he had made a fatal mistake and would lose the provincial election over it.

Conservatives often box themselves into a corner with reckless anti-government talk. While the members of the public who work for the private sector don’t like civil servants, they also sympathize with middle-class people who lose their jobs. Somebody who takes open glee in firing people comes across as a sadist.

But then I heard Hudak’s actual words. He was measured and somber. He expressed regret that Ontario’s dire situation requires drastic but regrettable action. He also pointed out that the Liberals have added 300,00 people to the government rolls since they have been in power.

His words changed my mind. In the last provincial election, Hudak lost because he came across like a glad-hander. While he chastised the Liberals for their reckless and irresponsible spending and the need to balance the budget, he couldn’t name a single substantial cut that he would make, when reporters asked him how he would balance the books. All he did was to sputter about the proverbial “waste, fraud and abuse.” Since even the NDP is presumably against waste, fraud and abuse, he looked like somebody who wasn’t forthright about his intentions. Well, promising up front to get rid of a hundred thousand jobs, he won’t be accused of that this time around! 

Going forward, what Hudak needs to do to capitalize on this move is to: first, continue acting somber and regretful when the subject of actual layoffs comes up; second, highlight Ontario’s dire fiscal state every chance he gets - that Ontario currently has the same size deficit that California had at its worst, when California has over three times the population; third, he needs to point out that, in making this promise, he is the only honest leader out there. Facing a $12 billion deficit, jobs will be cut. This is inevitable regardless of whom you vote for. The only difference is that he is the only one leader honest about it. Fourth, he needs to make the case that because he willing to do it right away, ultimately fewer people will have to be surplused. Finally, he needs lay the blame for the cuts on Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne. Their fiscal irresponsibility created this mess. Every laid-off Ontario worker will be put through the ringer only because the Liberals couldn’t think of anything else to do but buy votes with money they didn’t have. 

In pondering this, it occurred to me that Hudak is creating the right kind of controversy. What I mean by that phrase is that all election campaigns generate controversy. Because this is unavoidable, only a fool tries to skate through an election hoping nobody attacks him. A wise leader courts good controversy, one that focuses the debate on your issues and not the other guys.

In attacking Hudak’s heartlessness, Wynne only highlights her recklessness, irresponsibility, and intellectual bankruptcy.

Dalton McGuinty goes to Harvard

Among all the sturm und drang going around these days over the gas plant cancellations and all the other various incompetencies of the Ontario Liberal Party, one little tidbit of information caught my ear: following his departure from the Premier’s office, Dalton McGuinty has gone to work at Harvard University. 

So what’s Premier Deadbeat Dad doing down there? Here is a brief synopsis from Harvard’s web site:

“Research interests: The re-emergence of manufacturing in Ontario and the Great Lake states post-recession.” 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t say if Anthony Perkins’ interest lies more in encouraging this development or strangling it in the cradle.

Kathleen Wynne and the Streisand Effect

In 2003, Barbara Streisand loudly complained that her privacy had been violated because her Malibu oceanfront estate had been photographed from the air and that this photograph had been posted on the internet for anybody to download. Upon closer investigation, it turned out that the picture was part of the California Coastal Records Project where the entire coastline of California was photographed. The effect named after Babs concerns the fact that the offending photograph (labelled only as Image 3850 on the website) was downloaded 6 times prior to Streisand’s complaint but was downloaded a half a million times in the month afterwards. These days, her estate is all over the internet. Barbara and her big mouth!

For some reason, Ontario Premier Wynne’s libel lawsuit against conservative party leader Tim Hudak - for making accusations against her concerning the destruction of documents related to the Liberal gas plant fiasco - reminds me of this phenomenon.

Discovery anyone?