Dunvegan resident, Sean Burgess, tells me that he’s noticed a new crop of lawn signs creeping closer to our neck of the woods. Eye-catching red, they feature a silhouette of a ‘stop sign’ octagon with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s distinctive spectacle frames overlaid on it. The message is simple: Fire.Wynne.ca in bold white lettering.
When I went to the web site (hosted by REBEL.media), it would appear this grassroots movement might be gaining a bit of momentum. Their “free Fire.Wynne.ca lawn sign” video states that the signs are only being distributed in Toronto at present, but that they are looking for volunteers in the rest of the province. Well, they must have found at least one supporter in our area who was willing to help. Or someone is so ticked off at the provincial Liberals, they drove all the way to Toronto to pick up some free Fire.Wynne.ca lawn signs. And, if that’s the case, I don’t blame him or her. Wynne and her government have buried this province so deep in debt and the minutiae of red tape that we may never be able to recover.
Phillip Cross, in a May 2016 article in the Financial Post, reported that Ontario has over 380,000 regulations on its books; twice as many as any other province. They intrude into every nook and cranny of our lives, costing us money and gumming up the gears of our already sluggish economy. Cross provided a number of mind-numbing examples. One involved a suit he took to his tailor for alterations. The tailor refused to accept it and explained “he could not touch clothes that had not been to the dry cleaners, with the tags still on them to prove their sanitary state.” A second was our province’s new Ladder Law that requires everyone who works with a ladder to take a $29, 45-minute Workplace Safety & Prevention Services e-course.
While I wasn’t willing to fork out 30 bucks to see what the course material covered, Cross did. He told his readers that the first lesson stressed users must be sure to face the front of the ladder. No kidding. And to make sure they retain their red tape crown, the Liberals have a slew of new regulations waiting in the wings, from dictating that your second car must be electric to legislating what type of fuel you must use to heat your home or shop.
Then there’s their mishandling of all things that have a dollar sign attached. Since the McGuinty/Wynne Liberals took power in 2003, our province has lost 347,000 manufacturing jobs. But don’t despair. Employment in government-related jobs has risen by 368,000 over the same time period. This represents a 23 per cent increase in public sector hiring, as compared to a mere 7 per cent rise in private sector employment… many of which were potentially less stable, self-employed positions.
How has all this “growth” been funded? With a provincial borrowing spree that’s saddled us with a debt load of over 307 BILLION dollars. In a 2014 Fraser Institute report entitled Comparing the Debt Burdens of Ontario and California, it was pointed out that: “Borrowing money can be a sensible way for governments to cover tax shortfalls during tough economic times, and also to fund durable investment projects such as bridges and roads… However, the bigger a government’s debt burden becomes, the bigger the drag it imposes on the economy, as a larger fraction of government revenues must be devoted simply to paying interest on the debt. This leaves the government with fewer options in the event of a financial emergency, and a spike in interest rates can cripple a government carrying large amounts of debt.” Even at today’s rock-bottom interest rates, we now spend $11 billion a year servicing our province’s debt. In other words, just paying the interest charges.
In 2012, when Wynne and her friends were swept to power thanks in part to Hudak’s blunders, our provincial debt stood at $267.5 billion. At the time, this represented a staggering 40.9 % of our Gross Domestic Product and worked out to $20,166 owed by every man, woman and child in Ontario. Add this to the years of wasteful Liberal boondoggles and scandals and you’d think Ontario would have heard the wake-up call. But no.
And so the sad saga continues. Where will it all end? It’s anybody’s guess. My bet is that, in two years, the Liberals will once again buy off the Toronto citizenry, and the public sector unions, and return to power. But maybe — with campaigns like Fire.Wynne.ca — the cracks are beginning to show. One can only hope.
Beyond the pale
You’d think after 60-odd years I would have looked up this old expression, but I never did. It wasn’t until I was watching an episode of Tales of Irish Castles on Netflix in which actor, Simon Delaney, takes viewers on an educational journey around Ireland’s most famous castles that the penny finally dropped. Delaney was describing an area on the west cost of Ireland that the Anglo-Norman invaders had claimed and christened the Pale. “I wonder,” said I to myself, “is this related to the expression my father used from time to time.”
And a few seconds on Google revealed that such was so. The phrase “beyond the pale” does date back to the 14th century when the part of Ireland under Anglo-Norman rule was known as the Pale and delineated by boundary of fences. Why the word “pale?” This sense of the word came from the Latin word pālus, meaning a stake used to support a fence. To travel outside the boundary — that is, beyond the pale — was to abandon the rules and institutions that defined Anglo-Norman society… or, in their eyes, civilization itself.
Slow time in the old town
As you’ve no doubt gathered, it’s a slow news week in Dunvegan town. There is stuff planned for the week of July 11th… the DRA Euchre Luncheon on July 15th and the “A Stitch in Time” fibre arts event at the museum on July 16th and 17th. But I’ll save these, and any other tidbits that fall into my lap, for my next column.
About the most exciting Dunvegan-related news (and it isn’t all that exciting) is that on Saturday, July 9th a yard sale will be held at 19314 County Road 24 from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
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