Ontario's single public school system will never adequately meet the needs of all of its families
Recent controversy over the provincial government’s provision of rapid tests to independent (private) schools but not public schools stems from the fact that independent schools in Ontario exist in a policy no-man’s-land. If education policy throughout the pandemic has proved anything, it’s that the provincial government doesn’t have the framework to make adequate provisions for…
Without taxes, the price of gas per litre today would be sitting at 92 cents
Hardworking taxpayers are facing record-high gas prices, and politicians are the culprits driving up the bills. In Ontario, up to 38 per cent of the price of gas that we are charged at the pumps comes from taxes, according to a report released by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And that percentage is only set to…
The public system, on the other hand, failed in its response to Covid-19
As Ontario’s public schools struggle to accommodate students in a new school year amid what could be a fourth wave of COVID-19, what can the provincial government learn from the last 17 months? For starters, the government needs to accept that huge, industrial-scale schools (typical in the public system) are pretty weak at responding to…
Bill Davis, the former Ontario premier, died on Aug. 8. He was the first Conservative I ever voted for. It happened in the October 1971 provincial election. My previous trip to the polls – in 1968 to vote for Pierre Trudeau’s federal Liberals – had been an enthusiastic occasion. Not this time. Davis wasn’t the…
It’s time to take the cake away from Ontario’s politicians. It’s time to end political welfare
Ontario’s political parties have a bad spending habit, but they don’t have to pay for it because taxpayers get stuck with their political welfare scheme. In Ontario, political parties are given millions from the pockets of hardworking taxpayers through a system referred to as the per-vote subsidy. This money does not go toward funding their…
It’s time for Ontario taxpayers to hit the debt panic button. The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a troubling report earlier this month that shows that, when Ontario’s provincial and municipal finances are looked at together, Ontario will be running deficits indefinitely, until at least the year 2095. Typically, when analysts look at the state of…
His commitment to a smaller cabinet was short-lived
While there was much palace intrigue when Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced his cabinet shuffle last month, there was one elephant in the room that was not discussed: the cabinet’s size. Before Ford was sworn into office in 2018, he promised to slim down the size of the province’s cabinet, which had ballooned dramatically under…
Ontario’s college and university employees have been busy cashing in on massive pay hikes during the pandemic
While Ontario’s college and university employees have been busy cashing in on massive pay hikes during the pandemic, taxpayers and tuition-paying students have been barely getting by. The newly minted minister responsible for universities and colleges, Jill Dunlop, now has a full knapsack of homework to do on this expensive file. With a $33-billion deficit,…
Doug Ford's decision to override the Charter wasn't done for some high principle, however. He did it for his own self-interest
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has decided to override the Charter for the first time in Ontario’s history. But he’s not doing it for some high principle. He’s doing it for his own self-interest. Just days after Ford’s new election law, the Protecting Ontario Elections Act, was struck down by the Ontario Superior Court, the government…
Targeting the education budget and bureaucracy would equal real progress on the deficit
Thanks to the reckless policies of former premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, when Ontario Premier Doug Ford was elected three years ago the province was well on its way to being driven into a fiscal wall. Ford promised Ontario voters that he would hit the breaks. Unfortunately, it seems like he hasn’t been able…
Recent controversy over the provincial government’s provision of rapid tests to independent (private) schools but not public schools stems from the fact that independent schools in Ontario exist in a policy no-man’s-land. If education policy throughout the pandemic has proved anything, it’s that the provincial government doesn’t have the framework to make adequate provisions for…
