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2014 Ontario General Election

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E.R. Campbell said:
Actually I think that, despite her own and her party's instincts, Premier Wynne will have little choice because:

    First: See, this ... there is always a shadow government pushing (now and again even pulling) governments on to the right (fiscally sane) path; and

    Second: Of course, the bureaucracy is being pushed by ...

         
web-Satedcar24co1.jpg


Please remember that the bond market isn't interested in democracy or Premier Wynne's platform or why you and I voted as we did ... it just wants to must be paid it return on investment. (I say "must" because we are not Argentina or Brazil.)


Edited to add:

And the Ottawa Citizen reports "Wynne names a Minister of 'No'". The article says: "There’s nothing subtle about Premier Kathleen Wynne’s switch from the caring, optimistic, “investing” politician she was on the campaign trail to the cautious, thrifty premier she’ll have to be if she wants to have a province worth governing in four years ... By naming her most trusted lieutenant, Deb Matthews, to run a newly constituted provincial treasury board ... Wynne is showing she’s as serious as she can be about holding back her government’s spending. That’s the only way to balance the provincial budget and ultimately get Ontario’s debt under control ... It [Matthews' portfolio] means being Minister of No. No pay increases, no service expansions beyond what’s already been promised in public. “There’s no money, so ‘No’” — over and over and over again."

Only problem is her "Minister of No" Deb Matthews, was Health Minister during much of the ORNGE screw up.  So I am not holding my breath that she will be a competent manager in this role.
 
[sarc]I can't see why unions should be unhappy.  Continued employment with no raise is preferable to terminated employment.[/sarc]

(Some studies exist which claim employees would rather see layoffs than wage freezes.  I suppose part of the reason is that employees with seniority in a tightly constrained workplace are happy to trade off the jobs of junior employees in order to continue receiving compensation increases.  But young adults haven't thrown over the left/centre-left parties yet despite the increasing degree to which the interests of the young are being sacrificed to serve the interests of the aging, so I don't expect them to ever do so.)
 
Much of OPSEU is still under a four year wage freeze from the last contract. Now the liebrals want to extend that to eight?

Eight years without a raise. Not one penny.

Benefits were also slashed last time. Not much left there to cut.

If they give OPSEU back its Factor 80, instead of the 90 they forced the union into, the would get rid of tons more people, more than the approx. 50,000\ yr they currently lose to attrition in the Public Service.
 
During the "Decade of Darkness" the CF went seven years without a pay increase.
 
Thucydides said:
During the "Decade of Darkness" the CF went seven years without a pay increase.

Yup, and lots of gas, rations, MSA stores, etc went missing to make up parts of the shortfall.

Besides, we're talking two different governments, different circumstances and times, etc. None of which lends credence to your assertion as being a valid discussion point or comparison.
 
Perspectives differ.  I'd gladly trade 8 years of no increases counted from 2008 for a restoration to status quo ante 2008.
 
Brad Sallows said:
Perspectives differ.  I'd gladly trade 8 years of no increases counted from 2008 for a restoration to status quo ante 2008.

No argument there.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Actually I think that, despite her own and her party's instincts, Premier Wynne will have little choice because:

    First: See, this ... there is always a shadow government pushing (now and again even pulling) governments on to the right (fiscally sane) path; and

    Second: Of course, the bureaucracy is being pushed by ...

         
web-Satedcar24co1.jpg


Please remember that the bond market isn't interested in democracy or Premier Wynne's platform or why you and I voted as we did ... it just wants to must be paid it return on investment. (I say "must" because we are not Argentina or Brazil.)


Edited to add:

And the Ottawa Citizen reports "Wynne names a Minister of 'No'". The article says: "There’s nothing subtle about Premier Kathleen Wynne’s switch from the caring, optimistic, “investing” politician she was on the campaign trail to the cautious, thrifty premier she’ll have to be if she wants to have a province worth governing in four years ... By naming her most trusted lieutenant, Deb Matthews, to run a newly constituted provincial treasury board ... Wynne is showing she’s as serious as she can be about holding back her government’s spending. That’s the only way to balance the provincial budget and ultimately get Ontario’s debt under control ... It [Matthews' portfolio] means being Minister of No. No pay increases, no service expansions beyond what’s already been promised in public. “There’s no money, so ‘No’” — over and over and over again."


And here it is, from the horse's (Moody's) mouth: "Rating Action: Moody's assigns negative outlook to Ontario's ratings, affirms Aa2 ratings."

 
When the US lost their AAA rating the response was for the Administration to threaten to take various forms of action against Moody's. I wonder if the Liberals will try the same stunt?

We should start a pool for when Ontario defaults...
 
Crispy Bacon said:


It's a change in outlook, not in the actual rating, which remains at Aa2. As a general rule a change in rating should have been signaled by an earlier change in outlook, to give the company or government ample warning and an opportunity to change course.

Here is a look at Moody's rating process and scale.


Edited to add: See, also, this, "Ontario needs ‘credibility’ on spending plans, economists warn."

I think Premier Wynne needs to keep her balanced budget promise. I think her civil service and the Ontario business community, not just the bond rating agencies, will demand no less.

I think readers must remember that no one, no one who really matters anyway, gives a fiddler's f_ _k about what you or I (Ontario voters) think or about how you voted or why you voted the way you did. The reason you don't matter is: It's not your money; it hasn't been for years and years and years; you and I, as Ontarians, are living off borrowed money and we need to start paying it back.

We need to spend less on social programmes that include hospitals, prisons, fire departments, schools, welfare, police and, and, and ...

We can, even should, borrow (long term) to repair and build real infrastructure (roads, bridges and airports, not stadiums and arenas) in order to stimulate the economy. It is not silly to say cut spending from one envelope and borrow to fund spending in another ... it's not always obvious, but there is 'good' and 'bad' spending and, unfortunately, the spending the voters like and want is, broadly, bad spending.
 
Freeing ourselves from the consequences of a Liberal government can take many forms. This company is offering a low cost solar water heating system which can go a long way to offset the excessively high energy bills that Ontarians pay (for those who choose to invest in such a system):

http://www.avalanche-energyinc.com/product.html

ThermalSquare - Your Solar Hot Water Heater
ThermalSquare is a solar thermal collector that captures the sun's energy to generate hot water for your home to save you money. ThermalSquare’s patent-pending collector delivers the free solar energy to your existing hot water heater saving you  more than $300 a year on your water heating bills. Are you curious how we are able to save you that much money? Be sure to check out the How It Works page where we explain our design.

After listening to homeowners just like you, we learned that you want to do your part to help the environment but couldn’t find a solution that had a low initial investment and a short payback period. From the beginning we have focused on creating that product that would meet your needs and ThermalSquare was the result of months of engineering work. Want to know how we compare to the competition? Then head over to the page where we describe Our Advantages.

But, ThermalSquare is just the beginning of what we plan to offer homeowners. As stated on Our Mission page, we will be developing additional energy saving products for your home that will help you eliminate your energy bills. Interested in seeing what we have planned in the development pipeline? The Future Development page has just the information you need.

Did you know that we are currently looking for homeowners just like you that are interested in testing ThermalSquare? Now you do! Go to our Contact Us page and fill out the short questionnaire to help us save you money as early as this summer.
 
There are numerous variations, but a DYI can always do something like this;

http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-Solar-Water-Heater-for-your-Home-300/

I've seen an industrial install of basically the same set up as a steam generator, and it was enough to run a lot of steam driven equipment in a big factory.

Might not be practical for the winter, but even up here in Ottawa, I can see that being good for about 6-8 months a year to at least reduce to overall costs of heating water.
 
Pretty interesting. As a non concentrating collector it does work on an overcast day (while the focusing collector would not work nearly as well). I was rather interested in the performance difference between the insulated and uninsulated pipes (although I'm not sure if he realized the "dust" inside the florescent light tube is a mercury containing compound).

For a DIY guy here I would most certainly suggest using copper or steel piping to make the manifold, rather than PVC pipe, and the caveats for draining the system when it gets cold are very important indeed. Raising the temperature to 550C is pretty impressive, and would supply most of the hot water needs for a house (perhaps only a dishwasher would need supplementary heating), or at industrial scale, preheat water for steam generation and save a ton of money.
 
Thucydides said:
..... would supply most of the hot water needs for a house (perhaps only a dishwasher would need supplementary heating).....
I'm picturing someone of a 'survivalist/disconnect from the grid' mindset insisting on having a dishwasher -- the "Bear Grylls - Paris Hilton show" perhaps.  ;D
 
Disconecting from the grid is hard. Uncoupling and having a much looser connection so you are not so dependant is entirely possible. Like most things, the closer you get to 100% the more difficult and expensive it becomes. Spending $300 to $1500 on a solar hot water system and cutting back on the @ 13% of your energy bill that goes to hot water seems like a very cost efficient step.
 
Thucydides said:
Pretty interesting. As a non concentrating collector it does work on an overcast day (while the focusing collector would not work nearly as well). I was rather interested in the performance difference between the insulated and uninsulated pipes (although I'm not sure if he realized the "dust" inside the florescent light tube is a mercury containing compound).

For a DIY guy here I would most certainly suggest using copper or steel piping to make the manifold, rather than PVC pipe, and the caveats for draining the system when it gets cold are very important indeed. Raising the temperature to 550C is pretty impressive, and would supply most of the hot water needs for a house (perhaps only a dishwasher would need supplementary heating), or at industrial scale, preheat water for steam generation and save a ton of money.

I did think the suggest usage of florescent lighting bulbs was a fairly bad indication.  I had actually thought it was a different one when I looked at it quickly, was on the same site.  The concept is still sound but the details were poor.  My apologies for not reading it more closely before posting though.  Someone did point out in the comments about the mercury dust though; one of the nice things about the site is that there are a lot of discussions and a surprising amount of expertise, so there is a lot of knowledgeable peer reviews on it.

I think I probably would have used copper piping for the actual collector panel itself and some kind of insulated cheaper piping (pvc? steel?) for the risers.  I've seen a few variations for the box; one fellow used corrugated steel he painted black for the backing , insulated the box to keep the heat in, and used a glazing quality acrylic for the glass front.  Whatever you do it's a pretty simple set up, and can be set up with no moving parts.

Curious what the payback time would be; would be interesting to see how much less your hot water heater would cycle on with this preheating the water for you.  Might also be great for an infloor heating system where you have a large amount of water at a lower temperature or preheating water for a 'hot water on demand' system
 
Brad Sallows said:
People who didn't get the result they hoped for in an election are the ones most likely to blow off steam in comments.

ON still has some of the lowest provincial tax rates in the country.  Avoid the unnecessary battle until it becomes necessary.  Give it a couple of years.  Maybe the horse will learn to sing.

Sometimes, "you caught it, you clean it" is a just result.


Blowing off steam in online fora like Army.ca is pretty harmless, but blowing off highly partisan steam in public, in print, draws some attention if one is either of both a) an extreme partisan blowhard, and/or b) not a very good writer. See the reviews (at the bottom of the page) of this book, for example.
 
Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is a pretty good analysis of the revenue dilemma facing Premier Wynne and Ontarians:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/kathleen-wynne-left-with-few-options-to-fix-ontarios-revenue-problem/article19813010/#dashboard/follows/
gam-masthead.png

Ontario is left with few options to fix its revenue problem

CHRISTOPHER RAGAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Jul. 29 2014

I argued in my last column that Premier Kathleen Wynne faces a challenge in balancing Ontario’s books, promising to reduce the province’s budget deficit from this year’s predicted $12.5-billion to zero within a few years. I also argued that, compared to other provinces, Ontario has more of a revenue problem than a spending one; the lion’s share of the deficit will need to be eliminated by increasing tax revenues.

When it comes to seeking new revenues, some politicians like to claim that economic growth will somehow increase and greater tax revenues will naturally follow. More growth would certainly be nice, but it isn’t something a government can just will into being. The Ontario government needs to find more revenues in the actual economy, not some fantasy one.

Ms. Wynne will therefore be thinking about raising tax rates. And she will immediately encounter a tension between which taxes are least economically damaging and which are least politically unpopular. But there is nothing surprising here – most discussions about taxes have to address this tension.

One option is to increase Ontario’s corporate income-tax rate. Many ordinary people like this option, claiming that businesses don’t pay their “fair share” and so they feel it’s only right for their tax rates to rise. The problem is the abundance of economic logic and empirical evidence, from Canada and elsewhere, showing that corporate taxes are one of the most growth-retarding taxes politicians have at their disposal. Taxes on profits reduce firms’ incentives to generate them, and this leads to less investment in productivity-enhancing equipment and less time and money spent on research and development. Over time, the lower investment and innovation result in lower wages and slower economic growth.

Another option is to increase personal income-tax rates. Not surprisingly, most ordinary people dislike this option, unless it is clear that taxes will only rise for people richer than themselves. But there are few enough truly rich people that if the Ontario government chooses this option, many ordinary people will end up feeling the pinch. In addition, marginal tax rates that get increased too far reduce incentives for many people to work harder, thus impacting negatively on growth.

The third option is to increase the provincial component of the Harmonized Sales Tax (harmonized with the federal GST). Economists have long argued that of the three major taxes mentioned here, consumption-based taxes do far less economic damage, partly because they provide fewer disincentives to saving and growth. The big problem with increasing sales taxes is political: The GST is probably the most hated tax in Canadian history, and Ontario’s HST version can’t be far behind.

So Premier Wynne and her Finance Minister Charles Sousa have an important choice to make, especially for the 2015 budget now being planned. They have a budget deficit of 1.7 per cent of provincial GDP and most of this gap needs to be filled with new revenues. None of the three major taxes is a “good” choice; raising rates on any of them will cause either political or economic problems, or both. Isn’t there some way out of this fiscal conundrum?

As it turns out, there is. Ontario could choose to follow British Columbia’s lead and introduce a tax on the emission of greenhouse gases – a carbon tax. Such a tax would be applied to the consumption of all major types of fossil fuels, based on the fuel’s carbon content. Consumers and businesses alike would feel the impact; they would face greater incentives to economize on fuel use, and firms especially would be led to develop innovative ways of doing business that rely less on fossil fuels. Rebates for low-income households could easily be built into the policy. An Ontario carbon tax would represent a pragmatic blending of fiscal and environmental policies.

The intermittent debate in Canada about policies to address climate change has too often focused on the damaging effect of taxes. But some level of taxation is a necessary part of life, and a crucial task for governments is to choose from among the alternative taxes the ones least economically damaging and most conducive to economic growth.

A new Ontario carbon tax could fill that province’s fiscal hole, avoid the economic damage caused by higher income taxes, dodge the unpopularity of increasing the HST, and improve Canada’s performance on a critical environmental challenge. Premier Wynne should consider it seriously.

Christopher Ragan is an associate professor of economics at McGill University and is a research fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute.


Not everyone will like Prof Regan's idea of a carbon tax, but not everyone likes the idea of any particular tax.

He is right that corporate taxes, while wildly popular, are unproductive, even counterproductive. In the end you and I, individually, must and will pay all of the tax bill, including corporate taxes (which we will, always, pay eventually). What's needed are efficient taxes - those which cost least to collect and are hard to evade.
 
The article starts from a false premise.

Ontario does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
 
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