Surely some of this will stick to the Teflon Premier, the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty.  Up to now he has done a masterful job of avoiding any full on body blows to his party and himself.  This is demonstrated by the number of times he’s been reelected, 2003, 2007 and then again in 2011.  Given the province of Ontario’s debt and overall economic performance since 2003, why wouldn’t he have a sense of invisibility.  But there has to come a time when the electorate finally says, “enough already”.  Every politician will eventually meet their Waterloo if they overstayed their welcome.  There’s always a galvanizing moment for the voters.  For the former Major of Toronto, David Miller, it was a garbage strike.  His political career was based on the anger of the electorate over his handling of the garbage strike.  For Premier McGuinty, it could be a story which the Canadian Press uncovered and published yesterday.

For those of you reading this post who reside outside of Ontario, the Premier of Ontario is beating the drums of fiscal restraint.  Teachers and doctors are being told there has to be wage freezes.  Everyone in the public sector will have to make sacrifices, and spending cuts are required across all departments.  No argument from tax payers because this has long been overdue.  What’s mind boggling is that the Canadian Press uncovered that 98 percent of eligible managers in the Ontario Public Service received a bonus last year.  This information was not readily available.  The Canadian Press used the freedom of information laws to uncover this, and one has to assume the government was hoping to bury this in the fine print.  In today’s world, that in of itself is laughable.  Did they really think that the someone in the press wasn’t going to find out?  This is like blood in the water for the press, and the sharks are circling. 

Sources: Canadian Forum for Policy Research; Ontario Financing Authority and Ontario Ministry of Finance Public Accounts of Ontario 2010-2011. CFPR http://researchforum.ca

I would never suggest that bonuses shouldn’t be paid.  Extraordinary efforts and results should be rewarded.  I suspect some managers in the Ontario Public Sector are deserving of a bonus.  But almost all of them?  Maybe the Liberals here in Ontario will hope for continued voter apathy and that no one will pay much attention to this.  Maybe they’re banking on the fact that people on Ontario are focused more on squeezing every ounce of what’s left of summer.  Someone else banked on that and it didn’t work out so well for him.  Anyone seen or heard from David Miller recently?

Until next time,

 Cheers.