Steve Payne
So the Ontario PC's want to abolish the College of Trades, but they also want to cut teachers and nurses… Who do I vote for?
Canadian ContractorThere are never any easy answers when it comes to voting. No one political party will "do it all" for any one voter, when it comes to policies.
With the Ontario election just days away (June 12), contractors in the province have deluged us with comments for and against the PCs, Liberals and NDP. The PCs are famously promising to abolish the Ontario College of Trades (OCOT) – which they say is nothing but a trades tax, which is going to prevent contractors with tremendous skills from working legally – unless they, in some cases, go back to school or join a union. Here’s a comment from our subscriber Marten Burghgraef, illustrating the type of dilemma that many contractors face when they go to vote…
“OK, so the PCs want to abolish the OCOT but I heard they also want to cut teachers and nurses. Hate to lose these people as well. What do I do? Who do I vote for? Does not look like the NDP is going anywhere fast.”
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Could anyone run your business by promising all your customers a champagne level project and completing it on a home brew budget while hiring more employees to fill new departments in your business that you have never needed in the past? Could you afford to purchase land and put up a new shop only to never complete it, tear it down and build it somewhere else because your neighbour didn’t want shade on their garden?
No business could afford to run like that and the only reason the government can is because they don’t need to ask you for the money, they just take it.
There are many difficult decisions that need to be made in running a business and a government in hard times and the longer these decisions are put off the more unpleasant the consequences will be. But there will be consequences and using money you don’t have to buy things you can’t afford and pay people you don’t need will definitely have consequences
“…I heard…” Heard from who ? The Liberals ? Based on everything they have done over the last 10 years I don’t believe a single thing they say. If they had not flushed BILLIONS of dollars down the toilet, how many teachers and nurses could we hire ? The Province of Ontario is in worse debt trouble that the State of California and heading off toward that of Greece. In 1984, Greece’s debt-to-GDP was at 37%; exactly where Ontario’s is today. I listen to the public sector union adds talk about the future of our children with less teachers or health care with less nurses. I wonder what the children in Greece think about the way their future was handled in 1984 ? What will the province do if interest rates rise from today’s current historic lows ? Both the Liberals and the NDP will mortgage our children’s future to gain power today. Public sector employees get paid out of tax money and they have some of the largest pension funds in the world yet their adds would have you believe they are hard done by. I copied this from the Teachers Pension Fund website :
” Today, a typical career teacher retires at age 58 with an annual starting pension of about $46,000.” Are you going to be able to retire at the age of 58 ? Many people in the province don’t have a pension at all but pay the taxes to make sure the public sector unions are fully funded. No wonder these unions support the Liberals and the NDP. That’s where their gravy train will come from. If someone doesn’t get the provincial debt under control this province is headed for a financial disaster of Titanic proportions .
Amen to that.
Hang on Steve, do you believe everything you have “heard”? The PC policy clearly states “non-teaching” positions. You have been listening to the so called Working Family Coalition ads, or the too many to name union ads which attack the conservatives with “We have heard type bs…or Did you know…and Mike Harris style cuts…”. From my perspective the former teacher was also the best Premier this Province has had since Bill Davis. By the way he created a million jobs too! Oh and he left office 13 years ago….quick name the Prime Minister or Captain of the Leafs that long ago. it really irritates me that the Fiberals have managed to brain wash some people about him. I do not hate unions, but what they are doing this provincial election here in Ontario is quite outrageous and we should not be tolerating it….oh and by the way we are funding it too. When Harper’s Union Transparency Bill passes and the members see the truth they will be rightfully furious too.
If you think Hudak’s cuts are harsh you wait and see what the banks have in store for Ontario after a few more years of Liberal budget deficits.
The problem jobs & unions, who are paid from taxpayers dollars, is that there is no accountability and no incentive to do better. Many are just there for the steady pay cheque. When they’re work load gets a little heavy, someone else gets hired to help them.
If Hudak wants to get rid of the slackers, I’m all for it. If it’s random cutting, then I might think twice about it.
Nobody seems to want to explain this in the ads.