Now that the dust has settlled, analysts are taking a hard look at the Ford government's first budget. Martin Regg Cohn writes:
It gets tough on some (mostly poor people and students).
It lavishes love on others (tax breaks sprinkled here and there).
Call it tough love — not to be confused with “tough luck” — from a premier who loves to be loved. By the right people.
And that's really the point: Ford's populism is for the right people:
Ford’s first budget deceptively heralds his munificence while it downplays the take-aways. He is spending more than any previous Liberal government, piling on bigger deficits than his immediate predecessor and projecting record debt levels.
But his budget also confirms that high school students will be squeezed into more crowded classrooms (27 per cent bigger) as teachers’ positions are reduced and online teaching is increased. Scheduled welfare increases are being scaled back, promised transit funding is being cut back, and legal aid that underpins our justice system is being undermined.
Ford's munificence is supposedly on display in his plan to upgrade Toronto's transit system:
On the eve of Thursday’s budget unveiling, the premier convened a photo-op where he mischievously proclaimed a $28.5 billion transit plan to redraw Toronto’s subway map. A perfectly populist pitch.
Except that the fine print showed him funding just 39 per cent of the price tag, allocating a mere $11.2 billion of the total — while demanding other governments fill in the built-in gap. An unpopular footnote that went largely unnoticed.
The transit postscript is especially peculiar, for this government giveth with one hand and taketh with the other: Despite a solemn campaign commitment to maintain annual transit funding via the agreed municipal share of gas tax revenues, Ford went back on his word by redirecting hundreds of millions of dollars from Toronto transit operations and diverting them back to provincial coffers.
The timing is especially awkward, given that Ford’s “Government for the People” is in court this week arguing against a federal carbon tax at the pumps. While Ottawa is rebating the money directly to Ontario taxpayers, our tax-fighting premier is quietly pocketing the people’s gas taxes for his own provincial purposes.
It's a con, of course. But, so far, Ford has gotten away with it.
Image: The Toronto Star
7 comments:
Of course it’s a con. Tell me something that they have that isn’t.
Are there any studies conducted by education professionals aside from those employed by the privatization racketeers that have assessed the efficacy of online courses for teens and toddlers? I remember being advised by the department chairman. when in my early fifties I signed up for a post-grad course that featured this type of delivery as well as some online student collaboration, that I would have to be patient with the other students, most of whom were in their twenties. He turned out to be correct. I expect that student collaboration won’t likely be a factor in Ford’s plot, yet I wonder how the teens and toddlers of today will deal with the rest of it. I think it’s too big a risk to take to achieve the aim of trashing a few more unionized teaching positions, however noble the aim to his league of libertarian milksops.
Furthermore, besides being privatized, how much of this venture will be off-shored?
That's a possibility, John, that I admit I haven't thought of.
The next teachers federation contract is going to get very messy. Watch all the mud slinging that this Gorilla can spread around when the strike happens. We will witness a new Scarlet letter of "Essential Service" tagged on those daring to defy. Such are the dealings of a man who has no respect for anyone , least of all hard working unionized teachers who continue to suffer the brunt of these goons.
I've been there before, zoombats. And I fear that history will repeat itself.
Ford needs to reward his corporate sponsors. If they do go ahead with any building of rapid transit, you'll know in advance who will have the contracts and make the money, just like in B.C. Once they announce where the new routes will go those who own the property will make tens of millions in profit when the flipping starts, just like in Vancouver. Yeh, remember his advisor is Gordon Campbell and you saw what happened in B.C.
On the upside, teachers in Ontario have been invited to apply for work in B.C. We are short of teachers. Housing is very expensive, in Greater Vancouver though because Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark allowed organized crime to lauder their money via our casinos and real estate market. Wait until Ford increases the limits on gambling per hand, like with bacarrat.
Some one might want to have a look at who is appointed to provincial boards. In B.C. they appointed B.C. LieberCon supporters, who were paid per diems which looked remarkably like the amounts of money they donated to the B.C. LieberCons.
They're attacking teachers much as they did the Toronto City Council. Its too reduce the opposition and those with organizational skills. In B.C. the B.C. libercons were constantly at war with teachers. There was defunding to such a degree schools were closed and land sold off, in some school districts teaching aides where all laid off with the results that parents whose children had learning disabilities took them out of school. Teachers finally went on strike.
Do not be surprised if legislation is passed to deal with teachers. they did in B.c. with the result the Teachers Union took the government to country and at least 10 years later, the teachers won. In the meantime, kids lost out.
Yes, there will be privitization of education because many parents who can afford it will take their kids out of the public system and put them in the "new" private system. There was a huge increase in private schools during the con years in B.C. Don't be surprised if you see an increase in "Christian" schools.
Ford likes to claim that he works for ordinary folks, e.a.f. But it's clear the people who will benefit are not ordinary folks.
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