Ontario To Canada: You Owe Us, You Ungrateful Pricks

Ontario has subsidized the rest of this frozen craphole of a nation since before the latest generation of carpers and whiners huddled under skins sucking their mama's tit in a Yert outside of Mushaboo.  If Ontario hadn't financed Abasand Oils, Great Canadian, and on and on, Albertans would still be struggling to rise up from the muck and mire, and hunting down mastodons with bone-tipped spears.  If not for Ontario, Newsfies would be eating their belts come the first hard winter, rather than lolling in the arms of the nanny state.  But no.  It's OK.  You don't have to say thank you.  But if things get a little tough here for a few years, suck it up and act Canadian. Alright?

Proportional Representation = No More Revolutions

The Freedom Party of Ontario (hard-core Libertarians who usually rake in a good 0.2% of the Ontario vote) has come out against proportional representation, a method of selecting a government that Ontarians will, come this October, be asked to chose or reject in favor of the current "first past the post" system.

What doesn't the FPO like about PR?

"When we replace majority government with minority or coalition government...we move from a system that accommodates ethical decision-making, to a system based on the rejection of ethics and the substitution of whims and numbers...we move from a government guided by reason, to one guided by emotion; one guided not by what's right, but simply what you want.

"[The committee] is not truly dealing with the issue of democracy. It is dealing with the issue of right versus might; with the issue of ethical rule versus majority rule; with the issue of individual freedom versus the tyranny of majorities.

This is a bit unclear, but it sounds like the FPO doesn't like the fact that minority governments, the most likely outcome of voting system that employs proportional representation, require compromise. Under the current system you can get 75% of the seats with 45% of the vote (roughly Dalton McGuinty's seat count and vote total), and this allows the winning party to govern based solely on its own principles of right and wrong.

Proportional representation yields a government that is not ideological enough for the FPO, in other words.

But of course that is exactly the point. If I think Conservative ethics are cock-eyed, then it makes sense for me to want to lay the kind of constraints upon a Conservative governments that PR provides. And vice versa.

Look at it this way: if Ontario had used proportional representation in the 1990s, both Bob Rae and Mike Harris could have been stopped, or at least the damage they caused could have been mitigated.

Now, if you assume (as you safely can) that the days of the Ontario Big Blue Machine are over, then supporting PR seems logical for an Ontario Conservative. If you assume that the provincial Tories will always have enough support to, potentially, form a provincial government, then supporting PR seems logical for an Ontario Liberal. If you assume that the NDP will never otherwise get a sniff of power until the sun goes supernova, supporting PR makes sense for a Dipper. And if you assume that the Greens will otherwise never win a seat in the provincial legislature, it makes sense for Green Party supporters as well.

So, unless you like ideologically extreme politics, what is the problem?

Whoo Hoo! Harper Plays Sugar-Daddy To Ontario!

From today's G&M, Harper is spreading around the financial Love in advance of his Spring election call, and not coincidentally helping Dalton McGuinty's re-election bid:

Not only did Mr. Harper promise Mr. McGuinty at least $1.3-billion in federal funding for climate-change and rapid-transit initiatives, he also used the meeting to set a new, more cordial tone in their often fractious relationship.

[...]

The money for Ontario includes its $586-million per capita share of a $1.5-billion fund to help the provinces reduce greenhouse gases, the sources said. Mr. Harper allocated the first $350-million from the Canada EcoTrust Fund to Quebec last month.

[...]

The money for Ontario includes its $586-million per capita share of a $1.5-billion fund to help the provinces reduce greenhouse gases, the sources said. Mr. Harper allocated the first $350-million from the Canada EcoTrust Fund to Quebec last month.

An announcement about Ontario's share could come as early as tomorrow, the sources said.

Ontario will also receive $700-million in federal funding to extend the Spadina subway line in Toronto into the rapidly growing York Region, said sources close to the Ontario government. The subway extension was a key part of the Ontario budget last year.

I've already examined some of the new bills we're getting, and you know what? They smell faintly of Oil! Just like the old days; Harper'll be slipping rolls of Western money through my mail-slot, the way Chretien used to do! Not like I'm gonna vote for him, but thank you Prime Minister SUKKA!