We can’t afford the premier’s vanity projects
What can you get for $63 these days?
If you have an efficient car, $63 might get you a tank of gas. A keen deal hunter could probably find a patio chair or cookware set for around $63. For my fellow cat parents out there, $63 is enough for a mediumsize bag of dry cat food, assuming your furry friends don’t have expensive tastes.
In Doug Ford’s Ontario, though, you have no choice but to spend that money on beer. Putting beer and wine into convenience stores, to be exact. Between a $225-million payout and $375-million rebate to the privately-run Beer Store, $300 million in licence rebates to retailers and a $74-million wholesale discount to the grocery giants, Ontarians are on the hook for nearly $975 million, which works out to around $63 for every adult and child in the province. That does not even take into account the hundreds of millions in lost revenue for the LCBO — revenue that helps fund this province’s essential services.
While Ford is the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, his fiscal track record is neither “progressive” nor “conservative.” In fact, it seems like the current policy of the PCs is to throw public money at the premier’s personal vanity projects, whether Ontarians want them or not.
Ford’s fiddling with Ontario’s alcohol market is only the most recent in a long line of strange, fiscally reckless policy decisions that are more populist than practical.
Take the government’s insistence on spending $10 billion on the unnecessary Highway 413, for example.
Experts say we do not need another massive highway that will quickly become clogged with more oversized personal trucks and SUVs. Farmers, conservation advocates and Indigenous leaders have all said saving less than 30 minutes’ commute time is not worth losing 800 hectares of rich, bountiful farmland and endangering 85 waterways. And yet, Ford’s obsession with the personal automobile has won out and Highway 413 is moving ahead.
Or take the example of the $650-million price tag associated with the Ontario Place redevelopment scheme. Ford has long been fixated on the space, once even pitching a splashy waterfront casino or entertainment space in an effort to remake Toronto’s waterfront in the image of his beloved Chicago. Community advocates have rallied to oppose the privatization of the modernist landmark, but the premier’s obsession means the Austria-based Therme Spa group will gobble up most of the redeveloped space with a healthy taxpayer subsidy.
Ontarians cannot ignore Ford’s spending spree no matter how hard we try. Enter any store that plays music, turn any dial on your car radio, or click on any YouTube video and, chances are, you will be subjected to one of the government’s self-congratulatory ads about their schemes. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been dedicated to telling taxpayers about how Ford is spending taxpayer money.
Ford’s spending on personal projects continues as the crises we face become worse. A failure to invest in housing means young Ontarians are fleeing the province. Dwindling investment in public health care and mental health support means doctors and nurses are burning out while those in the most need of help — seniors, children, and people with complex mental health needs — are left to fend for themselves. Defunding public education means overworked teachers face ballooning class sizes and crumbling schools.
And now, adding insult to injury, Ford appears poised to call an early election. Despite his party holding nearly two-thirds of the seats at Queen’s Park, Ford is willing to force an expensive election on Ontarians so he can blame this province’s financial problems on Justin Trudeau, rather than take responsibility for his own financial mismanagement.
Ontarians deserve better than that. We deserve a rational, predicable government that pursues fact-based policies that work for everyone. Or, at the very least, we deserve a government that recognizes $63 is too high a price for a convenience store beer.