TJ’s comment that “taxpayers contain within themselves the seeds for their own funny farm” got me to thinking. That in itself (me thinking) is a bit of a foreign travaille. The more I thought about it and the more I started researching, the more pissed off I became.  In a day when nothing stays hidden away in the confines of a filing cabinet but rather naked facts are now perched on the top of everyone desk, gyrating around a stainless-steel pole, while the viewing public is ogling at them.

You don’t have to look far into the public domain to find out some things, simply,, piss you right off. I almost wish that I never knew what hid behind that public service g-string but curiosity invoke some of the strangest characteristics in people, myself included. I am curious by nature. That why I electrocuted myself when I was six, threw up after smoking a cigarette when I was eight, and still to this day, struggle not to stick the 9 volt battery to my tongue.

 I recently discovered the Ontario Government Public Disclosure website that, essentially, lists every employee paid by the Ontario taxpayer that earns over $100,000 annually. After a couple hours of data compilation where I mud wrestled these bundles of systemic abusers from the people that actually deserve the dough, a dirty feeling came over me; I felt violated.  The feeling then moved to sickness. Then the consequence and liability lights started to brighten and I became terribly concerned.  Then it was, holy crap !!!!! I gotta get the hell out of Dodge (sic).

This peep show that I had ventured into had a bus driver in the City of Ottawa making $129,000 in only one year.  I said to myself, “ Holy F%$k”, as a saw that a Vice-President of a major University; she with 12 letters after her name, was making less than this particular bus driver.  There then appeared Scads of police constables; not inspectors or the like, but plain ordinary constables earning well into six figures. Behind door number three, I saw a room full of elementary school teachers planning what to do with their summers off, all the while earning more than a $100K annually.

Over in the champagne room were the high rollers. It was full of Electricity. Here I looked in and saw a dude in the corner being entertained by two girls named Amber and Cheyenne (those were their real names). I checked the data…..wow….the head of a major Ontario Utility. He was pulling down a tidy $1,500,000 annually. He quietly took a twenty out of my left pocket and gave it to Amber. This dude didn’t keep it all to himself. I discovered a culture of greed right throughout his organization; over 6500 employees under him had also passed the 100K plateau and God only know how many are about to pass thru that threshold in the near future.    

In all, over 36,000 Ontarians were members of this exclusive club. Club membership dues tallied a staggering $4,500,000,000.  Yes kids, those are billions!!!! Then it hit me. A bunch of questions started percolating.  What is the benefit package costing us? What is the future pension liability? What are the other future liabilities of these benefit package? At first glance, I’m assuming that they’ll being pulling in 70% pensions when they’re done being employed.  As this generation retires and new hogs belly up to the trough, we have some substantial compounding taking place.  Are we in a position to fund this? I mean to say, “Are our kids in a position to fund this?” Along with the $100K club, they are also going to have to deal with the farm team. The folk in Ontarioland that didn’t quite make it to the doors of the $100K club but still have an all day pass on the “70% Gravy Train Express”. I assume that is the fat end of the pyramid but that scares the shite out me if the pointy end has 36,000 members. How big is this liability.

The delta, at this rate, is inevitable; All our tax dollars will eventually go to salaries….nothing else.

All this perversion to take you to where we are now.  Here in the City of Ottawa…..Here in the City of Orleans.   We already see a machine here,  where too much tax revenue goes to the labour pool. Nothing is ever left for programs. Nothing for buildings. Nothing for roads. Nothing for nothing. This economic model is headed for only one conclusion…collapse….and everybody knows it when they go to sleep at night. The OC Transpo strike is just one manifestation of an ulcer bleeding and revealing  the true capacity of this City’s leadership.

I stepped out on my front step at midnight last night. I thought I smelled Thuso blowing in. Not an uncommon aroma here in Orleans. I looked a little closer. The wind was blowing to the East.

A footnote of history for political junkies is that I was thrown out of the Conservative caucus one day before the Harper government brought in its long-awaited green plan, which turned out to be the recycled Clean Air Act.

During the caucus meeting which saw my ship go down, as you will be reading in due course, one of the major concerns colleagues had is that I would slam the plan as inadequate, and beneath my expectations. The fact that the day before I had interviewed Elizabeth May, Green Party leader, for a webcast on this site just sealed my fate. Heave-ho, overboard I went.

Of course, the world was told that Garth had sold some Harper Administration secrets to aliens or, worse, Belinda Stronach. But, not so much. In actual fact it was my published expectations for a decent climate change strategy that apparently did me in. I learned later a lot of people on the government benches thought I was about to jump to the Greens, especially since I’d served as a director of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund for a few years, and published on environmental issues. Ironically, I had absolutely no intention of doing so. Honest!

Of greatest concern was my statement that I feared the Tory enviro plan would be a sellout to junk science and the oil sands. And, by gosh, I was right. It was, and it sucked. And you knew it. Public opinion surveys now rank the environment and climate change as the most pressing public policy concerns. Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership in no small part because of his credibility on this issue. The Green Party has jumped in the polls. And now the Harper Administration has recognized it messed up, fired Rona Ambrose and brought in John Baird to, as they l-o-v-e to say in Ottawa, “handle the file”.

Now. I probably know John Baird better than you do. I don’t traipse around official Ottawa on his arm, the way Laureen Harper does, but I’ve spent enough time near the guy to make a few observations. First, I never heard the word “environment” come out of his mouth before the cabinet shuffle last week.

Second, he is the most vicious partisan in the government, who has become a caricature of himself. In the opposition lobby outside the House of Commons, there are cartoons of him with a giant, six-foot-wide mouth. MPs often laugh when he stands up, in anticipation of the instant outrage he’ll manufacture. The man simply is not taken seriously and the fault is his own.

Third, he is a professional politician who has never had a non-political job. When he was barely into his twenties, Baird went to work on Parliament Hill, on the political staff of Tory minister Perrin Beatty, staying on until the defeat of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. He then briefly became a lobbyist to the federal government before winning a seat at Queen’s Park. He quickly became immersed in the right-wing ideology of the Mike Harris government, and joined cabinet in 1999 as minister of community and social services, where he implemented the hugely controversial workfare program that removed thousands of low-income people from social assistance.

In 2002, Baird was the first cabinet minister to jump on board Jim Flaherty’s leadership campaign. Each man had been elected in 1995, and each had become hard-core Harris supporters, sharing on obvious bond. Flaherty lost the campaign to Ernie Eves and Baird continued on, as government whip, then energy minister until the Conservative government was defeated in 2003.

Baird then co-chaired Flaherty’s second attempt at leadership in two years, which Mr. Flaherty lost to John Tory. At the same time, Baird was supporting Stephen Harper in his bid to become leader of the new Conservative Party, then co-chaired the federal party’s Ontario campaign in the same year. Both Baird and Flaherty then left provincial politics in 2005 to campaign for the House of Commons.

He was elected last January, became the President of the Treasury Board, and as such shepherded the Accountability Act through Parliament, managing along the way to admit the Conservatives had themselves breached the spirit of the legislation. Mr. Baird is where he is right now because Stephen Harper trusts him, not because he is an environmentalist. He’s a politician.

Now this is not a condemnation of John Baird and I actually find him a gas to be with. But I’m also a tad concerned I’m riding my motorcycle in January and that 2007 is forecast to be the hottest year ever. I’m worried that the declining price of oil will be used as an excuse by the energy sector not to invest in the technology we need to tame the tar sands. And I am pissed that a guy as smart as John would, on day one of his new job, be blaming the last government for greenhouse gases.

Get over it, big guy! We don’t care. We just want a plan with gonads that will establish targets that’ll be met. If it takes a professional pol like you to do it, fine. If not, maybe you should go dancing with Mrs. H.

By Garth Turner

Another federal election is over in Canada and the folks of Orleans decided to ignore the local issues and candidates and vote for or against the national party leaders. I understand that a lot of my neighbours couldn’t get around the fact of having Mr. Dion in the position of Prime Minister. I can see their perspective and I would have to say I shared that viewpoint. However, what I didn’t do is drop my principals and vote for a local candidate that does not have the interests of Orleans on the front burner. He has been noticeably absent since the election. I really hope he is off working on a new agenda for our community and is about to jump out from behind a curtain and yell….”HERE’S MY PLAN !!!!!” But alas…no…he’ll probably show up at the Festival of Lights parade and lurch around waving at the unsuspecting victims of his uncommitted reign, all the while repeating, “I am your servant…I am here to serve you…..I am humbled”.Well….since you are here and you are my servant….get me a drink because I think I’ll need it. A neat 15 year old Scotch would work!!! Oh what the hell, make it a double…we’re going to have a few years together.

It’s time Orleans really started to care about who we elect at all levels of government. Make them do something! Make them deliver something!! Make them accountable to all of us!! Look around the City of Ottawa and doesn’t take long to figure out that Orleans has always drawn the short straw when development opportunities and infrastructure was being assigned. Our future has always been sold up the river and in return we got their sewage.

As a general concept, I suspect that the folks we call neighbours and friends are not in favour of being taken for granted. We pay the same taxes as Kanata and Barhaven yet we see little in the way of comparable benefits. We get a little sidewalk replacement on Tenth Line while they get an entire road widened to four lanes….it’s typical of the distribution.

Let’s take a different approach to this….a new concept perhaps…..let’s say…..Have our elected officials represent the people of Orleans to the Government instead of what we have now where they represent the Government to the people of Orleans. When this is achieved, make them accountable and if they don’t deliver, kick their sorry ass out. Maybe then and only then will they actually get off their butt and do their job as it was intended to be done.

If that isn’t what you want and you’re happy with the status quo, let someone else decide your future, run your life and wallow in apathy…..turn out the lights when you leave.

Is it any wonder that when we are confronted with disappointment, that some of us do seek the council of the sages? I can think of no more appropriate sage to consult than that giant of Scottish intellect Robbie Burns. And you thought I was going to say Adams Smith who would also be useful to muse about Larry O’Brien’s famous and oft quoted phrase, “zero means zero”. So let’s invoke Mr. Burns, why don’t we?!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Where in the world does anybody who knows history, and thankfully sees economics as weird mathematical voodoo, get the idea that an on going project like a city can be run like a business. A city is not a business. People don’t live together in an urban settlement to increase their marginal utility. Pareto optimal is never achieved in the business world so why would it suddenly become possible in a municipality. Oh, sorry! It actually could but we would have to cheat and provide services not because we could make money from them but because, now here’s a concept, we need them.

Ok maybe it’s not all that black and white. There is certainly some services that the city of Ottawa and its amalgamates could unload onto the private sector…catering for example. Moreover, running a public corporation does not preclude one from the process of being fiscally responsible. Please take note that I did not say anything about fiscally conservative. Which frankly these days is almost an oxymoron? Ooo! I just had a thought. If the Americans have a moron in office what do we have at the head of our government? An oxymoron! Think about it, for years he and his ilk have proclaimed a love affair with fiscal conservatism and now he’s spending money like a drunken sailor on a Las Vegas furlough. But I digress.

I think Larry O’Brien is not of Irish background. I think he’s actually Italian. His response to the media yesterday when asked about his promise not to increase property taxes was “…the election is over” I don’t know if anyone has ever heard of the Italian rule of driving which goes, “what’sa behind me isa nota important!” Be sure you say it with an Italian accent or it doesn’t work. So you can see where one might think that the orange in that O’Brien flag is actually red.

It might have been more useful for Mr. O’Brien to quote the great Robbie Burns “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men” At least it would have been more credible and a “wee morrre sincerrre”.