Category: Politics

I don’t pride myself on being an urban mass transit expert.

I know for the longest time that our Mayor Ford has been pushing “subways, subways, subways.”

Though how Toronto was to pay for this vision, always escaped me.

I also know that TTC Chairman Karen Stintz, who used to be a Ford ally, is a potential political rival to Ford.

Regardless of how one may feel about Karen Stintz, ( especially if you are a super patriot of Ford Nation), she sure knows a ton about transit.

I trust her judgment over Metrolinx Chairman Prichard, Wynne’s man at Metrolinx, who has been known to do the Liberals’ bidding at the right price.

So when Karen Stintz changes her view and supports the extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway line into Scarborough (along with Ford) as opposed to a new light rapid transit solution (LRT) currently being promoted by Metrolinx.

We should take notice.

According to a recent Globe and Mail article, Ford and Stintz want Metrolinx to amend its master agreement with the City of Toronto and replace its planned Scarborough LRT with a modified subway solution, presumably extending the Bloor-Danforth subway line and linking Kennedy Station to the Scarborough Town Centre.

This sounds reasonable.

The kicker of course is money.

Metrolinx had planned on a $1.8 billion dollar new LRT system to replace the current and aging rapid Scarborough Transit.

According to Metrolinx, the cost of switching from the proposed new LRT system to a subway solution is an additional $925 million.

Accordingly, if Toronto City Council decide to go this route, Metrolinx has threatened to take its “mass transit ball” and go home, leaving the City of Toronto to take over the financing, development and operational control of this Scarborough subway proposal.

Hey, Metrolinx, Prichard and CEO McCuaig, lighten up!!!

Apparently, Transportation Minister Murray is willing to consider an amendment to the above master agreement, provided that the City of Toronto, pick up the difference, potentially, $925 million, or ( I am estimating) roughly, the ultimate cost to Ontario taxpayers, of the Liberals’ cancelling the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants.

Now if Premier Wynne truly cared about the long suffering and subway-challenged residents of Scarborough, she would be instructing Prichard/McCuaig to come up with a solution for the Scarborough residents.

To date, Wynne just does not appear interested in the Scarborough subway file.

Which is very insensitive. Because for years, the residents of Scarborough have been treated like second class citizens, when it comes to public transit.

For years, these residents, especially during the long cold winters, have had to wait, outside in the freezing cold to take overcrowded and poorly heated buses, while those lucky downtown urbanites have been whisked to and from work in the warm confines of the Spadina-University line, the Yonge line, or the Bloor line.

The residents in Josh Matlow’s Ward (St. Pauls), have the choice of walking either to the Yonge subway at Yonge/Eglinton or to the University-Spadina line at Eglinton/Allen Expressway.

Those in the High Park, West Annex, Annex, Rosedale and Danforth areas, of course, have easy access to the Bloor subways.

The long suffering residents of Scarborough, not so much.

I commend the Scarborough councillors, especially, Thompson and Berardinetti, for standing up for the rights and interests of their Scarborough residents and for opposing the LRT solution and not giving up on the preferred subway solution.

These Scarborough councillors have demanded that their constituents deserve a subway and have forcefully argued that anything less (the LRT option) is treating them as second-class citizens.

I totally agree.

Such leftist councillors as Josh Matlow (St. Pauls) and Gord Perks (Parkdale-High Park), should be ashamed of themselves.

These councillors’ urban constituents, these smug white, affluent gentry (“SWAG”) enjoy the benefits of subway transit, but these councillors are unwilling to support the fact that Scarborough residents, many who are recent immigrants, non-white and less affluent, also deserve such subway transit opportunities and benefits.

Unlike in the tony neighborhoods of High Park, West Annex, Annex, Forest Hill, North Toronto, and Rosedale, where these SWAGS hang out, many residents in Scarborough, don’t have the cash flow to choose between the convenience of their cars and the TTC. Bus travel or Scarborough Rapid Transit ( talk about a misnomer) are their only option.

I believe that these SWAGS forget that they themselves were immigrants or their parents or ancestors were once struggling immigrants, trying to get a foothold here in Toronto and in Canada.

And they were once in the minority, and were looked down upon as second or third class citizens.

To paraphrase, President John F. Kennedy.

“All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Scarborough, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Scarberian.”

In other words, We are all Scarberians!

And Scarberians deserve respect, fairness, equity and their own subway.

So Premier Wynne and Rosedale Rob, if you could find a few hundred million to pay off greedy US hedge funds and friendly power plant owners, perhaps you could take a few hundred million dollars from Samsung’s sweetheart renewal energy contract.

Or from other sweetheart contracts with other overpaid renewal energy companies. Or the sweetheart contracts of the teachers or other special interest groups that support the Liberal Party.

And instead, do the right thing for a change, and lay some of that hard-earned taxpayer money on some of Toronto’s most deserving and long-suffering residents in Scarborough.

And, once and for all, support a Scarborough subway!!!

In a speech to the Canada 2020 think-tank at Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier Wednesday evening, Premier Wynne said the best way to create jobs and boost the nation’s economy is by massively expanding public transit, building roads and bridges, and upgrading other infrastructure across the country.

Some towns, Wynne said, have gone for so long without new infrastructure dollars that their bridges cannot carry buses and their water supply systems have not been upgraded in 100 years.

“The lack of adequate investment is choking out those future possibilities in some of these small communities, just as it is paralyzing our urban and economic hubs,” Wynne said.

Instead, Premier Wynne wants a more detailed plan that ensures continuous funding from the federal government every year.

Recall that in 2008, the then McGuinty government — both verbally and in writing, according to Toronto Liberal Councilman Shelley Carroll — signed a commitment letter to the City of Toronto in which the McGuinty Government committed itself for 10 years to pay the approximate sum of $150 million per year for 10 years to the City of Toronto through to 2018, to assist Toronto with its growing public housing costs and to compensate Toronto for the former Premier Harris downloading public housing costs to the City of Toronto.

To McGuinty’s credit, at that time that was a great example of the province of Ontario committing itself to continuous funding for social housing to Toronto.

It is ironic that Premier Wynne does not practice what she preaches, as she and her government have reneged on their commitment of continuous funding of $150 million annually to the City of Toronto for its social housing. Starting in 2014 and for three years, the Wynne government will be paying $50 million a year, instead of $150 million per year. And even that payment will be terminated as of 2016, two clear years before the previously noted McGuinty commitment letter for 10 years funding was to elapse.

Oh well, I guess Premier Wynne and Finance Minister Sousa have bigger fish to fry. That is, finding additional borrowed funds to pay for a negotiated two per cent raise in elementary teachers’ salaries.

Or for paying billions, to permit students in Ontario to attend full-day kindergarten, again with borrowed funds to pay for additional teachers (all with generous benefits), a loan which has to be ultimately repaid by the Ontario government sometime in the future.

Or for paying over $585 million to greedy American hedge funds and friendly power plant operators.

Is there no end to this Liberal deficit madness?

The Globe and Mail is back doing what it does best — holding Ontario politicians and government officials to account for the waste of millions of dollars of Ontario taxpayers’ money, pertaining to the cancellation of the Mississauga gas plant.

According to a recent Globe article, the Ontario Ministry of Energy retained the services of Rob Prichard, Metrolinx chairman and the chairman of the very well-respected Torys Bay Street law firm, to settle the lawsuits launched by EIG Management Co. (EIG), a Washington-based hedge fund, which had lent $59 million to Eastern Power and its operating company Greenfield (collectively, Eastern Power) to build the notorious Mississauga gas plant. Now cancelled.

As a result of Prichard’s brilliant negotiating tactics, the Ontario government forked over the sum of $146.5 million to EIG, to settle EIG’s highly bogus $300 million claim against the McGuinty government and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA).

For which EIG was only out of pocket for $59 million.

Say what?

Yes, Virginia, you read this right.

Also according to the Globe article, Rob Prichard and his Tory colleagues were paid approximately $350,000 in fees by the McGuinty government for two weeks of work.

You can almost see those Bay Street masters of the universe, high-fiving, and doing a happy dance around the boardroom table.

But before we give Prichard the keys to our fair city, or the keys to Rob Ford’s secret stash (of Cuban cigars, what did you think I meant?) let’s think about this.

I was wondering whether Prichard, or his Torys colleagues, or the many highly-paid and very well-respected lawyers in the Ontario Ministries of Energy and Finance ever considered that the greedy U.S. hedge fund EIG may not have been legally entitled to one red cent from the Ontario government?

According to the report of Jim McCarter, the Ontario provincial auditor who investigated the Mississauga gas plant cancellation, Eastern Power (see page 18 of the Auditor’s Report) entered into a $263 million credit facility (a line of credit available as standby funding) at a very high interest rate of 14 per annum, for a term of eight years with EIG to secure financing for the construction and maintenance of the Mississauga gas plant.

According to the same auditor’s report, EIG, the lender, only actually lent about $59 million to Eastern Power, for a period of six months before the cancellation of the gas plant.

It is important to note that Eastern Power and its operating company, Greenfield were the only parties to this credit facility with EIG.

Neither the Liberal government, nor any government ministry or agency, including the Ministry of Energy or the OPA, were a party to this credit facility or a guarantor of this credit facility.

The Auditor notes that the Liberal government was never even shown a copy of this private credit facility loan agreement by either Eastern Power or EIG, prior to the OPA agreeing to pay the penalty incurred by Eastern Power for breaching the terms of the credit facility loan agreement.

This makes sense because this was a private deal between two consenting corporations, and since the Liberal government was neither a party or a guarantor, it had no right or authority to see the subject creditor facility loan agreement.

Notwithstanding that the Liberal government was neither a party to the credit facility loan agreement, nor a guarantor, EIG still sued the Ontario government and the Ontario Power Authority in Ontario for $300 million in damages, on the basis that the Liberal government had conspired to breach a loan agreement to which it was not a party.

I firmly believe the U.S. hedge fund’s $300-million claim was without merit.

I also believe that the hedge fund’s legal claim was a legal tactic to pressure McGuinty into a monetary settlement, out of court.

I also believe that the Ontario government, with its virtually unlimited resources and its high-powered legal talent, could have defended this ridiculous suit brought by EIG against the McGuinty government for many years. And ultimately, the Ontario government would have won, or settled for an amount considerably less than $50 million.

Instead, it is apparent that the McGuinty government was more concerned about its political survival than taxpayers’ money. Because in this case, it hired a hired gun, with a strict mandate to make the hedge fund go away and not embarrass the McGuinty government with an ugly and messy court battle pertaining to the gas plant cancellation.

As NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns wisely noted, “Mr. McGuinty was willing to write a blank cheque to keep this out of the public eye and out of the courts.”

To date, Premier Wynne, senior government officials and Liberal supporters have defended the expenditure of $585 million for the cancellation of the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants on the basis that both the opposition parties (NDP and Conservatives) were also opposed to the construction of the said plants. The obvious implication is that both the NDP and Conservatives, if in the shoes of the McGuinty government, would have also spent the same amount of taxpayer money to settle these matters.

The above Prichard $146.5 million payoff to American hedge fund EIG to buy its silence is evidence that considerable taxpayers’ money could have been saved if Premier McGuinty had put the taxpayers’ interests ahead of his own government, and if he had fought these greedy Americans in Ontario court.

I suspect the Ontario legislative committee will dig up more examples of such Liberal waste of taxpayers’ money pertaining to this sorry gas plant cancellation scandal.

I urge this committee to call upon Rob Prichard and all the government lawyers and outside lawyers who advised on the Mississauga gas plant cancellation.

I urge this so we can get to the bottom of the reasoning for paying off EIG and Eastern Power nearly $300 million dollars, instead of terminating their said contracts and challenging them to spend millions of their own money and years in court, resulting in them unsuccessfully trying to recover compensation from the Ontario government.

Lastly, Eastern Power was a weak and poorly-capitalized gas plant developer from day one. The McGuinty government should have terminated its contract with Eastern Power, well before cancelling the Mississauga gas plant. The McGuinty government should have brought in a more highly-capitalized gas plant player like the much more financially stronger Brookfield Power.

So for McGuinty and Wynne to justify the huge relocation costs and expenditures for Eastern Power, just does not wash with this cowboy.

Firstly, I would like to welcome back the crack investigative teams of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail from their fruitless search of the elusive and now non-existent Ford “crack cocaine video.”

I know it must have been fun getting down and dirty with the US gossip webpage “Gawker” and being interviewed by American tabloids and American late night hosts.

And having your “15 minutes” of Hollywood fame on American TV.

But now it is time to get back to serious investigative journalism and the potential criminal actions of a slew of senior staffers from the offices of former Premier Dalton McGuinty and the former Minister of Energy.

As I reported in my previous Huffington Post article, “Ford Is Distracting the Press From This Story”, while the Star and Globe reporters were digging deep into the messy private lives of the Ford Family and their assistants, Keith Leslie, of the Canadian Press, without major fanfare, but very effectively and professionally, broke this devastating story over 7 days ago.

That is, Dalton McGuinty’s senior staffers allegedly deleted internal emails and destroyed documents pertaining to the controversial cancellation of the two gas plants.

The scandal threatens to bring to an end the Wynne Liberal Government and the political career of Premier Wynne.

When the Keith Leslie report was first published, the response by Liberal apologists was that the deletion of emails was at worst a breach of an obscure provincial act, “The Archives and Recordkeeping Act, in which according to the Liberal Attorney General Gerretson, there are no penalties for such breaches.

According to the same Huffington Post article, Attorney General Gerretson, stated,” “Maybe we should be taking a look at penalty provisions.” Attorney General John Gerretsen also admitted he wasn’t sure of the rules on keeping emails.

“I’m quite sure that a lot of us would not have been totally familiar with what you can or cannot delete, quite frankly, from emails,” said Gerretsen.

Apparently, to the Ontario Attorney General, this seems to be a mere question of unclear government policies relating to the minor matter of document retention.

Perhaps the Attorney General should have read my above-noted article a little more carefully, posted over a week ago, when I strongly suggested that the deletion of emails and the destruction of documents in the face of an ongoing Ontario quasi-judicial legislative committee investigation of the cancellation of the gas plants, could be deemed criminal acts contrary to the Criminal Code.

Let us recap a little history.

Over a year ago, after Dalton McGuinty was returned as premier in a minority government, a Tory/NDP quasi-judicial legislative committee was set up to investigate the cancellation of the famous gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville.

For over a year, this same legislative committee has been demanding the disclosure of the relevant documents pertaining to this scandal.

Which included the internal emails and documents in the offices of the Premier and the Ministry of Energy pertaining to the gas plant cancellations and the negotiations with the plant owners and operators and other parties to these matters!

The McGuinty government, of which Kathleen Wynne was a senior Cabinet Minister has resisted every effort. The McGuinty government circled the wagons and (to mix a metaphor), stonewalled the opposition.

And the McGuinty government only grudgingly disclosed some relevant documents, but certainly not all the relevant information.

Notwithstanding the efforts of this legislative committee and the numerous Freedom of Information requests launched at the McGuinty government.

To the point that the opposition parties brought a rare motion of contempt ofParliament against former Liberal Minister Bentley and basically ground legislative business to a halt.

In order to avoid further politically embarrassing disclosures, Premier McGuintyprorogued the legislature and then he stepped down as Premier.

Then by magic, some more relevant documents were discovered and released to the said legislative committee, but still no internal emails and documents of the senior staffers in the offices of the Premier and Minister of Energy.

In this context, the Attorney General of Ontario should have considered that the destruction of such emails and documents which have been sought by the relevant Ontario legislative committee could be construed as criminal obstruction of justice in order to cover up the government policies of his own government.

Because lo and behold, contrary to the Liberals’ wishful thinking, the OPP has launched a criminal investigation into all those senior Liberal staffers involved with the deletion of the emails and destruction of the documents.

As I suggested in my original Huff Post article, the opposition Tories and NDP should be demanding that the investigation of those senior staffers should be conducted by an impartial, outside of Ontario and independent special prosecutor, together with investigative forces outside of Ontario, namely the RCMP or other provincial investigators, so as to avoid any appearance of conflict or bias.

As to Premier Kathleen Wynne, she cannot distance herself from this scandal.

As a senior Cabinet Minister in the McGuinty Government she knew about the opposition demands for the said internal emails and documents. She knew or ought to have known these relevant emails and documents were not available, as they had been deleted and destroyed.

So the classic Watergate question.

What did Kathleen Wynne as Senior Cabinet Minister in the McGuinty government know about the internal emails and documents? What was her involvement with the alleged cover up of these emails and documents and the alleged deletion and destruction of these documents?

Premier Wynne can no longer claim ignorance and fall back on the classic SargeantShultz defence of “Hogan’s Heroes” fame, “I see Nothing. I know Nothing.”

Saying sorry will no longer cut it any more.

Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal Government is at serious risk and her political career is on the line.

Premier Wynne was hoping to score some political points with Toronto voters by exploiting the controversy surrounding Mayor Ford.

As reported in a recent Globe and Mailarticle, “Premier Wynne warned that she is prepared to intervene in the city’s affairs, if necessary.”

The Globe article further stated that Premier Wynne is monitoring the situation in Toronto City Hall and as appropriate, the Premier and her government would be involved.

Apparently, according to the said article, lawyers for the Wynne government are reviewing the applicable legislation governing municipalities, so as to provide Wynne with advice, if she should decide to act.

Liberal insiders suggested that Wynne may act to remove Mayor Ford if a majority of the Toronto councillors passed a resolution requesting the Wynne government to force Mayor Ford to step down.

You know the Premier crossed the line, when NDP Adam Giambrone, leftist Mayor Miller’s right-hand man and former TTC Chairman, in a CBC Radio panel, publicly questioned Premier Wynne for even contemplating intervening in clearly a municipal matter.

Sue-Ann Levy, one of my favorite Toronto Sun columnists, and slightly to the right of Attila the Hun, echoed Giambrone’s comments on the same CBC Radio panel.

Sue-Ann mercilessly lambasted Premier Wynne for showing unmitigated gall.

Sue-Ann Levy, went on to characterize Premier Wynne’s attack as a cheap political shot, done in an effort to deflect the public away from the troubles of her own government.”

It seemed that Premier Wynne may have, in turn, shot herself in the foot with this political gaffe.

No sooner had Premier Wynne given this interview to the Globe, it was widelyreported that Premier Wynne was trying to beat a hasty retreat.

John Parker, a Toronto councillor and former Conservative MPP, curtly suggested to Premier Wynne, ” thanks, but no thanks. ” And that Parker thought that Wynne had enough to concern her at Queen’s Park and we don’t need to trouble her with our situation here. ”

In other words, back off. Please stay out of our house. And by the way, you should fix up your own house first.

On CBC Radio, Friday evening, I specifically heard CBC reporter Jamie Strashin report that a majority of the Toronto councillors were very lukewarm to Premier Wynne getting involved with the Mayor Ford affair.

This view is in direct conflict with the above Globe and Mail article, which implied, from Liberal sources, that a majority of the Toronto councillors would welcome Premier Wynne’s intervention to remove Mayor Ford from office.

Even the normally supportive Toronto Star has questioned whether Premier Wynne has a democratic and political mandate to intervene and try to remove Mayor Ford from his office.

Martin Cohn, of the Toronto Star, recently stated in his column, “Ford swept to power with a robust democratic mandate, winning more than 350,000 votes in the 2010 municipal election. Wynne owes the premier’s job to a mere 1,150 delegates who annointed her at a Liberal convention last January, and has yet to face voters in a general election. While Ford has lost his moral authority as mayor, Wynne’s own democratic legitimacy could become flashpoint, if she made a move to oust him. ”

In short, the usually sure-footed Premier has apparently made a serious political misstep. Which could come back to haunt her, especially in a provincial general election, in Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough provincial ridings, where support for Mayor Ford is strongest, unwavering, and very deep. And such loyal supporters of Ford will neither forgive nor forget the Premier’s political attack on their beloved Mayor.