In a way, we owe Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for coming clean on his resentment toward the oilsands. It’s best to know who you can count on, who you can’t count on, and who can’t count.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford had reached out to Premier McGuinty, expecting he would wholeheartedly support the idea of defending the oilsands as a national resource, which was a charmingly innocent thing to assume.
Sure, the facts are clear enough. Thousands of Ontarians work in the oilsands. Ontario’s financial services sector continues to make billions of dollars a year financing oilsands development.
Ontario’s manufacturing sector sells trucks and equipment to oilsands companies. Ontario investors and RRSP holders receive oilsands dividends and capital gains. All Ontarians share in the benefits of the tax revenues that the oilsands produce.
Even Dalton’s churlish point that our high dollar has been caused by oil underlines the economic importance of the oilsands. A stronger dollar means a national pay hike for all Canadians because it makes it cheaper to purchase those things that we don’t produce in Canada, such as oranges, and Apple’s iPads.
The problem is that facts don’t matter as much in politics as they do in the real world, which isn’t saying much. Anyway, Dalton crafted his argument against the oilsands out of pieces of straw, dryer lint, a Smartie he found in the seat of an Oshawa-manufactured minivan and a single fact about the impact of the high dollar on manufacturing.
Yes, of course manufacturing is critical to Ontario and all of Canada. We all benefit when manufacturing does well.
But being all bitter about a high dollar isn’t going to make Ontario-produced widgets more attractive to the rest of the world. Besides, there’s a lot more to Ontario than manufacturing. According to the government of Ontario website, a surprising 79% of Ontarians work in the service sector doing things like building websites.
I suspect Alison Redford has learned a valuable lesson in all of this. Clearly, wounded politicians should be approached with caution. They are unpredictable and will stab you in the back with little or no provocation.
But the other important lesson here is that some people in positions of high office carry around very old-fashioned ideas about how economies work. Dalton’s view seems to be that if Alberta has more, then Ontario must have less.
He seems to miss the point that when one member of the family does well, everyone is better off because eventually the money circulates.
Unlike a certain cranky premier, oilsands money moves through the country spreading happiness wherever it goes. Even those who oppose the oilsands are grateful for the affordable winter vacations made possible by what Dalton described as our “petro-dollar.”
The heartening result of Dalton’s attempt to change the channel away from his stewardship of Ontario’s finances was that he annoyed just about everyone, including lots of Ontarians. It doesn’t happen very often but in this case, trying to divide the country for political gain turned out to be a political loser.
Original Article
Source: lf press
Author: Monte Solberg
Alberta Premier Alison Redford had reached out to Premier McGuinty, expecting he would wholeheartedly support the idea of defending the oilsands as a national resource, which was a charmingly innocent thing to assume.
Sure, the facts are clear enough. Thousands of Ontarians work in the oilsands. Ontario’s financial services sector continues to make billions of dollars a year financing oilsands development.
Ontario’s manufacturing sector sells trucks and equipment to oilsands companies. Ontario investors and RRSP holders receive oilsands dividends and capital gains. All Ontarians share in the benefits of the tax revenues that the oilsands produce.
Even Dalton’s churlish point that our high dollar has been caused by oil underlines the economic importance of the oilsands. A stronger dollar means a national pay hike for all Canadians because it makes it cheaper to purchase those things that we don’t produce in Canada, such as oranges, and Apple’s iPads.
The problem is that facts don’t matter as much in politics as they do in the real world, which isn’t saying much. Anyway, Dalton crafted his argument against the oilsands out of pieces of straw, dryer lint, a Smartie he found in the seat of an Oshawa-manufactured minivan and a single fact about the impact of the high dollar on manufacturing.
Yes, of course manufacturing is critical to Ontario and all of Canada. We all benefit when manufacturing does well.
But being all bitter about a high dollar isn’t going to make Ontario-produced widgets more attractive to the rest of the world. Besides, there’s a lot more to Ontario than manufacturing. According to the government of Ontario website, a surprising 79% of Ontarians work in the service sector doing things like building websites.
I suspect Alison Redford has learned a valuable lesson in all of this. Clearly, wounded politicians should be approached with caution. They are unpredictable and will stab you in the back with little or no provocation.
But the other important lesson here is that some people in positions of high office carry around very old-fashioned ideas about how economies work. Dalton’s view seems to be that if Alberta has more, then Ontario must have less.
He seems to miss the point that when one member of the family does well, everyone is better off because eventually the money circulates.
Unlike a certain cranky premier, oilsands money moves through the country spreading happiness wherever it goes. Even those who oppose the oilsands are grateful for the affordable winter vacations made possible by what Dalton described as our “petro-dollar.”
The heartening result of Dalton’s attempt to change the channel away from his stewardship of Ontario’s finances was that he annoyed just about everyone, including lots of Ontarians. It doesn’t happen very often but in this case, trying to divide the country for political gain turned out to be a political loser.
Original Article
Source: lf press
Author: Monte Solberg
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