McGuinty faces major challenges: Star editorial

The Ontario Legislature resumes sitting today after a three-month recess. In the coming days, its order paper will be filled with earnest legislation like amendments to the Mining Act (to give First Nations more of a say in prospecting and mining on their traditional lands), a measure to limit toxic emissions by industries, and a ban on the use of hand-held cellphones by motorists.

There will also be an economic statement, likely in November, with some short-term fixes for the ailing provincial economy.

And in the daily question period in the Legislature, Premier Dalton McGuinty's government will come under attack for not doing enough to address the economic slump.

But McGuinty should be able to withstand the barrage, given the weakened state of the opposition, with one lame-duck leader (the NDP's Howard Hampton, who is stepping down next year) and the other on probation (the PC's John Tory, who was given a tepid endorsement by his party earlier this year).

Behind the scenes, however, McGuinty will be wrestling with two enormous decisions that will shape the province's future.

The first is whether to keep the budget balanced or to let it slide into deficit if, as expected, the current economic slump continues and significantly erodes the provincial revenue base.

The second is what kind of reactor to choose to replace the aging nuclear power plants at Pickering and Darlington.

On the deficit, even bank economists have said that, given the circumstances, it ought to be under consideration. But so far McGuinty has stuck doggedly to the goal of a balanced budget.

"Obviously if we anticipate that our revenues are going to slow down, as I've said many times in the past, we're going to have to do in government what families do at home," said McGuinty last week. "You've got to make some adjustments and you've got to make sure you're focusing on your priorities."

Thus, with one eye on the fiscal storm clouds, McGuinty has sought to dampen expectations of government assistance. He told municipalities last month not to expect instant relief from the downloading of provincial services onto their plates. And last week he suggested the timetable for his promise to reduce poverty will have to be stretched out.

So no new spending initiatives. But even existing spending – on schools, hospitals, roads, transit, courts, jails and so on – will come under pressure if the recession deepens and the treasury is further squeezed. It remains to be seen whether McGuinty's commitment to a balanced budget is sustainable in that circumstance.

As for the decision on a new nuclear reactor, in hot competition for the multi-billion-dollar contract are: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), the homegrown company whose design is now in place in the province's power plants; French-owned Areva; and U.S.-based Westinghouse.

The McGuinty government would like to give the nod to AECL, which is owned by the federal government. But Ontario wants Ottawa to back up any sale with guarantees to cover cost overruns. So far, those guarantees have not been forthcoming, as Stephen Harper's government has wrestled with its own decision whether to keep AECL or sell it.

Both these decisions are due to be made next spring (the deficit in the annual provincial budget, the reactor likely in a separate announcement). The behind-the-scenes struggles that precede the decisions will be more ferocious – and hugely more significant – than the daily battles on the floor of the Legislature between the government and the opposition parties.

Comments

Major Challenge is getting rid of McGuinty

At what point will Ontarions ever get choices for good government? The current system is only about getting votes and not doing anything that benefits us. Mr. McGuinty was a reckless promiser in opposition and his party had even tried to get rid of him. He has been elected by playing the game (twice now) with no real strategic plan. You got wonder at a guy who now wants to use a web based petition when many such as tax payers association, support for parents of autistic children and even the small business association have used similar tactics with him with absolutely zero positive results. Can you say PR?

Posted by Ignorance is Bliss

don't bite the hand...

McGuinty never thought about how he's going to pay for all his massive increases in civil servants and their salaries. A strong public sector always requires a strong private sector. Someone has to pay the bills.

Posted by scamper

Grow up and govern

Have you received your property assessment yet? Lets see some real leadership and halt this annual insanity courtesy of MPAC. Mr. McGuinty road the coattails of fear in the '07 election on the religious schooling issue. It was a non starter. Mr. Tory could have OVERNIGHT turned this entire platform 180 degrees by promising a total revamp of this insane, bully pulpit tax grab. He didn't. Where were the NDP and Howard Hampton? If they raised this issue , they allowed it to be muted. The middle class is being fleeced and all the while wooed with empty promises in this campaign. WAKE UP

Posted by Steve Canyon

Really?

Sure, lets bring more competition to the provision of hydro power. Remember when Mr. Eaves let the rates for electricity float after full deregulation, and everyone hand to pay market price? The government had to step in again to prevent the public outcry from becoming riots in the streets. If we are already so incensed by the collusion of the oil conglomerates, how will it be when the electricity generators and distributors do the same thing? But by all means, Mr. Jones, lets have more competition.

Posted by sobersecondthought

Econimic denials and foolishness

McGullible was too busy boasting of irrelevant issues like banning smoking and pitbulls - the real easy stuff - how proactive. Mr Flaherty urged McG to start cutting taxes across the board, including the health tax. Instead, McG sulked and felt he was victimised - now, Ontario is in a recession and all he can do is give the doctors a big raise and shuffle the cabinet - liberals are all alike - why face reality when you can blame your foolhardyness on someone else.

Posted by freebel

Cost Over Runs

Let's end the old boys club once and for all. Ontario is shy on competition: there's very very little in hydro and very very very very little in education. This results in complacency, lack of accountability, mediocrity, and inefficiency. As Bob Rae said, " We can do better" Ontario would thrive with an injection of competition into it's highly protected socialized public work force.

Posted by Templeton Jones


No Short Term Fixes

The crisis in manufacturing has been brewing for a long time. Expect to see many more small companies in Ontario close. In the globalized economy, consolidation is a critical trend. Mass is king. Our cpompanies are typically one tenth the size of American companies. Guess who closes first when the market contracts?

Posted by Herschell Hollywood

Where is the nuclear debate?? crosspost

House: Where is the nuclear debate?

The end of the petroleum age is a notion which might have been laughed at fifty years ago but which is looking increasingly close on the horizon--for those who are paying attention. At the same time, climate change as a result of the burning of fossil fuels is an issue which, despite the best efforts of politicians like George Bush and Stephen Harper to deny and ignore, has garnered global attention and concern from every day citizens of the planet.

The conjoined issues of climate change and energy scarcity have created an environment where politicians can ram through bad policy.

We shall increasingly hear that nuclear power is the only way to meet green house gas reduction obligations while at the same time power our energy-hungry lives.

There has been precious little public discussion on the role of nuclear energy going forward, despite a clear acceleration of the nuclear industry's agenda by politicians in Canada, the United States, and Australia.

There are vast sums of money at stake: Canada is the world's largest producer of uranium, followed by Australia. The United States, China, and France are the worlds largest present-day or near-future consumers of uranium.

Vested business and military interests exist in both producer and consumer states, but particularly so here in Canada. We have AECL pushing for reactor sales; our world-leading uranium deposits eyed hungrily by miners; and the worlds largest nuclear consumer - the United States - directly across our borders.

In Stephen Harper, the U.S. has found a Prime Minister who quite happily will work on their behalf to create a policy and political under which an acceleration of nuclear-related exports can occur.

Canadians largely live under a cloud of illusion when it comes to our participation in the nuclear arms industry. Our uranium has ended up in U.S. nuclear weapons, by proxy or in actuality, it matters not. While our politicians have in the past called for a re-thinking of NATO nuclear policy, we've never backed up our policy with principled action.

Former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy in his 1998 speech to NATO quoted a poll showing 93 percent of Canadians wanted Canada to take a leading role in the elimination of nuclear weapons. [1]

Yet it was Canadian nuclear technology that led to India becoming a nuclear power; our uranium finds its way, directly or by proxy, into the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Liberal governments allowed the transport of plutonium into our country for experimental test burns, despite prior recommendations from House of Commons committees that such a program was unfeasible. [2]

Given our historical inability to match our citizens' desires with working policy, what confidence should we have that the current government will do any better? In fact there is every reason to believe, and evidence to prove, that Stephen Harper will increase Canada's role on the nuclear stage, without having consulted parliament or Canadians at large.

Conservatives Back Liability Limitations Sought by Industry

Garnering little notice in the press, in early November members of the House of Commons were debating changes to the inadequate liability legislation covering the nuclear industry. Like the stock market passes risk off from insiders to a largely un-knowing public, the nuclear industry wants to pass practically all the risk off on to you and me. In other words, they keep the profits, we keep the waste and future problems. The potential liability is virtually immeasurable - hundreds of billions of dollars - but money means nothing when nuclear accidents can leave vast areas of geography uninhabitable.

U.S. Driven Nuclear 'Partnership'

In tandem, Stephen Harper's government has been quietly pursuing the Canadian nuclear industry's agenda on the international stage, a stage largely controlled by the United States.

According to censored documents obtained by The Canadian Press through an access-to-information request, the federal government has been "very interested" in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) since 2006 when Canadian and American officials began discussions "to consider possible parameters of Canadian involvement."

Canada signing onto GNEP would be a "wet dream" for the country's nuclear industry, said Dave Martin, energy co-ordinator for Greenpeace Canada.

"It would mean a dramatic increase in nuclear exports and reprocessing, which is something they've wanted for a long time," he explained from Toronto. "But the cost in terms of proliferation and security risks is going to be enormous."

One obstacle to membership in the GNEP, Mr. Martin pointed out, is that Canada has a long-standing policy against repatriating radioactive waste–which contains plutonium–from the sale of uranium and CANDU reactors, designed and marketed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. [3]

A Disturbing Change of Position

Embassy Magazine in its September 12 editorial quotes UBC professor Michael Byers who has detected since the Harper government was formed a significant shift in Canada's stated policy towards nuclear weapons.

In January 2002, Canada's policy called for "the complete elimination of nuclear weapons...through steadily advocating national, bilateral and multilateral steps," Mr. Byers points out in his new book, Intent for a Nation: What is Canada For?

[Recently the] foreign affairs website has been amended to say that Canada's nuclear weapons policy is now "consistent with our membership in NATO and NORAD, and in a manner sensitive to the broader international security context." As Mr. Byers rightly points out, this clause strips Canada's policy of any real meaning. [4]

I don't recall Stephen Harper stating anywhere during the 2006 election that a Harper government would be more, not less, tolerant of nuclear weapons. Did voters give Harper a mandate to expand our country's contribution to the arms race? To nuclear proliferation? Are we prepared to take on the worlds nuclear waste, as GNEP effectively mandates? [5]

If you disturb the land, terrible illnesses will happen in retribution. Disrupting one part of your life knocks the whole system off balance. Traditional Navajo Healer's Philosophy

Perhaps our native population can stand up and speak about the issue with a powerful voice.

Labrador's Inuit government is considering suspending all uranium mining and development on its territory because of concerns over the safe disposal of the radioactive element's waste. "The tailings disposal is a very big concern. How do you dispose of it and store it for hundreds and hundreds of years afterwards safely?" said William Barbour, Nunatsiavut's minister of land and resources. More >

Seems to me there ought to be a serious debate on this issue, not the pablum that is Question Period or most elections.

[1]	Address by the honourable Lloyd Axworthy minister of foreign affairs to the North Atlantic Council Meeting (NATO, 1998)

[2]	CNP Backgrounder: Weapons Nuclear Fuel (Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout)

[3]	Harper, Howard and Bush: The axis of dirty energy (Greenpeace)

[4]	Canada's Disturbing Change of Position (Embassy Magazine)

[5]	Global Nuclear Group a Risk for Canada: Critics (Embassy Magazine)