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Rating McGuinty programs return on investment


Guest Peeves

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Guest Peeves

I was thinking one night about the waste in $$$ cost, manpower effort and return on investment of the man power effort and/or $$$ spent or futility of the examples.

I considered:

The Great wall of China

The Pyramids of Egypt

The Sphinx of Egypt

Machu Picchu

Space exploration

McGuinty's green power agenda

McGuinty's moving closing power plants

*closure of the Lakeview coal-fired generating station, (one of Ontario's largest ...)

and

*The governing Liberals are no closer to moving a gas plant they promised to shut down during the provincial election. Cost unknown not available through FOI act.

Considering them, I numbered them (bad to better)on my personal poll of one with an accuracy of 50-50 as follows.

1. Great wall of China...

2. Pyramids of Egypt

3. Sphinx of Egypt.

4. Machu Picchu

5. Space Exploration

6. McGuinty's green power agenda (wind -solar)

7. McGuinty's moving closing power plants

8. G-20, G-8 Federal-- cost. *Especially Tony Clement in the G8 legacy fund

9. Federal Conservatives F 35 purchase.

10. Federal Liberals used Subs shopping and Cormorant fiascoes

Conservatives were to replace...

*"Sea King helicopters and replace them with the Cormorant helicopter. They also planned to buy a number of new and modern nuclear-powered submarines to allow them to patrol Canada's shorelines. In 1993, there was a federal election in which the Liberal party attacked the conservatives for their planned defence spending, lambasting it as being extravagant. When the Liberals won, they promptly cancelled the Cormorant contract (paying almost $500 million in penalties) and instead of buying the modern nuclear-powered subs, they decided to buy some used diesel-powered submarines from Britain.

So? Could it have been worse for Ontarians/ Canadians? Do we have better or worse white elephants?

Now I :rolleyes: could have made a larger list, but you might delete some, debate some, disagree with some, or add your own, or perhaps list them in differing order.. :P

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Guest Peeves

I was thinking one night about the waste in $$$ cost, manpower effort and return on investment of the man power effort and/or $$$ spent or futility of the examples.

I considered:

.. :P

shoulda worked Ornge in thar some where's I suppose.

Edited by Peeves
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Guest Peeves

McGuinty is surely Ontario's "white elephant."

what might be worse is Gilles Duceppe cost taxpayers $41M: Canadian Taxpayers Federation

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/07/teddy-waste-award-canadin-taxpayers-federation/

Or how do you like them sour apples?

To the recipient of a $2.9-million pension, the gift of a grateful nation, for a lifetime of devoted service toward breaking it up, a man who put his party’s historian on the taxpayer’s payroll to write a book … the man who put his party’s executive director on the parliamentary payroll even though taxpayers subsidize his party, the Bloc Québécois, to the tune of $23.5-million,” Gregory Thomas, the federation’s federal director, said in announcing Mr. Duceppe as the winner.

From the CTF’s press release, the other winners:

Federal Teddy Winner

Agriculture Canada Tobacco Transition Program: $284-million.

“A program set up to pay farmers to get out of the tobacco business that ended up doubling the number of tobacco farmers.”

Provincial Teddy Winner

Alberta MLAs’ “best committee ever.”

“Twenty-one Alberta MLAs [who] get $1,000 per month to serve on a committee that hasn’t held a meeting since 2008.”

Municipal Teddy Winner

Montreal’s invisible snow snowplows.

“Motorists and pedestrians need speedy snow removal service after the snow falls, not before.”

Other nominees included:

Department of National Defence

“$2-billion since 1998 for four used submarines still not in service.”

Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency

“$190,000 to subsidize doughnuts made with pure lard in the province with the highest obesity rate in Canada.”

National Capital Commission

“$5.2-million for seven portable skate shacks on the Rideau Canal that sit unused 337 days a year.”

Yukon

“Supreme Court Justice Vital Ouellette’s $15-million order to build a school for 41 French-speaking students in Whitehorse.”

British Columbia

“B.C. Hydro for paying $42.3-million in performance bonuses to 99% of its employees.”

Ontario

“ORNGE Air Ambulance Service: $25-million unaccounted for and a police investigation unfolding.”

Winnipeg

“A $5,000 grant to notify citizens in winter if it is slippery outside.”

Calgary

“$25-million and counting for the 15-month overdue pedestrian Peace Bridge that doubles as a public art display.”

St. Albert, Alta.

“$280,000 to buy a Starbucks, to compete with taxpaying St. Albert small businesses.”

Postmedia News

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was thinking one night about the waste in $$$ cost, manpower effort and return on investment of the man power effort and/or $$$ spent or futility of the examples.

McGuinty's green power agenda

McGuinty's moving closing power plants

*closure of the Lakeview coal-fired generating station, (one of Ontario's largest ...)

and

*The governing Liberals are no closer to moving a gas plant they promised to shut down during the provincial election. Cost unknown not available through FOI act.

I'm surprised no one has revisited this discussion. Where are all those jobs building solar cells and turbines? What about that deal with Samsung?

The money boys behind the Oakville cancelled gas electrical plant are now suing the government for 300 million dollars. The company behind the cancelled wind power turbines are suing for 1 BILLION DOLLARS!

What more proof could I need that politicians are totally useless at predicting winners in technical fields? These idiots actually thought they could create an industry by rigging the marketplace!

Not only have we not seen all those jobs, we're now looking at a 1.3 Billion dollar loss!

To steal a term from Bugs Bunny - Maroons! The lot of them!

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What more proof could I need that politicians are totally useless at predicting winners in technical fields? These idiots actually thought they could create an industry by rigging the marketplace!

That was the plan when privatizing hydro was the Harris Vision. It was stupid then in theory and its even stupider now in practice. Last time I remember a winner being picked it was Enron...Seems they still think they can JerryRig this to work with a different mousetrap. But they can't focus.

Add in Election Pandering and the McGuinty Nose of Truth and we have a few hundred million more wasted...

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The majority of voters who continue to vote for him are not on these forums ;)

Yes, but think about it: MLW probably is representative of all the major parties, and probably in similar numbers. I don't think anybody really thinks McGuinty is a great premier, just that they feel worse about his opponents.

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That was the plan when privatizing hydro was the Harris Vision. It was stupid then in theory and its even stupider now in practice. Last time I remember a winner being picked it was Enron...Seems they still think they can JerryRig this to work with a different mousetrap. But they can't focus.

Add in Election Pandering and the McGuinty Nose of Truth and we have a few hundred million more wasted...

Privatizing wasn't necessarily a bad idea, Max. A private company could never in a million years ran up a debt of over $35 BILLION DOLLARS!

It takes a corrupt public company to play in that league! :P

Besides, you're talking two separate things here. Privatizing Hydro and picking which company takes it over are not the same. Picking the technology to generate that electricity was even loopier!

I wonder if anyone has an example of a large scale alternative power generation plant that is profitable on its own in the marketplace, without artificial subsidies? One that was built with its own money and earns its own way, at no cost to the taxpayers?

I'm truly curious!

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Guest Peeves

The majority of voters who continue to vote for him are not on these forums ;)

I suppose. They live around the vote getting constituents elected because two (new to be) power plants were shut down.

Laughably there are still deliveries of huge parts to the location, + millions, possibly billions of costs to us, the taxpayer.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/04/02/toronto-mississauga-power-plant-transformer.html

Huge transformer arrives at cancelled power plant

The Canadian Press

Posted: Apr 2, 2012 9:16 PM ET

"Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was asked tough questions Monday about a lawsuit stemming from a power plant project that his government pulled the plug on in Mississauga last fall.

A giant transformer was moved onto the site of a cancelled gas generating station in Mississauga on Monday, just days after Ontario government was hit with a $300 million lawsuit for breach of contract.

Construction on the controversial natural gas plant was finally halted late last November, almost two months after Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the project was being cancelled in the middle of the provincial election campaign.

The transformer, more than two-stories high, was delivered to the site on a huge flatbed trailer after crews lifted hydro wires so it could safely pass underneath.

The Ministry of Energy confirms delivery of the electrical transformer, but says it will only be stored on the site."

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Privatizing wasn't necessarily a bad idea, Max. A private company could never in a million years ran up a debt of over $35 BILLION DOLLARS!

It takes a corrupt public company to play in that league! :P

Oh.. well that settles it then.. ignore that Enron had over 23Billion in Debt in 10 short years..

And the repurcussions of Enrons debt were very significant...

http://www.plu.edu/~enron/Haberly.pdf

and we can ignore Worldcoms...

"WorldCom, crushed by its $41 billion debt load, made its filing in the Southern District of New York"

And lets look at corruption... in the private sector.. this only took 20 years to come crashing down...

"Madoff said he began the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s. However, federal investigators believe the fraud began as early as the 1970s,[5] and those charged with recovering the missing money believe the investment operation may never have been legitimate.[6] The amount missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was almost $65 billion.[7] The court-appointed trustee estimated actual losses to investors of $18 billion.[6] On June 29, 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed.[8][9]"

Thats 65 Billion blown...

Corruption at a certain level , when Billions of dollars are at stake.. have corporate CEOs on the take...

Besides, you're talking two separate things here. Privatizing Hydro and picking which company takes it over are not the same. Picking the technology to generate that electricity was even loopier!

I wonder if anyone has an example of a large scale alternative power generation plant that is profitable on its own in the marketplace, without artificial subsidies? One that was built with its own money and earns its own way, at no cost to the taxpayers?

I'm truly curious!

I won't disagree with your position on choosing the type of power...and how this govermnent makes its "choices" but I will disagree with your position of private power over public power.

You know as well as anyone should, that power and power pricing is easily manipulated.

You also know that there is no power company that will operate without government subsidies and handouts above and beyond any price fixing.

These ideas are older then our old monopoly games..

And it was Conservatives of the era who saw through these shams and put the public first over private ownership.

I will agree with this Conservative over any modern day Liberal/Conservative who believes in Electricity, Private ownership and freemarket..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Beck

Recall as soon as Enron got their hands on the Powergrid, they immediately went and cranked that potentiometer up to max.. and laughed ...

private power is a fools games and I am not surprised our present day governments are fools..

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Oh.. well that settles it then.. ignore that Enron had over 23Billion in Debt in 10 short years..

And the repurcussions of Enrons debt were very significant...

http://www.plu.edu/~enron/Haberly.pdf

and we can ignore Worldcoms...

"WorldCom, crushed by its $41 billion debt load, made its filing in the Southern District of New York"

And lets look at corruption... in the private sector.. this only took 20 years to come crashing down...

"Madoff said he began the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s. However, federal investigators believe the fraud began as early as the 1970s,[5] and those charged with recovering the missing money believe the investment operation may never have been legitimate.[6] The amount missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was almost $65 billion.[7] The court-appointed trustee estimated actual losses to investors of $18 billion.[6] On June 29, 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed.[8][9]"

Thats 65 Billion blown...

Corruption at a certain level , when Billions of dollars are at stake.. have corporate CEOs on the take...

I won't disagree with your position on choosing the type of power...and how this govermnent makes its "choices" but I will disagree with your position of private power over public power.

You know as well as anyone should, that power and power pricing is easily manipulated.

You also know that there is no power company that will operate without government subsidies and handouts above and beyond any price fixing.

These ideas are older then our old monopoly games..

And it was Conservatives of the era who saw through these shams and put the public first over private ownership.

I will agree with this Conservative over any modern day Liberal/Conservative who believes in Electricity, Private ownership and freemarket..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Beck

Recall as soon as Enron got their hands on the Powergrid, they immediately went and cranked that potentiometer up to max.. and laughed ...

private power is a fools games and I am not surprised our present day governments are fools..

Max, all you've done is convince me of what I already knew - you can't trust any of them! B)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Peeves

You can remove #9, what purchase? nice try.

True, I overstated the case. I would in hind site simply reference # 9 as the Conservative boondoggle over the F 35.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/16/liberal-mp-marc-garneau-on-the-f-35-fiasco/

More at link:

Liberal MP Marc Garneau on the F-35 fiasco

...." Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay have stated that the F-35 procurement process actually began 15 years ago. This is false. What began 15 years ago was a partnership of several countries interested in vying for industrial contracts associated with the development of the F-35. There was no undertaking, official or implicit, that Canada would procure this aircraft.

The week before last, the Auditor-General released his report on the government’s management of the procurement process to replace the CF-18. He dwelt on the fact that the process was opaque, that key steps were performed out of sequence, that $10-billion had disappeared from government costing and that the process was driven from 2006 onward toward one outcome only: the selection of the F-35.

Deeply troubling is the fact that the Harper government does not accept any responsibility for this fiasco, nor does it believe that it is accountable in any way. There is no other word for this but hypocrisy.

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