People`s Guarantee - Patrick Brown

[?Impact]

Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs have released their "People`s Guarantee" which is essentially the beginning of their 2018 election campaign. This includes:

• 22.5% lower income taxes for middle class (his definition appears to be people earning less than $86k)
• 75% refund of child care expenses
• 12% more off your hydro bill
• Largest mental health commitment in Canadian provincial history
• First-ever Trust, Integrity, and Accountability Act

I need to study the final two, but does anyone believe the first three are anything but empty promises or continued increase in our public debt? They are claiming they will run a $2.8 billion deficit (up from a projected surplus of the current government) in the first year and then return to surplus.

[scribblet]

Patrick Brown is steering the party more to the left, if we wanted more to the left we would vote NDP or Liberal.   I agree with lower taxes for the middle class and some help with child care but 75% seems pretty high.  

He is also going to impose a carbon tax so I don`t see a whole lotta difference here.

 

[Moonlight Graham]

I don't care about his policies.  As long as he's not Hitler or Stalin he's better than Wynne.  I think a PC gov would clean up the ON mess more than an NDP gov, or at least I hope.

[OftenWrong]

Scribblet, I think in this case it makes sense. We need to encourage people to have families, increase domestic birth rate and making it more affordable is one way to do that.

[AngusThermopyle]

3 hours ago, scribblet said:

 

He is also going to impose a carbon tax so I don`t see a whole lotta difference here.

 

He'll scrap Wynne's questionable cap and trade scheme. He'll impose a Carbon Tax because Trudeau has said that if he doesn't then he will. I'd rather take my chances with Brown's Carbon Tax than anything Trudeau can dream up.

[Jariax]

He doesn't need to be Tim Hudak. 

Conservative voters are going to vote for him anyways. He doesn't need to pander to them.
These policies are intended to attract the red tory voters, and given the disdain voters currently have for Wynne, a leftist Conservative, should capture the majority of Liberal-Conservative swing voters.

[Michael Hardner]

7 hours ago, Jariax said:

These policies are intended to attract the red tory voters, and given the disdain voters currently have for Wynne, a leftist Conservative, should capture the majority of Liberal-Conservative swing voters.

Furthermore, the blue Liberals that remain with Wynne will at least give Brown a chance, and may in fact stay home if he proves himself to use unifying language and take us back to an era where respect was part of politics and demonization was ridiculous.  Wynne is trying her best to disunify by implying, falsely, that Brown would ban abortion.  

[Boges]

The difference is, his party isn't a corrupt cesspool that's wasted billions of taxpayer money. 

He plans to run a deficit because he believes that the current government is cooking the books to present a balanced budget for the upcoming election. 

Because Brown hasn't given any fuel to this Neo-Con Social Conservative narrative they're running the "He'll say anything to get elected" tactic. Coming from the Ontario Liberals, that's hilariously ironic. A party that changed direction mid campaign, by cancelling power plants at a cost of billions, can't call anyone flip floppers. 

[-1=e^ipi]

Does cutting taxes make much sense given the amount of debt Ontario has?

[Boges]

58 minutes ago, -1=e^ipi said:

Does cutting taxes make much sense given the amount of debt Ontario has?

You could argue it's never good then. An income tax cut for the lowest tax bracket seems to be helpful to the same type of person that's woo'd by a $15/hour minimum wage. 

 

[?Impact]

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Wynne is trying her best to disunify by implying, falsely, that Brown would ban abortion.  

Do you have a quote where Wynne said that?

Brown does have a track record of being socially conservative. He has voted against same sex marriage, and against a women's right to choose (motion 312 in 2012) while he was a federal MP. He also circulated a letter promising to scrap the sex education curriculum last year during the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection. He has tried very hard in the past year to change his image to be socially progressive, but his legacy lingers on.

[Boges]

43 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

Do you have a quote where Wynne said that?

Brown does have a track record of being socially conservative. He has voted against same sex marriage, and against a women's right to choose (motion 312 in 2012) while he was a federal MP. He also circulated a letter promising to scrap the sex education curriculum last year during the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection. He has tried very hard in the past year to change his image to be socially progressive, but his legacy lingers on.

They passed this law banning people from protesting abortion clinics. They assumed the there'd be a faction of the PCs, including Brown, that would oppose it. When they said, sure lets pass that law! the new narrative is that he's a flip flopper. Coming from the Ontario Liberals, that's the most ironic thing ever. 

This narrative will smack of the Hidden Agenda crap from people who tried to keep Stephen Harper from office. It's fear mongering. 

[Jariax]

1 hour ago, ?Impact said:

Do you have a quote where Wynne said that?

Brown does have a track record of being socially conservative. He has voted against same sex marriage, and against a women's right to choose (motion 312 in 2012) while he was a federal MP. He also circulated a letter promising to scrap the sex education curriculum last year during the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection. He has tried very hard in the past year to change his image to be socially progressive, but his legacy lingers on.

It's a bit disengenuous to say that he voted against a woman's right to choose. 

"M-312 called for the formation of a committee "to review the declaration in Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth"."

Really not the same thing at all. Not sure if you're just parroting Liberal talking points or you're being intellectually dishonest. 

[Boges]

In Canadian Politics, anything other than advocating for unlimited publicly funded abortions without restriction is an attack on women. 

It's as extreme a position as one that bans abortions outright. 

Regardless Harper, Brown and even Sheer know that social issues are political losers in Canada, so they won't touch it. 

It's the Left that keep talking about it, so they can create the narrative of their competition. 

[Argus]

On 11/26/2017 at 3:31 PM, ?Impact said:

Patrick Brown and the Ontario PCs have released their "People`s Guarantee" which is essentially the beginning of their 2018 election campaign. This includes:

• 22.5% lower income taxes for middle class (his definition appears to be people earning less than $86k)
• 75% refund of child care expenses
• 12% more off your hydro bill
• Largest mental health commitment in Canadian provincial history
• First-ever Trust, Integrity, and Accountability Act

I need to study the final two, but does anyone believe the first three are anything but empty promises or continued increase in our public debt? They are claiming they will run a $2.8 billion deficit (up from a projected surplus of the current government) in the first year and then return to surplus.

We do not have a surplus now or anything remotely like a surplus. Wynne is lying through her teeth. We have a huge deficit and tax cuts will make it worse. On the other hand, anything to get rid of Wynne has to be better. They can make the money up in other ways, like slashing public service salaries and numbers, perhaps, or cutting other programs.

[?Impact]

4 hours ago, Jariax said:

It's a bit disengenuous ... a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth ...Liberal talking points or you're being intellectually dishonest. 

I would say it is intellectually dishonest to claim anything other than being anti-abortion is the point of motion 312. Somewhat like all of Harper's bills that were named one thing and the fine print said the complete opposite (e.g. fair elections act).

 

1 hour ago, Argus said:

We do not have a surplus now or anything remotely like a surplus.

You are right that we have yet to run a surplus, although the current year budget is calling for one (no idea what next years budget will bring, especially if it has tax cuts). Remember that the deficit was hovering around $10 billion for several years, but in the last 2 it was $3.5 and then $1 billion so things were going in the right direction.

[Moonlight Graham]

On 11/26/2017 at 8:32 PM, OftenWrong said:

Scribblet, I think in this case it makes sense. We need to encourage people to have families, increase domestic birth rate and making it more affordable is one way to do that.

We're always going to need some immigration for skills and whatnot, & now this is more of a federal point, but if we're trying to increase our population through immigration, then if we need I don't know ie: 100,000 new immigrants per year, then why shouldn't we be taking the cost it takes to process (& settle & support & sometimes deport) the other 200,000 we take in every year to try to boost our population and give that money to young Canadian families who have children?  Just give them the money & let them figure out how they want to spend it.  And even bigger bonuses if you have 3 kids, 4 kids etc?  Of those 300,000 there's many more immigration applications that get rejected that we have to pay to have processed, & you also must factor in all the money we spend when those permanent residents want to apply to become citizens.

Like what the hell is going on in this country???

Edited November 28, 2017 by Moonlight Graham

[Michael Hardner]

7 hours ago, ?Impact said:

Do you have a quote where Wynne said that?

Not her but attack ads supporting her.

 

[OftenWrong]

1 hour ago, Moonlight Graham said:

We're always going to need some immigration for skills and whatnot, & now this is more of a federal point, but if we're trying to increase our population through immigration, then if we need I don't know ie: 100,000 new immigrants per year, then why shouldn't we be taking the cost it takes to process (& settle & support & sometimes deport) the other 200,000 we take in every year to try to boost our population and give that money to young Canadian families who have children?  Just give them the money & let them figure out how they want to spend it.  And even bigger bonuses if you have 3 kids, 4 kids etc? 

Yup. Screw, for god and country.

[Argus]

15 hours ago, ?Impact said:

You are right that we have yet to run a surplus, although the current year budget is calling for one (no idea what next years budget will bring, especially if it has tax cuts). Remember that the deficit was hovering around $10 billion for several years, but in the last 2 it was $3.5 and then $1 billion so things were going in the right direction.

The only way the Liberals can claim to have a surplus is by accounting games which sloughed billions in spending off onto the books of crown corporations and onto a separate budget for 'capital spending'. The Ontario government is actually borrowing about $26.4 billion this year which goes onto our already monstrous debt, and is planning on borrowing about $32.2 billion next year and $37.8 billion the following year.

Some surplus!

https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/en/rates-and-analysis/economic-analysis/ontario-budget.pdf

Edited November 28, 2017 by Argus

[?Impact]

11 minutes ago, Argus said:

The Ontario government is actually borrowing about $26.4 billion this year which goes onto our already monstrous debt, and is planning on borrowing about $32.2 billion next year.

Refinancing is not net new debt. If I have a $100k mortgage amortized over 25 years and have a fixed rate, fixed term mortgage. I may need to refinance it 5 years down the line at say $90k, but that doesn't mean I have borrowed another $90k.

[Argus]

16 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

Refinancing is not net new debt. If I have a $100k mortgage amortized over 25 years and have a fixed rate, fixed term mortgage. I may need to refinance it 5 years down the line at say $90k, but that doesn't mean I have borrowed another $90k.

You're right and some of that is refinancing, but not all of it since our debt is planned to rise by over $20 billion by end of next year. Also, the government is hiding a lot of the borrowing. For example, when they wanted to lower electricity prices because it was making them look bad they ordered the debt be renegotiated by  Ontario Power Generation, which is now a crown corporation. That will add $21 billion in interest which goes on OPGs books, not that of the Ontario government. 

And let's not forget they only achieved their 'balanced budget' by more accounting tricks and one-time sales of things like Ontario Hydro, and that Ontario's audtor general has said this is temporary and that Ontario will return to deficits after next year.

[PIK]

Lies will have to be told to get the dumb people to vote PC, then we come out with a very big knife and cut the public sector big time. Freeze wages for at least 5 yrs. 

[Boges]

2 minutes ago, PIK said:

Lies will have to be told to get the dumb people to vote PC, then we come out with a very big knife and cut the public sector big time. Freeze wages for at least 5 yrs. 

Yeah Ontario doesn't like honesty. 

[Argus]

1 hour ago, Boges said:

Yeah Ontario doesn't like honesty. 

Canada doesn't either.