Liberals dole out 'no strings attached' cash, while hospitals remain underfunded

Regarding the St. Catharines Standard article “City mulls how to spend windfall” (Aug. 28, 2008), how pathetic is it that nowhere in Matthew Van Dongen’s story does anyone think that the entire $6.3 million should be applied towards our hospital debt.

Why is it that no-one seems to remember priorities?

Mayor McMullan and his council are on some giddy, incredible spending spree at the moment, committing to building all kinds of things that don’t need doing right now. All they can envision is more debt and more taxes and more government involvement. McMullan should rein in his city's spending habits.

St. Catharines should give back the money we got, add another possibly $15 million that we could get by selling the four-pad, and we’d have our portion of the new hospital bill pretty much paid. McMullan is spreading himself too thin with all the new expenses that he’s happily contemplating.

By the way, when McMullan had his little opportunity to chat with Liberal Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, why didn’t our mayor pointedly ask Duncan where this so-called “windfall” really came from?

Why did McGuinty’s Liberals have this supposed surplus?

Is it because McGuinty has raked billions of dollars from a health tax which doesn’t specifically go to health-care, but goes into general revenue?

Is that why McGuinty can now generously dole out billions of dollars for “infrastructure” to happy cities, with (as McMullan pointed out) “no strings attached” as to its use?!

What kind of responsible provincial oversight is that?

Time and again we are seeing locally that the NHS has been underfunded, yet St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley and his Liberals deny it. In the same issue of the Standard (Aug. 28), in a letter to the editor, the NHS again makes reference to its “limited resources.” We see that Bradley’s Liberals have raked in billions with their health tax, and now are giving it away, not to hospitals, but to cities with ‘no strings attached’.

Unbelievable.

So why isn’t Jim Bradley’s government properly funding their health monopoly?

Do the right thing, Mr. McMullan: send Bradley’s overtaxed, misappropriated funds right back to him and tell him to put it against our share of the hospital debt. And watch your own spending as well.