More inconsistencies with Liberal sole-sourced contract

[Further to my previous post:]

Corey Laroque wrote in "Niagara branding expertise reason firm got contract" (St.Catharines Standard, Nov.13, 2010):

"A Niagara Falls publishing company was allowed to skirt government rules against sole-source contracts because it had newspaper boxes with the name "Niagara" on them and it published an existing hotel-room magazine, a spokesman for Tourism Minister Michael Chan said.

Chan's office provided some more details Friday about why he approved Niagara's regional tourism organization's hiring of Rev Publishing in May to create a "destination magazine" to promote Niagara's tourism offerings.

The tourism organization -- one of 13 new bodies created by the province last year -- spent $500,000 in public money and $250,000 in member contributions to commission 500,000 copies of Niagara Today, a 96-page magazine. They were to be distributed in the Greater Toronto Area.

The tourism group did not seek bids from competing publishers.

In a seven-sentence e-mail, Chan's spokesman, Mukunthan Paramalingham, summarized the four points the Niagara tourism organization used to justify a sole source contract:
- Rev Publishing had "significant" Niagara-related content ready to go.

- Niagara Today was an "easily recognizable brand" that Niagara hotel guests had seen.

- Rev was the only publisher that maintained "Niagara-branded" street boxes in GO stations.

- The street boxes, printing and distribution were "an important tool" for promoting the Niagara region.
The explanation came a day after Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor called on the board of Niagara's regional tourism organization to publicly release whatever documentation it used to convince ministry officials to exempt them from a rule requiring government contracts to be subject to a competitive bidding process.

The head of Niagara's RTO says it has been "as transparent as we can" and insists it played by the rules when it gave the untendered contract to Rev Publishing.

"I trust the folks around this table. They vetted it and decided it was a good project," Dragan Matovic, chairman of the Niagara's regional tourism organization, said during a board meeting Friday.

Matovic did not return media calls asking whether his board would release the information Craitor said it would help restore public confidence in the regional tourism organization. In an e-mail he said he would ask the board about releasing it and respond later.

Matovic said Friday he was not at the May meeting where the board decided to give Rev Publishing the magazine contract.

Former Niagara Parks Commission executive Joel Noden, who represented the government agency on the tourism board, was co-chairman when the magazine contract was issued.

Noden did not attend Friday's meeting of the tourism organization. He left the parks commission Tuesday.

In most cases, government rules require regional tourism organizations to "obtain a minimum of three written quotes" for goods or services worth more than $5,000.

But they're allowed to skip that tendering process and pick just one source when the expertise is "specialized and is not readily available."

Those rules are outlined in the agreements between the Ministry of Tourism and its regional tourism organizations. Representatives from Ontario's regional tourism organizations were reminded of those rules as recently as Nov. 7 at a summit of tourism officials.

Matovic said the organization, formed in May to promote Niagara's tourism industry, has abided by the Ministry of Tourism's requirements for managing the $3.5 million Queen's Park made available to Niagara this year.

Known as RTO No. 2, the group of tourism industry representatives will formally become the Tourism Partnership of Niagara when it's incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation in December.

The creation of regional tourism organizations to better promote an area is part of the Liberal government's plan to strengthen the tourism industry.

Niagara's organization came under scrutiny this week after revelations surfaced it hired Niagara Rev Publishing without asking competitors if they could do the work better or cheaper. Ontario's Liberals came under fire last year over the lack of competitive bids at eHealth Ontario, prompting Premier Dalton McGuinty to issue a directive ending single-source contracts in all but the most exceptional circumstances.

Despite the new rule, Ministry of Tourism officials granted an exception to Niagara's RTO because its magazine needed to be printed and distributed before the start of the 2010 travel season.

Friday's explanation clarified what Chan said Wednesday when he said ministry staff accepted the explanation Rev Publishing' had an "exclusive" arrangement to distribute magazines at GO Transit stations in the Greater Toronto Area.

"We needed these GO boxes as a vehicle to distribute these magazines," Chan said Wednesday.

But a GO Transit spokeswoman told The Review the provincial agency doesn't have any exclusive deals with any company for the distribution of newspapers or magazines at GO stations.

"GO has always followed an open policy about the distribution of publications. We do not currently have any exclusive arrangements on our system or at our stations," GO spokeswoman Vanessa Thomas said.

There are 20 publishing companies that distribute two dozen publications at GO stations, including Sun Media and Torstar, both of which have subsidiaries that publish Niagara-based magazines.

Craitor dropped in to Friday's board meeting to tell members in person they should release all the details behind its decision to solesource the magazine contract.

"The best people to ask are the people who made the decision," he said.

But the government itself refused a media request to release the information it received from Niagara's tourism organization.

Despite the controversy over the untendered contract, Craitor said he had faith in the regional tourism organization and the tourism-industry representatives leading it.

"It's a bit unfortunate we had a bit of a bump. We can clear that up," Craitor said."

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Talk about these government agencies circling the wagons on this contract: this 'open-tender' idea looks like it was designed to fail with skewed requirements; now, inconsistent backpedalled stories are justifying the decison.

Take a look at one of Liberal tourism minister Chan's main "reasons" for handing out this sole-source contract: that Rev had some kind of supposedly-exclusive street box arrangement with GO Transit. GO, meanwhile, says they have no such arrangement.
Who's telling the truth here - McGuinty's Liberal tourism minister, or GO?!

Furthermore, if the reason/excuse for handing out this untendered contract was based on the recipient company having some kind of 'exclusive' arrangement with GO, then it practically makes having ANY bidding process an outright sham anyway, seeing as the whole thing - according to the Liberal tourism minister Chan himself - revolves on a bidder already having access to this so-called 'exclusivity' deal with GO!
Any other 'bidder' would be precluded from the get-go, making the 'bidding process' a pointless, rigged deal. So why bother having any bids - right?!

Is that what really happened here? And now the Liberals are burying themselves deeper in shit because of their unconvincing, after-the-fact, backpedalled excuses.
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Bradley surprised about tracks?!

Niagara This Week reported in "Go train rolls into Niagara ", Jul.3, 2009:

"Bradley said the GO train service is ideal for visitors rather than for weekday commuters, who expect faster service.

"It's perfect for the weekend when time isn't as much of a factor," he said, adding train riders also skip past the tourist traffic which runs from Toronto to beyond the Niagara side of the Burlington Skyway.

He explained there's challenges that come with expanding the service to accommodate Monday to Friday commuters. For one, there's only one track which also serves VIA, Amtrak and freight trains, and it would be expensive to twin the tracks.

There's also the canal, he said, adding the first train was delayed coming into Niagara Falls because the bridge near Glendale had to be raised for a canal ship."

Yeah, Jim...when you were blustering about bringing GO to Niagara years ago, in opposition, you didn't really mention anything about, oh... tracks! And the 'expense' of adding another line. And that GO was to be a tourist, not commuter, service. How convenient that as Transport Minister, Jim Bradley now discovers these little details. Did GO do any environmental assessment of the new Niagara service, in particular to quantify the effects of the additional diesels? Just asking whether Jimmy bothered to show how 'green' his train is.

Niagara should opt of OHIP, declare a medicare-monopoly-free zone

Several good health-care related letters appeared recently in our local papers: Lynn McCleary wrote in "Cutting nurses will not improve care provided by the NHS", (St. Catharines Standard, Feb.9, 2009):
"Re: NHS cutting 90 jobs,The Standard, Feb. 4.
As an RN, I am disappointed with the Niagara Health System decision to eliminate 50 nursing positions.
It is understandable that with 75 vacant positions, eliminating nursing positions may seem like an easy solution to the budget crunch. The explanation that nurses will not lose jobs, rather they will fill vacant positions or take early retirement, may be reassuring to nurses who work at the NHS but it does not reassure me that quality health-care services can be maintained in the long term -- or costs decreased in the short term.
Eliminating positions does not eliminate work. If the NHS follows other hospitals down this path, the work will be done by existing nurses at overtime rates, increasing costs. In the long term, eliminating positions threatens the nursing workforce. The health-care system is at risk because 24,000 Ontario RNs are aged 55 or older, poised to retire.
The 75 vacant positions in Niagara are an indication of things to come, when we may not be able to fill vacancies created by retiring nurses. Just when hospitals like ours in Niagara need strong leadership from the provincial government to ensure an adequate supply of nurses, what we get is provincial backtracking on commitments to create new nursing positions and pressure to balance budgets by paying the price with bigger problems down the line.
Hospitals are being forced by the province into penny wise, pound foolish actions. We should be encouraging nurses to keep working, not encouraging early retirement.
Even in tough economic times, we need to chose to support the healthcare system by ensuring an adequate nursing workforce."
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Let's remember (because McCleary doesn't bother to mention it) that it is a Liberal government which is cutting nurses in Niagara, and which also recently cut 50 million dollars from provincial nurse training!

Have we forgotten how, during the Oct.2008 federal election, certain folks, along with a more-than-willing press, got outrageously indignant about federal arts funding, where $45 million was re-allotted throughout Canada? Yes, an unreal brouhaha was made over that; yet, when Ontario's Liberal liars over at McGuinty and Co. cut $50 million (and that's only in Ontario) of promised nurse funding from their failing health-monopoly - no-one cared!!!

Good Ole Jim Bradley, St. Catharines Liberal MPP, and proud health-care monopolist-hypocrite, spent years making allegations about so-called Harris cuts, yet, it's Jimbo's own Liberals who are blatantly cutting health-care.

They are using the same old 'we-are-cutting-health-care-to-save-health-care' rhetoric which Michael Decter, Bob Rae's NDP deputy health-minister, used during Ontario's Great Socialist Darkness of the early 1990's.

This is an incomprehensible, ideologically-based conceptual contradiction: oxymoronic limited universality in tandem with a needlessly oppressive (to the point of being cruel) prohibition on private health-care, all enforced by the single-payer-monopoly-pushing state.
It's a mockery of its own intent; a false image of unaccountable promises painted with irresponsible rhetoric.

McCleary talks about "provincial backtracking"... isn't that a euphemism for the McGuinty/Caplan/Bradley gang's Liberal LIES?

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Peter Genovese wrote in "We should expect more from our health system, (St. Catharines Standard, Feb.9, 2009): "Re:160 on waiting list for home care, The Standard, Jan. 29
This article has brought up several important points regarding home-care services. The Community Care Access Centre has seen a steady increase in need for home-care services and the current fiscal year's budget can't properly fund this need.
To prevent running a deficit, a waiting list has been created, currently at 163 clients in Niagara. What will the waiting list be by March 31, the end of the fiscal year? And will this problem not compound in the next fiscal year if funding is inadequate for the service demand?
The clients who are on the waiting list are deemed low priority -- they are not surgical (hip/knee replacements). They are still clients who require exercise, balance re-training, gait aid assessments, safety assessments, home adaptive equipment assessment, etc.
How many clients on the waiting list will have to be admitted to or re-admitted to hospital due to a decrease in health status that may result from not receiving home care? What cost do these clients potentially pose to the health system?
Since the Liberal provincial government has been in power, it has raised our taxes (health-care tax) and has increased the annual health spending to about 50 per cent of the total Ontario budget. But we have waiting lists for home care, the eventual downgrading of the emergency rooms in Fort Erie and Port Colborne and many issues in this region regarding the state of our healthcare system.
We should expect more from the way our health care is funded and managed. We need to demand this from our government before the current situation turns into a health-care crisis."
*

Taxes up, service down; yet patient-pawns trapped in McGuinty's health-care monopoly have no choice.

Liberals are happy. "Look at us, we are spending..." they will graciously point out, "...on your behalf! We are taxing and spending - on your behalf! We are cutting, on your behalf, to save us from having to spend more..." The logic becomes convoluted and murky.

Liberal MPP Jim Bradley can't be bothered to explain his own health monopoly's failures. Will he bother to answer Genovese's questions? Bradley continues plodding on the same old failing socialist monopoly course. It is a failing Liberal fantasy that only a BIG STATE GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY knows best how to mimic the real health-care choices of a free-market.
Ontario's Liberals didn't bother to respond to Niagara concerns about Niagara's ER/bed shortage issue: two years ago (in the St. Catharines Standard, Sept.30, 2006) Dalton McGuinty himself dismissed that his Liberals would do much about it - see: Jim "Crackpot" Bradley's Liberal realism.



Genovese's concerns might have been different now had McGuinty and Bradley got off their butts two years ago and actually did something other than make soothing, grandiose 'Big Brother' rhetorical health-care pronouncements, without substance or any attached responsibility. Hey - SO WHAT if some patient dies waiting in a McGuinty-underfunded ER, or sits all day in an unchanged diaper in a Liberal underfunded nursing home? McGuinty is held harmless! MPP Jim Bradley, unbelievably, suddenly has nothing to do with health-care!!

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Pat Scholfield wrote in "NHS helped create problem with ALC patient overload", (Niagara This Week, Feb.6, 2009):
"In response to the article in The Leader that stated a new report adds weight to the argument by the Niagara Health System that people who have no business being in a hospital are clogging up chronic care beds which leads to lengthy delays in getting treated at hospital emergency rooms:
Does the NHS leadership remember several times over the past few years they have reduced beds as a cost saving measure, while at the same time telling us it would not affect service?
On March 29, 2006, former NHS chair Paul Leon told us bed closures don't mean service reductions. This article notes a year ago the health system originally targeted 60 beds for closure at its three largest hospitals throughout Niagara as part of its plans to cut $19 million in spending. "The standards are being maintained. No services are being cut and we're going to meet our targeted balanced budget by 2007," Leon said.
Around the same time, recently resigned NHS Chief of Staff Dr. William Schragge stated, "Beds do not equal service. The number of inpatient beds is no longer an accurate reading of health-care delivery. In fact, we have seen an overall increase in health-care delivery with 60 fewer beds across the system."
Why is the NHS closing hospital beds until we find a workable solution for these alternate level of care patients, especially when the ALC patients across Niagara are nearly double the provincial average and when bed shortage is such a huge problem?
To a layman like myself, it appears the NHS has implemented bed closing measures which have helped to create the ER backlog monster we are currently experiencing in Niagara."
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... and you know, if you ask Liberal MPP Jim Bradley (who's not a layman, he's a long-time Liberal supporter of state-run monopoly health-care) these questions, a smug Bradley won't bother to answer them! Yet his Liberals have been running the show for five years!

*
Margaret Ferland wrote in "Why do we need centres of excellence?" (Niagara This Week, Feb.6, 2009):

"The Niagara Health System's problems and plans are becoming a major problem for taxpayers.
The NHS would like us to believe we are going to benefit from the centres of excellence for ophthalmology and urology. The fact is Welland has always had excellent ophthalmologists and urologists on staff, and that was never a problem.
Why do we need a centre of excellence? To entice people from other areas?
The fact is we need services we use on a daily basis, like pediatrics, obstetrics and psychiatry, which the NHS has so generously given to St. Catharines. We are expected to share the taxes for this, and to add insult to injury, it is contingent upon a transit system being built and maintained in seven municipalities.
The NHS is going to have to do more than hire a couple of public relations experts and a few full-page ads in the local newspapers to convince the taxpayers that this is cost-effective, let alone makes any common sense."

*
Common-sense... oh, now there's a phrase that Liberal hack Jim Bradley just loves to deride! Bradley's Liberals don't understand common-sense; it's all bans and statism with these clowns. Bradley's Liberals are hiding from independent scrutiny of their health-care monopoly, and, of their accompanying claims regarding its performance. There is no transparent oversight in this rat's nest of ideological heath-care Liberalism gone wildly askew. Bizarrely, now somehow the spectre of "public transit" (another black-hole for public funds) is entering the hospital-cuts debate; this when Good Ole Jim Bradley, Mr. GO-PROMISER (and, now the Transportation Minister, for cryin' out loud) has done done flicking NOTHING regarding GO train service to Niagara! (Because, strangely, that TOO is contingent upon some ephemeral prerequisite regional system... and on it goes... a perennial, eternal make-work project, keeping earnest, eager Liberal statists busily planning to fix the problems created by earlier eager, earnest Liberal statists...)
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Anne Kranics wrote in "The bottom line for Fort Erie residents" (Niagara This Week, Feb.6, 2009):

"As you sit in your offices and homes with the full knowledge that you are safe and within life and death help may I remind you of our bottom line:
1. We had a well run hospital with the services that met our needs and ran in the black.
2. You (Phantoms from the government, LHIN. NHS, HIP etc.) stripped our hospital to meet your needs without consultation or notification to the taxpayers.
3. These powers that be continued on the path of meetings to decide our fate without acceptable feedback to the public.
4. After the unfair removal of equipment and services we were told that we've been functioning like this for a long time. No kidding, what choice did we have?
5. Since we have left things in your hands , you have decimated our life line and now are saying "See, you don't have what's necessary to be a hospital so we'll have to take that designation away!!" Please, do not do that!
6.The new St. Catharines hospital will not meet our needs for reasons given many times over.
7. Dr. Kitts, has not been as generous to our community as he has to his own and Mr. McGuinty's - as they have hospitals in their areas - how far is Mr. Caplan from his hospital? You know that Fort Erie is at the end of the line and we have taken care of ourselves nicely.
These people do not live here and will not suffer the consequences of shutting our hospital down! Being touted an expert and telling others what's good for them without having to live in the environment they create is barbaric and uncivilized!
8. Our lives are in your hands and you are responsible for your decisions.You are at a point that you can do the civilized thing and keep our hospital open! We are at your mercy and ask you to do the right the right thing. Do not leave us with nothing. We deserve better!"
*

I ask what St. Catharines MPP Liberal Jim Bradley has to say in response to Ms. Kranics? Apparently, Good Ole Jim doesn't feel it is necessary for him to respond to public questions about the blowback to residents and to patients of his Liberal-government-monopoly's high-handed health-care edicts.
And, hey, who cares about Fort Erie, anyhow, that's Liberal MPP Kim Craitor's embarrassing political pickle, isn't it? Bradley can smugly leave himself out of it!
Health Minister David Caplan couldn't give a hoot either, as we've just recently seen. Maybe the Great Lying McGuinty will come calling to Fort Erie for votes, just before the next election!!

Remember how a smirking McGuinty turned and walked away from that cancer patient - Mike Brady - during the 2007 Ontario election campaign, disputing the man's claim that McGuinty wasn't doing enough for him?!
Yeah, well, McGuinty's doing the same walk-away from Fort Erie today. Tomorrow, it'll be a hospital near you. And there is nowhere else to turn to in this Liberal single-payer health-care monopoly.
This is not a red-herring question about WHERE a hospital is; this is an elemental question about WHAT our "hospital system" "is".
Niagara's mayors, the councillors, the Region... who has done anything to successfully challenge the Liberals' slickly-named "centres of excellence" health-care cutbacks? They've all hit the McGuinty ideological wall. It's out of our jurisdiction, they say.
(Maybe the Regional government, with the support of Niagara's mayors, can challenge McGuinty's demogogic monopolistic health-care practices - but fat chance of that, because a lot of Niagara's mayors are loyal Liberal hacks, as well - all part of the same problem...).
How about declaring Niagara a medicare-free zone?
Let a bankrupt, deficit-ridden McGuinty try to shut that down.
Encourage private medical investment.
Fight Liberal Healthcare Duplicity.
Declare the intention that Niagara will secede from sole reliance on McGuinty's OHIP health-monopoly, and will pursue its own health care policy, and that in the interim, Niagarans should be refunded their health-care expenses directly from the federal government, thereby correspondingly not allowing it to reach McGuinty's mitts. That is the only message McGuintyites will understand, when they are deprived of expected health-care money which they assume is theirs.
If Niagara is to be callously used by McGuinty as a test-case for his monopoly cuts, Niagara should respond by declaring this area an OHIP-free test zone, and by asking the federal government for emergency protection from the McGuinty majority-government's health schemes.
McGuinty should not possess carte-blanche access to our health-care dollars. Niagara Region could negotiate a health care plan under different scenarios on behalf of some 450,000 people with other invited providers; anything which forced McGuintyite monopolists to have no choice but compete for their own funding, or else be deprived of health-cash, would be a good thing. Utilize the expertise of neighbouring Buffalo health care facilities. Niagara could create and fund its own insurance plan; not, though, as just another freshly-minted replicant mini-monopoly, but as an open option, patient payer/provider choice system.
It is acknowledged that health care is not free.
Let consumers - not presumptive McGuintyites [or yellow-shirted socialist NDPeer's] - decide how to spend their own health dollars. Niagarans should be allowed to opt out of the McGuinty government's monopoly-health schemes.
Given that the McCreith/Holmes health-care charter case against McGuinty's Ontario Liberals is still looming at the Supreme Court, now is the time to seriously consider implementing an honest, fair, realistic health strategy that does not leave the participant-resident-patient-stakeholders at the mercy of evasive, statist, bait-and-switch McGuinty-monopolist promises. A hybrid approach might as well be tried here, in an orderly manner.
We deserve better than to be reduced to pleading - as Kranics sadly does - with these deaf, arrogant Liberals. (And when U.S. President Obama visits Canada, let him take into consideration the damage that socialized state-run monopoly medicine has done in Ontario. Americans shouldn't covet Canada's failing universal-health-care system. There are certainly other templates better than Ontario's to look at.)
It's time to draw a line in the sand over the Liberal's sacrificial abandonment of Fort Erie.
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Let's fast forward to Nov.17, 2014 - I was listening to the Jim Richards Showgram on Toronto's NewsTalk 1010 (the old CFRB), where host Jimberley was interviewing a guest, Dr. Brett Belchetz, regarding the shortage of medical pathologists on Ontario.
It was a great interview, and I wish that I could find a link to it on the NewsTalk 1010 website, or to this Nov.17th afternoon podcast, but it was not listed on the Showgram's web page. It would be an interesting interview for folks to listen to.
Amongst the topics discussed, I recall the doctor mentioning a recent Commonwealth Fund study, which rated Canada's health system as the SECOND WORST in the developed (not 'developing'!) world... and him mentioning that for Canadians, or Ontarians, going to nearby American cities such as Buffalo was certainly an option to get faster biopsy results... again: this is the same stuff I had written about in Liberal Health Care Duplicity SEVEN years ago!!! It's like the health care disaster in Ontario created by monopoly-pushing hacks such as St.Catharines MPP Jim Bradley and his Liberals has no end of horror.
There's an excellent article (one of many) by Dr. Brett Belchetz in the Huffington Post, Jun.27, 2014.
To top it off, I was watching TVO on Nov.24, 2014, in the evening, and who was there as a panelist but another ghoul from the past: old Michael 'Rae Day' Decter, the pathetic former deputy health minister - and HEALTH CARE CUTTER - under socialist Ontario premier Bob Rae. To believe that this piece of work still prattles his tales twenty years after the horrors which he and Rae's NDP perpetrated, is sickening.  
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Iggy gettin' jiggy in Niagara; another Liberal snow-job of platitudes and pledges

Back on Nov 14, 2007 I wrote an article (see: Asking Liberal Transportation Minister Jim Bradley: Where is Niagara's GO Train?) outlining years of hot-air spewed by St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley. Even during the 2007 election campaign, Bradley intimated that the GO train was coming to Niagara. Gullible locals lapped up Bradley’s B.S.

Despite his lying, posturing, and obfuscation, Bradley - now Ontario’s Transportation Minister - still has not brought GO Transit to Niagara. Here’s a clip of a National Post story (Dec.13, 2008) about GO Transit expansion plans – there is NO MENTION whatsoever about bringing GO Transit to Niagara:

(click photos to enlarge!)
Keeping in mind the above, compare this next story from Niagara This Week (Nov.21, 2008), about Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff’s (when Iggy was still in Bumbledore Dion’s shadow) visit to Niagara – blathering the same bullshit which Good Ole Jimbo Bradley and Dalton McGuinty have been trotting out for years:
Liberal loser from the 2006 and the 2008 elections Walter Lastewka was there as well; for some thirteen years during Lastewka’s reign as MP, MPP Bradley along with Lastewka accomplished nothing…and now we see ambitious Iggy recycling the same tired old promises of yesterday: “if I’m elected, I would pump money here to help travelers…” bla, blah, blaahh
All Iggy is pumping are platitudes and worthless pledges.
Iggy went on to be crowned Liberal leader - conveniently without any party election! So what is the official Liberal platform regarding transit in Niagara? More vague “infrastructure” lip-service? Oh, how specifically clear; how clearly unspecific!! (as tactfully non-committal as Iggy's Dec. pronouncement that his Liberal's cuckoo-coaltion with the separatists - now under Ignatieff's own command - was a “coalition if necessary, but not necessarily coalition.” Yeah...)

Christina Blizzard noted in “Where is a real ‘Buy Canadian’ policy?” (St. Catharines Standard, Dec.20, 2008), that Transportation Minister Jim Bradley can’t even bring himself to fund streetcars being made in Canada:

“It has become a trademark of the Dalton McGuinty government.

Any time you want to make a bold, controversial move, come up with a report to justify your actions.

And so it came to pass Tuesday that Economic Development Minister Michael Bryant held a joint news conference with Rob Wildeboer of the automotive parts giant Martinrea and the Ontario Manufacturing Council to make dire predictions about what would happen if the Detroit Three automakers shut down.

Word of the day was "doomsday," with "devastation," coming in a close second.

Then again, it would have been news if they hadn't been pitching for a bailout.

According to this end-of-the-world-as- we-know-it report, a 100 per cent shutdown of the industry would result in the loss of 517,000 jobs in Ontario. Except, didn't the government agree already it would provide $3.3 billion in aid, contingent on what Washington tosses in the pot?

Meanwhile, the McGuinty government has steadfastly ignored other sectors of the economy. Northern Ontario has been devastated by the downturn in the forestry and pulp and paper industries. Yet there were no bailouts there. Whole towns were allowed to die.

Why are we talking about bailing out the car industry to the tune of $3.3 billion when the TTC is in negotiations that could award the most lucrative public transit infrastructure contract in the world to offshore bidders? We're talking real jobs and real vehicles.

Shockingly, the province's weak 25 per cent Canadian content rule doesn't even apply to the $1.25-billion deal to buy 204 new streetcars because the province isn't paying for it, says a spokesman for Transportation Minister Jim Bradley.

"We can't impose our policy on a project that we are not a part of," said Nicole Lippa-Gasparro. She points out that the TTC has its own 25 per cent content guideline.

This is all news to the TTC, who are expecting the usual one-third of the transit capital money to come from the province, with the feds and the city pitching in the other two thirds, as they are doing with the subway expansion to Vaughan.

"There is no commitment to funding at this point, but that is what we are looking at," said TTC spokesman Brad Ross. Besides, two cents a litre of the gas tax goes to the TTC.

All this fancy footwork could mean this massive project will sneak through with even less than that meagre 25 per cent requirement.

The TTC set the 25 per cent Canadian content requirement a year ago. Meanwhile, in March the province brought in a similar 25 per cent requirement. (By the way, this pales to insignificance compared to the 60 per cent domestic content rule required in the U. S. under its "Buy America" policy.)

The province's policy didn't come into effect until Sept. 1. In the meantime, the TTC aborted its Request for Proposals process, and commenced a "negotiated procurement," deal with two foreign companies, French giant Alstom and German manufacturer Siemens, as well as Montreal-based Bombardier, on Aug. 27.

So even if the province were to claim one-third ownership of this massive public sector contract, the negotiations started prior to its policy coming in to effect.

"The McGuinty government says there has to be 25 per cent content -- but in fact that is not the requirement," said NDP Leader Howard Hampton. "This whole project got underway before the government put in its minimal 25 per cent, so you could end up with a multi-billion transit contract where most of the work happens outside Ontario, outside Canada. You get less benefit in terms of jobs, less benefit in terms of economic stimulus, less benefit in terms of Ontario's future."

This contract could save jobs in Thunder Bay, one of the places hardest hit by the tanking forestry industry.

We're expected to put more than $3 billion into the auto sector -- with vague promises of an untried new product.

Meanwhile, the Bombardier plant in Thunder Bay produces quality domestic vehicles -- and jobs to a hard hit part of the province in these tough economic times.

Everyone agrees we need the streetcars. What better way to boost the economy than to build them here in this province? Now.”*

So who knows what Iggy’s position is on Liberal "made-in-Canada" ‘transportation and infrastructure investments’ ?! Would it be much different from the same greasy, pandering, duplicitous level that been practised by Liberals like Jim Bradley? Will Liberal Iggy boldly tell Liberal Bradley that, if it were up to Iggy, Ontario, due to the current practices of Bradley's Liberals, would forfeit its federal transit funding?! (It is also interesting to consider the irony of "made-in-Canada" funding-requirements being imposed by a Liberal whose own career was made-not-in-Canada!)

Comparing Iggy’s recycling of Jim Bradley’s previous lies leads to this article by Doug Herod, “Don’t count on old election promises to save ER”, (St. Catharines Standard, Dec.20, 2008):

“Hospital restructuring in Niagara has been approved by the powers that be.

Finally. It's over. Don't be ridiculous.

Huffing and puffing won't end until certain politicians in south Niagara figure the last blood droplets have been wrung from various stones.

After the Local Health Integration Network, as expected, approved the Niagara Health System's restructuring plan earlier this week, the mayors of Fort Erie and Port Colborne wasted no time in conjuring up other options.

The possibility of taking unspecified legal action was raised, as was making overtures to Queen's Park bigwigs like Health Minister David Caplan and Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey, in particular, holds out hope that McGuinty will lend a sympathetic ear to his city's cause.

He expects the premier to "listen" and "truly respect" what Port Colborne is trying to achieve. And why is that?

Close to seven years ago, McGuinty, then the province's Opposition leader, pledged to Mayor Badawey that his Liberal party would fight to ensure the city has a hospital and emergency room that's open 24/7.

This had become an issue because then, as now, physicians staffing Port Colborne's ER overnight were lonelier than the Maytag repairman.

In light of the dearth of activity in the wee hours of the morning, consultants had recommended the NHS keep ERs open only 16 hours a day in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.

Then, as now, the plan created an uproar in certain circles

Against this backdrop, Liberal Leader McGuinty sashayed into Port Colborne in February 2002.
"I met a woman in emergency here today who was admitted Monday suffering from a heart attack," the Welland Tribune reported McGuinty as saying.

"Her husband drove her to the hospital. She asked me to fight to keep the emergency department open because she didn't think she would have made it to Welland."

McGuinty added that having a 24/7 emergency room and hospital is essential to a city, especially one like Port Colborne, which is trying to grow.

"It's not just important, it's very important for a community to be competitive in attracting families and industry."

So, there you go. McGuinty made a promise.

I hate to break the news to Badawey, but, sadly, during the 2003 provincial election campaign, McGuinty also said he wouldn't raise taxes.

Then again, Badawey probably remembers that broken vow. After all, he was a Liberal candidate in the 2003 campaign.

That's the thing about having opposition politicians roll into town to comment on the local injustices of the day. They'll say anything to curry favour with the disillusioned and the disaffected. What the heck, it's not as if they're in a position to implement their commitments.

Alas, if and when they form a government, all bets are off.

Now, I'm not saying these back-tracking politicians don't deserve to have ridicule and scorn heaped upon them. On the contrary, I encourage such heaping.

It's just that anyone who actually takes these gals and fellas seriously at the time of their grave pronouncements should give their heads a shake.

They're out-of-power politicians seeking votes, for crying out loud!

I mean, if McGuinty can blow off in mere weeks a major, high-profile commitment like not raising taxes, brushing away the ER vow of six years ago will be a piece of cake.

Indeed, unlike 2002, the plan is to have emergency service in Port Colborne available 24/7.

It'll be under the name of an urgent-care centre, which is only reflecting the reality that Port Colborne hasn't had a full-service emergency department in years.

No doubt, when asked, McGuinty will refer to this as progress.

So much for getting blood from that stone."
*
Opposition politicians rolling into town, saying anything to curry favour - that pretty much describes standard Liberal operating procedure employed by McGuinty, Bradley, and now Ignatieff.

But whether on health-care, transit, or global-warming, don’t count on too many Liberal-friendly media types to ridicule or scorn Liberal bluster, duplicity, backtracking, and lies; it’s much more politically-correct to spin the alleged "hidden agenda" of the Conservatives.
*
By the way, in honour of all the “global warming” that we have experienced here in Niagara recently …um, with all the snow… here’s a reminder of political entertainer Stephane Bumbledore Dion’s climate-crisis comedy act.
This hilarious postcard, sent to Niagara households in Apr. 2008, courtesy of Ken Dryden (what’s Kenny got to do with Niagara, anyway??) was part of the famed LIBERAL POOP-O-GRAM series of postcards mailed out by Dion, and was a precursor to the unveiling of his disastrous Green-Shift policy later in the summer of 2008:
(click on photos to enlarge!)
Despite the ridiculousness of it all, many people (like Kyoto-pusher Jim Bradley) still believed Dion's "green" crap. You see, if we had all just voted for Superhero Global Climate Changer and Kyodiot Clown Bumbledore Dion and his Liberals, then they would have stopped - if not miraculously REVERSED - global-warming, bringing us . . . even more snow !!?
Is this the Liberal snow-job Iggy intends to continue pursuing?
*

Jim Bradley keenly rubblizes health-care in Niagara

You gotta love the St. Catharines Standard's front-page story (“Concrete recycled to rebuild highway", by Matthew Van Dongen, July 28, 2008) for the way in which Jim Bradley’s Liberal ass was kissed in plain public view!

In the story, Bradley is brought in to blab about how on-site “rubblizing” (crushing and recycling aggregates within a project) is ‘saving the environment’, as Van Dongen spun it. “The St. Catharines MPP said he’s keen on “greener approaches to highway construction.” Isn't that precious!

As if this has never been done before!! As if adding shredded rubber or other materials to road aggregates and toppings has never been done before!! Anything to cast Ole Keener Jimmy in a glowing light, eh?!

Van Dongen writes Bradley "acknowledged not everyone believes words like “green” and “highway” can co-exist."

But it was Bradley himself who for years painted the idea that ‘green and highways’ can’t coexist!!

Van Dongen, the St. Catharines Standard's “Green Team” columnist laughably didn't bother to mention Jim’s other secret life as Mr. Greenpants personified!! Yet the words "Jim Bradley" and "FLICKING HYPOCRITE" do co-exist quite well.

Good Ole Jimmy for years keenly portrayed himself as a political Mr. Natural; that somehow he was against highways and for GO Transit. (See: Asking Liberal Transportation Minister Jim Bradley: Where is Niagara's GO Train? ) Now, Good Ole Roadbuildin’ Jimmy, as if in some dual-personality schizo state, smugly pretends that this stance was someone else’s, not his!!

Van Dongen also quoted Jim Bradley ominously saying: “Some people don’t want us to build any more highways”. WHO said that, Matthew? Why just leave such Bradleyesque utterings unchallenged? What kind of “reporting” is this, anyway? Bradley - Ontario's sorry Transportation Minister - says something like that, and there’s no follow-up question??

Was Bradley sniping at the Green Party, whose federal leader, Elizabeth May, was quoted in Niagara This Week (Nov.28, 2007) saying “I hate the idea of getting ready for the mid-pen…I want to stop it”? Or, was Bradley referring to his own Liberal party's games of deferring the mid-pen to repetitive EA’s?

What’s astounding is not so much that Van Dongen was brown-nosing Bradley, but that anyone at the St. Catharines Standard could even FIND our Stealth Minister, the elusive Jim Bradley!

It’s unbelievable – Jim Bradley is nowhere to be found in the St. Catharines Standard when his Liberal-government is “rubblizing” health care in Niagara - but, amazingly, Good Ole Jimbo pops up in a front-page Standard puff-piece extolling Good Ole Jimbo’s hallowed greenliness!!

Who cares about Jim Bradley's Liberal health care duplicity?

The Big News folks, is that Jim's Keener & Greener!!

Why didn't this St. Catharines Standard reporter - or any St. Catharines Standard reporter - take the opportunity of Jim Bradley's brief emergence from his Cone Of Silence, to grill Bradley about his failing health care policies?! Our health system is being crushed, while the local MPP blithely babbles about crushing stones?! THIS becomes front-page news?

Is Jim Bradley being given a soft ride by the local press? Is Jim Bradley even being asked to respond to the health care changes being unveiled by the NHS? Or, is Jim Bradley refusing to answer press and constituent questions regarding his Liberal health-care system?? We don't really know. Why are local press articles, when writing of the health care system, not plainly saying somewhere in the story that 'we contacted Mr. Bradley regarding this issue and have not received a reply' ? At least readers would be assured that the press is attempting to contact the MPP. How is it that Bradley is available for a story about stone-crushing, but not about health-care?

What’s next for the Standard, to tout Bradley as our hallowed Father of the Environmental Government?! (That’s been done, see: Liberal Jim "Aw, shucks" Bradley: Greenshevik Idol) .

How about linking the greenie '100-mile diet' fad to a new Bradley-led '100-mile health-care' fad?!!

Yep - Good Ole Jimmy can be portrayed by his St. Catharines Standard proxies touting the benefits of the NHS’s new HIP as “good for your hips”!

“Get out there and use your hips”, a bold, inspirational Jim Bradley can proclaim. Everyone in Niagara will be forced to another city for health care. “Anyway, it’s better for your hips if you walk to the hospital in another city! This will also save the environment!”

This kind of B.S. spin coming from the Liberals or their fawning sycophants is entirely possible. Of course, no one at the greenie column asked Jimbo what kind of environmental footprint would result from closing down the healthcare access to half of Niagara! Maybe Bradley will have to build a GO Train from Fort Erie to St. Catharines – by virtue of his Liberal skewed health care policies, he now has a reason!

Bradley’s own integrity (based on duplicitous Liberalism) has self-rubblized before our very eyes.
*
update: In the summer of 2011, Jim Bradley's Liberal health-care monopoly killed off some 32 Niagara-area patients (as of Aug.24, 2011) with C. difficile infection - yet the St.Catharines Standard STILL has not interviewed their Golden Boy Jim Bradley on that issue! With 32 patients dead, in Bradley's own backard, in Jim's own Liberal-controlled health monopoly, Bradley's buddies at the Standard still keep on wiping Jim Bradley's Liberal ass - as they've done for years.
*
*

Liberal energy policy: Lights are on, no-one's home

On a bright day, June 25, 2008, at Sand Plant hill between St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, the QEW - part of Liberal MPP Jim Bradley's vast transportation realm, was fully lit for miles.

Why?

Isn't Jim Bradley, the pompous Peterson environment minister who always huffed and puffed about conservation, about cutting down on energy use, etc., now hypocritically wasting energy in his own ministry? Is this why Jim Bradley's Liberals now want to build more nuclear plants in Ontario without full environmental assessments, because Jim can't FLICK OFF the lights on his own highways?

I wonder how many smog-related deaths can be attributed to these lights being left on, and to the coal-fired generators, run by Bradley's Liberals, which helped generate that power?

Back in his opposition days, reporters were fooled into thinking that Jim Bradley would actually do something about his smug complaints. Ian Urquhart of the Toronto Star actually predicted Peterson-era dinosaur environment minister Bradley would be McGuinty's energy minister: "Bradley... will have credibility as he explains why the coal-fired plants are still spewing out pollution while the government searches for alternatives," wrote Urquart.

Credibilty - Jim Bradley?! Why, the McGuinty government lied about closing down all the coal stations! Bradley, nor McGuinty have any credibility whatsoever. The coal-fired plants ARE STILL "SPEWING OUT POLLUTION" - while McGuinty's government "searches for alternatives"! And they've been searching for five years now! Good call, Ian. How about writing a follow-up on that?

In opposition Bradley once smugly proclaimed: "This is a very embarrassing day for Ontario," (Niagara Falls Review, May.2, 2003) when Americans were complaining about the pollution wafting towards them from Ontario. Yet, strangely, Bradley isn't embarrassed now, when after five years of Liberal rule, nothing has changed regarding his Liberal-run coal plants!

Bradley agitated that Nanticoke should be converted to gas, in a Welland Tribune story (Jun.28, 2000) frighteningly titled "Smog expected to kill 85 in Niagara this year": "Bradley said the government needs to reinvest in public transportation, and create programs that will reduce ground-level smog emissions from cars and convert coal-fired plants, such as Nanticoke, which is west of Hamilton, to natural gas."

Well, it is now June, 2008 - have Bradley and his Liberals done that? Strangely, now the media don't seem to report how many are expected to die from smog in Niagara under Jim Bradley's government this year. This information is mainly useful only when Jim is in opposition, you see.

The St. Catharines Standard wrote in"Pollution fighters point finger at Nanticoke for creating smog: Ontario emissions focus of Buffalo demonstration" (Jun.13, 2000):

"Bradley said it was "somewhat embarrassing" that Ontario once pressured the U.S. to take action on pollutants and emissions. "Now, in New York state, their rules are tougher for coal-fired plants than in Ontario."
On Monday, he raised the issue in the provincial legislature, but said he wasn't satisfied with the response from Dan Newman, environment minister.
The minister said Monday he'd put a moratorium on coal-fired generation plants in the province, which was a "positive step forward."
"He doesn't answer the question, because he doesn't know the answer," said Bradley, the Liberal environment critic. "It says nothing about how the plants are operating."
Bradley said emissions from plants such as Nanticoke causes acid rain, lake pollution, agriculture damage and harms human health.
The Ontario Medical Association has estimated 1,800 premature deaths per year are caused by smog in Ontario, said Bradley. "Nanticoke is a major plant and a major source.""

So what has changed now, in 2008? Isn't Nanticoke still "a major plant" and still "a major source"? Bradley or his government don't have any 'answers' themselves, running blindly from one energy plan to the next. Bradley won't answer how many thousands of smog-related deaths have occurred in Ontario since his Liberals took over in 2003 - but according to Jim Bradley's own citations (when he was a smug, finger-pointing, power-hungry opposition member) then probably 10,000 Ontarians have prematurely died under McGuinty's Liberal government since 2003.

Yet Jim Bradley's Liberals have done nothing to even install scrubbers on Nanticoke to help prevent that. Shameful.

Liberals: their lights are on all day, but no one's home.

Above: The Ontario government's Nanticoke coal-fired generating station on the shore of Lake Erie, just east of Port Dover, on a grey Jun.29, 2008.

Stealth MPP Jim Bradley's cloaking device - it's not science fiction anymore!

R. Bobak wrote in “If only CanGro was a cricket club…”, (St. Catharines Standard, May 2, 2008):

“Re: How the deal went sour, The Standard, April 26.

I was hoping to read, in The Standard's report on the CanGro fiasco, local MPP Jim Bradley's explanation as to why his Liberal government decided, as fruit farmers Bill and Kim Duffin said, to walk away from helping them save the plant.

Many people in Bradley's St. Catharines riding work there, so presumably he would have thoroughly explained how hard he worked to get a deal done on behalf of his constituents.

No such luck. Neither did we get anything from Liberal Economic Development and Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello, who disappeared - ironically - to China on a trade mission.

I hope Pupatello returned with some great trade deals on Chinese fruit imports!

If political ineffectiveness was an Olympic team sport, Bradley's Liberals would be gold-medal champions. Dalton McGuinty's new Liberal theme-song should be an off-key rendition of "Good things used to grow, in On-ta-ri-o . . . "

If only CanGro had been a cricket club, the Liberals already would have gladly handed over a million or two - and that's with no questions asked.”

It looks like the Liberal team sport also includes relay-type pass-the-hot-file contests, where if you ask one MPP about an issue, he’ll pass it onto another, but the question never really gets answered.

Jim Bradley has vanished when it comes time to explain how his Liberal’s grandiose greenbelt legislation contributed to the loss of the CanGro fruit cannery and its 150 jobs. What, just because CanGro is in Kim Craitor’s riding next door, Bradley is suddenly bereft of having anything of substance to say to HIS OWN constituents??!! (see Good things USED to grow, in On - ta - ri - o! )

Bradley has left it to Craitor to fumble around with the questions surrounding the Niagara Health System’s “review of reviews” yet, the mortality-rate in the St. Catharines hospital (third highest in Canada, according to a Nov.2007 CIHI study) - which is in Bradley’s backyard - remains unexplained. (see Jim "Crackpot" Bradley's Liberal realism)

As I outlined in Jim Bradley's Smoggy-Bottom Grits , Bradley, in opposition, would even travel outside of the country to politically agitate against the sitting government, if he thought he could score some brownie points.

Now, Bradley is MIA, missing in action, regardless of whether an issue pertains solely to his own riding, or is more general in scope (which is more often the case, anyway).

We’ve heard more of Bradley’s promises and bluster about Go/trains/buses while he was in opposition, than when he was in government. (See: Go Train to Niagara runs into Liberal fog)

We’ve heard from Bradley about how supposedly-divisive and destructive publicly-funded faith-based schools are, while an extremely successful one sits in his own riding. (See: Jim Bradley's faith-based two-face)

We've heard Bradley bleat about controlling gas prices, when prices were half of what they are today, yet now, Bradley - the Transportation Minister (!) - has nothing to say about that! (Liberal Jim Bradley's deception on gasoline prices)

We’ve heard that the Niagara Health System had to cancel 190 surgeries recently, yet we heard nothing from Bradley as Ontarians are forced to travel to the U.S. for treatment. (See: Sadistic Liberal health-care in Ontario)

Bradley has been sitting as a St. Catharines MPP for thirty years, and was on city council even before that; now we hear that St. Catharines is being blamed by Bradley’s MTO for delaying a local QEW-emergency traffic plan? What’s Bradley been doing about that for three decades? Jim Bradley has become a smug and arrogant member of an unresponsive Liberal government! He's the vaporous, elusive, stealth MPP - we know he's hovering nearby, yet he's hidden and untouchable!

On so many issues, Liberal Jim Bradley’s silence is becoming glaringly conspicuous.

Oily Grits

Keith Howell wrote in “Give Northlander two more years”, (North Bay Nugget, Mar.1, 2000):

“Liberal leader wants `genuine effort' to revive passenger train before killing it.
WEST NIPISSING - Ontario Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty wants the Northlander passenger train to run for another two years in a final attempt to make it viable.
"I think there should be a genuine effort made to revive it. It simply cannot survive as it is," McGuinty said in an interview Tuesday.
"It has to be transformed into a viable, attractive mode of transportation or it is going to go the way of the dodo. There will be no new lease on life given beyond that unless there has been an increase in ridership," McGuinty said.
The Liberal leader was at Club Calumet in Sturgeon Falls for a speech to about 100 party faithful at a fund-raising dinner. Earlier in the day, he and fellow Grit MPPs David Ramsay (Timiskaming- Cochrane) and Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North) hosted the first stop on a fact-finding tour about Ontario's transportation needs.
"One problem they have is low ridership. I would like to see some kind of proposals put forward by the community," McGuinty said.
Ramsay, who accompanied his leader and Gravelle to Sturgeon Falls, said it is time for the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) to "reinvent" the Northlander.
He suggested getting the private sector involved with the Northlander, perhaps with concepts such as casino cars and snowmobile cars.
"It needs some entrepreneurial, private-sector partnerships," Ramsay said.
ONTC chairman Dick Grant said recently the current six-day-a- week passenger train service has an operating deficit of about $4.2 million annually.
After public hearings into passenger rail service last fall, the ONTC gave the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines a choice of two recommendations - end the train service and replace it with buses; or continue the service on the existing level or reduced schedule, possibly three days a week.
The ONTC no longer wants to subsidize the service through its other operations and wants the province to decide the Northlander's fate.
As for his thoughts on the gasoline crisis, McGuinty recommended rescinding the $37 vehicle registration in Northern Ontario to compensate for the greater traveling distances.
"They (Ontario government) should call off that dog-and-pony show (Ontario oil and gasoline price hearings), which is serving no purpose other than to point a finger at the federal government. The fact is the province has jurisdiction over pricing," he said.
Premier Mike Harris has three choices, McGuinty said.
"He can regulate gas prices; he can cut gasoline taxes, which are about 15 cents a litre, or he can stop complaining. I wouldn't close the door on a reduction in the gasoline tax, understanding that at the same time there is also a demand for money in public transit."
McGuinty stopped short of supporting a gasoline tax cut, though.
"I'm just saying it's not something I would rule out. But I would stop pointing provincial guns at the federal government."
After hearing presentations in Timmins, McGuinty said one idea the government might look at is providing greater infrastructure and trails for the burgeoning snowmobile industry.
Ramsay came away from the Timmins meeting even more convinced either Highway 11 or 17 should be four-laned across Northern Ontario, he said.”

*

On Apr.3, 2008 there was this exchange in the Ontario legislature regarding the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission:

“Mr. John O'Toole: My question is to the Premier. You should know that the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission has not published an annual report for the entire term of your government, since 2003. In fact, the last statement was in 2003 and more recently-it is described as "the site is under construction." Yet, Premier, it is your government that ran on those very themes of openness and the principle of accountability.
Premier, in the interest of this accountability, what will your government do to ensure that the Ontario Northland Transportation System delivers at least one annual report in your term?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Transportation.

Hon. James J. Bradley: Thank you very much. I will share this with the Minister for Northern Development and Mines, who is responsible.
I tend to agree with the member that whenever we can it's valuable to have that kind of information available, not only to members of the Legislature but the general public. I know that when they have a lot of activities to undertake, sometimes the one that is not put on the front burner is the one of developing an annual report, and I think that is valuable information. So when I'm in my discussions with the minister, I will let him know, first of all, that you have asked the question in this House about this important matter and that it would be valuable to gather this information together as soon as possible. I know the member is, as all members of the House would be, concerned that reports be provided in a timely fashion. I'll do my very best to see that happens.

Mr. John O'Toole: Again, to the Premier, and the minister as well can respond if he wishes. It's obvious that that is a real surprise here, just by the Premier not having any notes on it at all and the Minister of Transportation going to refer it to a minister who's not here.
This is a serious, serious issue. In fact, it begs a larger question. Something you should know is that the sunshine list published yesterday has 33 employees from this very commission on the list making $100,000 or more. If this isn't about accountability-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): I would ask that the member stick to his initial question, which dealt with an annual report from Ontario Northland.

Mr. John O'Toole: Well, Ontario Northland has a report out there. The only one that's available, Mr. Speaker, is accounting that there are 33 employees on the $100,000 list, and yet that commission is funded by the province of Ontario. Premier, what are you going to do to have some openness and accountability in your government when you've got spending going through the roof and services being delayed?

Hon. James J. Bradley: I wasn't aware that the question was designed to embarrass members of the public service, as the ongoing attack of my friends in the opposite benches who continually-and I know this embarrasses the former Minister of Health, a good friend of mine from the Waterloo area, to hear that the party is swinging to the right one more time and is attacking the public service of this province by trying to embarrass them.
I would note that all members of the Legislature happen to be on the list to which he makes a reference. So I guess firing those stones around from those of us who are in glass houses can be difficult. But I want to tell the member this: The financial statements that are audited by the Auditor General are indeed on their website. I invite the member to go the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission website to look carefully at the audited statements at that time. They're available to the Auditor General, and they're available to the member.”

*

Eight years ago Liberal Dalton McGuinty was considering killing the Northlander train. (Why…wasn’t smog and GHG a problem, which would be solved by more – not fewer – trains, at whatever cost? That’s the story McGuinty and Bradley were peddling in Niagara about the GO train at the time!)

Now, the ONTC apparently has 33 employees in the sunshine list – and all Bradley can do is make some smarmy-assed, pointless remark about “the former Minister of Health, a good friend of mine from the Waterloo area” ? Wha…?!

What the FLICK, Jim?! Just answer the FLICKING question! Has ONTC become vastly profitable since McGuinty wanted it killed off? Has the McGuinty government 'revived' , 'increased ridership', and 'transformed' the railroad into a 'viable and attractive mode of transportation, or are they sheilding a 'dodo'?

Is Bradley convinced, as David Ramsey was then, that either Highway 11 or 17 should be four-laned across Northern Ontario?

It was also interesting to note Dalton McGuinty, in Howell’s 2000 story above, lecturing Premier Harris on the price of gas:

“The fact is the province has jurisdiction over pricing," he said.

Premier Mike Harris has three choices, McGuinty said.

"He can regulate gas prices; he can cut gasoline taxes, which are about 15 cents a litre, or he can stop complaining. I wouldn't close the door on a reduction in the gasoline tax, understanding that at the same time there is also a demand for money in public transit."

McGuinty stopped short of supporting a gasoline tax cut, though.

"I'm just saying it's not something I would rule out. But I would stop pointing provincial guns at the federal government."

McGuinty said back then that the premier "can regulate gas prices".

(Jim Bradley even introduced a private member’s bill to regulate gasoline prices, (see St. Catharines Standard story, Nov.19, 1999) where Bradley introduces his 'gas-price control' bill, because, according to Bradley, of the (then-Conservative) government's 'failure to take meaningful action on price gouging'!!)

So here we are - in Apr 2008 - and Bradley's Liberals have done sweet-FLICK-all themselves!! In the last FIVE years, what 'meaningful action' have the Liberals taken, Jim?!)

So let’s look at what Dalton McGuinty – now Premier – said in the Legislature (from Hansard) on Apr.7, 2008:

“Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I can understand where the official opposition is coming from. They would like Ontarians to believe that we somehow have control over the price of oil, but they don't believe that. They think that we influence the value of the dollar, but Ontarians don't believe that. They would like Ontarians to believe that somehow we influence the vigour of the US economy. Ontarians don't believe that either.”

Flicking two-faced Liberals! Who's leading who to believe what?? Who was once leading Ontarians to believe that the Premier somehow does have control over the price of gas?

Now, in 2008, McGuinty pretends he CAN’T regulate the price of oil – as he ever-so-righteously claimed was possible about gas in 2000!?!

McGuinty clearly said then that the “province has jurisdiction”!

Mcguinty clearly said then that the Ontario Premier – who is now…McGuinty… “can regulate gas prices”; “can cut gasoline taxes”!!

Or will Dalton defer to the minutiae-distinction that he was referring then to the price of gasoline, and not specifically the price of oil? (as if one can exist in a vaccuum without influencing the other, and which - in any case - McGuinty, as Premier, has done nothing about! This is similar to the vague 'is it a GO /bus/train/commuter/tourist/weekend/weekday' transit service that the Liberals keep threatening to bring to Niagara)

Was Dalton McGuinty lying about gas prices in March 2000, or is he lying about oil prices in the Legislature now?
*

Go Train to Niagara runs into Liberal fog

"Niagara on track for GO service?" was the headline question in the St. Catharines Standard, Apr.9, 2008, a question that the story couldn’t quite clearly answer!

St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley – now Ontario's Transportation Minister – said “There are some major works that would have to be done in Hamilton, I am told, that is to ensure you could bring a line to Niagara.”

Yet eight years ago, Bradley was blustering in opposition “It is time…to extend GO Transit to St. Catharines and Niagara Falls to provide commuters with an alternative to crammed, increasingly expensive and often unsafe highways, and to make it easier for tourists from the Greater Toronto Area to visit Niagara.” (Niagara Falls Review, May 3, 2000) ("Unsafe highways"?? Well, you have the obligation now, Mr. Bradley, to make certain they ARE safe.)

Bradley has been disingenuous regarding GO Transit for years. He makes vague promises that he’s in favour of it, but when he’s in power, does incrementally little about it. We had no GO service – neither rail, nor bus, in Niagara since he’s been in office. Now, ‘he’s been told’ that track work first has to be done at Hamilton for the train to get to Niagara – what…wasn’t he aware of that years ago when he was badgering for GO in opposition? Was Bradley ever specific as to the costs required to deliver GO train service to Niagara?

Suddenly, now that he’s in government, Bradley has conveniently discovered that track work needs to be done?! Why, then, hadn’t that track work been started in 2003, when the Liberals were elected, if Niagara-bound GO Transit was such a Bradley priority? Or, did Bradley even know what he was talking about when he was making his earlier promises? And one is never quite sure, when Bradley blusters about GO Transit, what he actually means – specifically, is he referring to train, or to bus, service? And then, is he referring to train/bus commuter, or train/bus tourist, service? Does he mean taking a bus to the train, for example, from Niagara to Hamilton? Or is he talking about bringing the train from Hamilton to Niagara? Announcing funding for building a series of parking lots isn't much of an answer.

If in 2000, Bradley was alluding to “GO Transit” as a bus service to Niagara – well, why hasn’t THAT been ALREADY done??! He’s had since 2003 to implement that!

Or is Bradley referring to the more complex rail transit being instituted into Niagara in the form of the GO train? That’s what Bradley intimated in his 2007 re-election campaign at the all-candidate’s debate held at the CAW hall – Bradley talked about the GO “TRAIN” – not bus. Shortly after the election, Bradley was anointed as Ontario’s transit czar, and suddenly, he was musing that GO might - someday - arrive in Niagara, in the form of a bus service!

Now the Standard reports that GO Transit might be arriving as a weekend train to Niagara –which sounds encouraging until you realize they were saying the same thing back in 2001!

The St. Catharines Standard story “Casino trains no big deal for Niagara” (Dec.29, 2001) reported that GO trains were available for use on Niagara runs because, obviously, they were sitting essentially idle on weekends. But the twist then was that this had something to do with the casino – as if the casino had to approve it.

The story read:

“If GO Transit starts running a weekend train service to Niagara Falls at the behest of Casino Niagara, the transportation problems of the region won't be solved, says Debbie Zimmerman.
But Niagara Region's chair said in an interview that won't stop Niagara from taking advantage of the service.
"It would certainly be a part of the whole transportation story we are working on," she said.
Zimmerman was responding to a Wednesday report by The Canadian Press that GO Transit has talked to Casino Niagara about running trains from Toronto to Niagara Falls on the weekend because of the availability of engines and cars from GO's weekday commuter fleet.
The report quoted Gary McNeil, managing director of GO Transit, as saying trains for the casino are a possibility but not likely until after the new $800-million casino opens in 2004.
The casino operators are interested, McNeil said, but can't go anywhere with the idea yet because the present casino is full to capacity every weekend.”

Well, it's now 2008 ... what’s the excuse going to be today – that the casino is now NOT “full to capacity”, so NOW the GO train service is okay?!

Can Jim Bradley explain this? Does bringing in GO train service, using existing tracks and stations, have more to do with the needs of the casinos, or more to do, as Bradley likes to say, with smog and overcrowded highways? If VIA can manage to rustle up a bike train to Niagara using existing tracks, why hasn’t Bradley’s Liberal government already implemented at least weekend GO train service years ago??

After all, McGuinty and his local Niagara Liberal MPP's have had since 2003 to reach a 'terms-of-use agreement' with track-owner CN Rail.

Jim Bradley used to bluster that "we have over 2,000 premature deaths" in Ontario caused by smog. "It costs us a billion dollars a year," claimed then-environment critic Bradley (CBC, Jun.22, 2003).

So, why then hasn't this 'billion dollar cost', as alleged by Bradley, been used to actually close Nanticoke, or to bring Go trains to Niagara? Because the Liberals have done nothing about Nanticoke, nor brought GO trains to Niagara, it must have already cost, over five years of Liberal rule (according to Jim Bradley's figures) at least 10, 000 lives and five billion dollars.

Do the Liberals have the foggiest idea?

No GO Transit for Niagara - again. Jim Bradley and his GO promises are MIA

I was watching Dan McLean on CH News at 6pm (Mar.25, 2008), when he interviewed Liberal Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, just after the Ontario Liberal's budget was announced. McLean specifically asked Duncan about GO Transit and whether there would be GO Train or even bus service to St. Catharines. Good ol' Dunc rubbed his nose a little bit, then spent the whole time of his answer not answering the question. Liberal Dwight Duncan did not specifically answer McLean's question. Duncan specifically avoided saying anything about GO Transit and St. Catharines. Liberal Dwight Duncan has made Liberal Transportation Minister Jim Bradley (who is from St. Catharines and who on more than one occasion promised to bring GO Trains to Niagara) in all practicality, a liar. But who cares: Jim won the election is all that matters. His lies are in hibernation, to be awakened just in time for the next election. It works like a charm.

Buildings Lost and Found (Part TWELVE) Streetcars for Niagara Falls

[click on photos to enlarge]
Above: Showing the close proximity of the two railroad bridges crossing the Niagara River gorge, as seen from Niagara Falls, Ont. Canada, looking east towards Niagara Falls, N.Y., U.S.A. to the left (north) is the former Grand Trunk railway bridge, now owned by CN Rail; the tracks are still in daily use, for freight and passenger traffic. The VIA rail station, where Amtrack trains also stop, is just on the other side of this bridge after entering Canada. On the deck below is where passenger vehicles can cross the border. The bridge on the right is the old Michigan Central railroad bridge, from which once began the Canadian portion of the great Michigan Central train route from New York to Detroit, and beyond. This route also had a station right after entering Canada from the bridge - the Michigan Central station was on the south-east corner of Queen St. and Erie Ave., right across Queen St. from where the old Rosberg's department store building still stands. The line ran along a residential parkway before stopping at another station, on the corner of Clifton Hill and Victoria Ave., right in the heart of the tourist district. On the corner where this station once stood is now the Ripley's attraction. This line continued through the city till it reached what was once called the Fallsview station, which is the area right below the famous Loretto abbey. This spot, to this day, is probably the best location to view Niagara Falls from a high natural setting. It's all surrounded by high-rise hotel towers now, but the view from the rail right-of-way is still unparalleled, and it was a big bonus in the days of train travel - the Michigan Central prominently advertised this panoramic view that passengers would see looking down over the Horseshoe Falls and Upper Niagara River. It was a company policy for these normally-express (was bullet-train used back then?!) trains stop for some twenty minutes for passengers to take in the view. This unique Fallsview station, also known as Inspiration Point, was for viewing only - no passengers could board or disembark here. The turn of the century (I mean from 1999 on!) brought changes to this route - a second casino was planned for Niagara Falls, which was partially constructed on the old Michigan track right-of-way. The tracks were torn out from the bridge all the way to the old Fallsview viewing station below Loretto abbey. The city celebrated the fact that the tracks were finally removed, as the common perception was that the frequent long and ponderously slow freight trains were an ungainly eyesore running smack dab at all hours through the tourist district. The whole railway line, just over 200 miles, was decommissioned and abandoned, from the border at the Niagara Falls bridge, through the farmlands of Southern Ontario, all the way to the border again at Windsor/Detroit. The tracks that Michigan Central built throughout its South Ontario run were well-engineered straight runs, where steam locomotives used to cannonball towards Detroit setting speed records!

Above: Top photo, Apr.18, 2008 - Bridge St., (west side) between Erie St. and Zimmerman Ave. The old Hotel Trennick (on Bridge and Erie) can be seen at the right of both photos. The dark stone wall beside the sidewalk seen in both photos, bottom left, is part of the Federal building on Bridge St. The building formerly called the Empire House still stands. These hotels served travellers utilizing the railroad station which was directly across the street.
Below: Apr.18, 2008 - looking along the east side of Erie Ave., between Queen St. (which is further off to the right) and Park St. (off to the left)
Note the old Michigan Central railroad tracks still in the pavement in the forground, which once ran across Queen St. and across Erie Ave., and made their way on an odd, winding north-west course right through a residential area along the north side of Park St. towards Bridge St. and Victoria Ave., where it croseed that intersection right on the diagonal, continuing in a north-westerly direction. Several houses on Park Lane, west of Crysler Ave., actually had the train tracks right on their front lawn.


The middle photo above shows that today's restaurant building had once housed Clark's Hardware store, seen with the yellow hoarding. (In 1932, this was the G.H. Clark and Co. hardware store, located at 624 Erie ave. In 1965, the proprietor was H. Clark Pattinson) The date of this middle colour photo above photo is possibly from the 1960's -70's. To the right of the restaurant today we see an empty lot, which was also seen vacant beside Clark's as well in the middle photo.
In the black-and-white photo above (date unknown, possibly 1950's) we see that there had been two buildings to the right of Clark's, whose sign is seen in both above shots. The closest building to Clark's has a sign painted on its window, but I can't make it out. Next to the right was a Rexall drugstore with the "cameras, lunches" and Coke "button" sign on it - this was a great location no doubt for the tourist trade, being within a block between two major railroad stations! The next building, at the far right, is the corner of today's Rosberg's department store, which has been boarded up for years, siting vacant since the late 1980's, on the north-east corner of Queen St. and Erie Ave. [update: the Rosbergs burned down in Oct. 2009] Above two photos from the Niagara Falls library archive.

Above: both photos were taken standing on River Rd., looking south towards the Michigan Central bridge. Top photo taken Apr.18, 2008. Second photo shows the exact same spot with streetcars, from Niagara Falls Library archive (ca.1920's?). The building seen at the far right was on the site of the old Elgin hotel.

Below: South side of Bridge St. between River Rd. (at left) and Cataract. Ave. (at right), Apr.16, 2008. Note the large wall in the upper-left background: that is a barbed-wire-topped security barrier built on top of the bridge across the now-unused railway tracks to prevent pedestrians from crossing the U.S. -Canada border.

Above: same location as previously above, with streetcar in foreground. Note the same house chimney towards right side in both photos. Note there is a train on the Michigan Central bridge, at the rear left. (This is where the border security wall would be built years later) The barber shop is still in same location today (the second door, with the stripes, from right corner) The NS&T ticket office was through the first door (seen open) from the corner. That part is now closed up (as seen previously above) where the white siding is just to the left of the red wall. The streetcars in Niagara Falls vanished just after WWII, in the late forties. B and W photos from the Niagara Falls Library. The taller building at the upper-left was on the site of the Elgin hotel; this building could have also been known after WWII as the "Campbell apartments".
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Below: Apr.7, 2008, Niagara Falls, Ont., by R. Bobak. Bridge St. looking south-east towards Cataract Ave. and River Rd. in the distance. The now-unused Michigan Central railway bridge, which spans the Niagara Gorge from the U.S. to Canada, can be seen in the background at the left. The white building with the red side houses Tony's Barber Shop (4122 Bridge St.) and Simon's Restaurant (4116 Bridge St.), both good places, respectively, for a cut and a coffee! Tony D'Annibale has barbered in his shop since 1952; it had been established in 1922, and Tony apprenticed under then-owner George Todoroff. Tony closed the barber shop in July 2013.
Next door to Tony's, Simon's says it's the oldest operating restaurant in Niagara - established 1884 - and had moved to this location at Bridge and River Rd. in the 1900's. [update: sad to hear that Simon's - run by Pat and Rosa Simon for some 50 years, and by Pat's father before that - was closed in early Dec.2012, around Dec.12. I'll miss them.]{Pat Simon died Jan.31, 2014, at the age of 83}
The restaurant and barber shop were located in the same building which was seen in the earlier photo. On the Cataract Ave. corner of the same building was once located the NS&T ticket office.
Above: same view, same spot as it was on Jun.3, 1948. The Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto (NS&T) streetcar tracks on Bridge St. are being removed. A train can be seen crossing the Michigan Central bridge in the distance.
The peaked house roof with the chimney in the mid-picture right-side can be seen in both photos (This had most recently been the Simon house, at 4538 Cataract Ave., right behind Simon's restaurant, seen more fully in green in the 2008 photo. In the 2008 view, the house is seen clearly because a building had been knocked down: the building at the far right in the 1948 photos was the Royal Inn hotel) The raised block stone wall seen from where both pictures were taken forms a grade separation, because just to the left is another railroad track (CN, still in daily use) on another bridge, the Whirlpool bridge, crossing the Niagara river to the States. These two bridges across the Niagara River are only several hundred feet apart. Right behind and to the left of the spot from where the above two pictures were taken is the Niagara Falls CN/VIA train station, still in daily use.
Also, note the building with the crenellated roofline at the centre-right of the above photo: this was the Renown Printing shop, located at 4144 Bridge St. The roofline is hidden under a bulkhead in the 2008 photo, the former print shop now being a restaurant.
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Below: View looking south along Erie Ave. from Bridge St. The former Hotel Trennick to the left. [click to enlarge photos] (From Niagara Falls Library, Kiwanis Collection 252046) The gap at the left, behind the Trennick, where the angled-sidewall-building is seen, is where a railroad track (the Mary Ann spur) once ran, crossing Erie Ave. (just where the streetcar is seen) Don't know this photo's date, and can't tell if the railroad tracks are actually still there at this time. There would have been a diamond crossing here with the streetcar and railway tracks.

Above: Same view on Mar.12, 2008. The bus terminal (at right) now occupies the entire block along Erie Ave. between Bridge St. and Park St. Note at the left, the rear of the hotel has had an extension compare to the earlier photo, and the building with the angled sidewall is gone.
[The red building seen in the center-left distance (lastly known as the Sui Sun Chinese restaurant, 4566-4568 Erie Ave.) was demolished on Nov.20, 2014. Earlier that summer, in late May to June 2014, a row of four neighbouring buildings south of the Sui Sun, stretching to the corner of Erie Ave. and Park St., were torn down. This was precipitated by the partial collapse of one of the buildings on May 10, 2014, at around 1:30 pm., which ultimately led to the row of four buildings being demolished, due to their interconnected construction; the Sui Sun was the fifth and final building in that row to be razed. The restaurant was in business and working on the day the collapse occurred. Now, the old Trennick hotel on the corner (still boarded up as of Dec.2014) is the sole building left on the east side of Erie Ave. on this block.]
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I envision Niagara Falls developing a streetcar line, centered at the Bridge St train/bus station, tying together a route from Great Wolf Lodge to Marineland. It would make day-trips for tourists or convention visitors who arrive by bus, VIA train, (or possibly GO Train?) easy and enjoyable.

Even visitors who arrive by car could leave their vehicles in one location and travel the main artery of Niagara Falls to almost every desired destination. The route could travel the main streets (ie Bridge, Victoria, Stanley) or it could partially use the former Michigan Central Palmer Ave. right of way.

Many U.S. cities have restored or built new streetcar lines in recent years, Portland being a notable example where a new streetcar line was the catalyst for an extremely successful urban redevelopment plan. Many transit solutions are based on ‘commuter’ models; however a streetcar line in Niagara Falls has the beneficial, practical characteristic that it can function as a ‘circulator’ for locals and the tourist-trade.

There is incredible opportunity and potential along the route for planned growth, infill, and revitalization nodes, especially within the downtown/Silvertown/railyard areas. That whole area has truly incredible potential for renewal.

Niagara Falls is no stranger to streetcars, having had them until just after WWII. Although replaced by buses, the streetcar’s underlying benefit, still valid today, is that it uses reliable electric technology and, in keeping with Niagara Falls’ tradition, renewable energy. Streetcars built today are available double-ended, meaning that they can be operated from either end, making loops unnecessary, and can be made wheelchair friendly.

Of course, there are pro and cons to be discussed. A feasibility study, shared by a business/government partnership, would quickly discover and quantify the upsides to move such a project forward. The Ontario Liberals have made funding announcements for transit, specifically mentioning streetcars. Seeing as Toronto is the only city in the province with streetcars, maybe it's time to belly-up to the bar and see what McGuinty can do for Niagara Falls.

It would be ideal, though, if such a project could occur with predominantly private funding, with as little government handout as possible; however, if a streetcar line would springboard the expected new tax-generating development, the costs would certainly turn out to be a worthy long-term capital investment for the city as well.
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See the next post in this series: Erie Ave. at the Niagara Falls Bus Terminal (Part THIRTEEN)
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See the first part of this series at Niagara Falls, Buildings Lost and Found, PART ONE
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Thanks for visiting Right In Niagara!
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