Monday, February 27, 2006
Great day for contracts
Finally, with barely a whimper, the McSquinty Liberal’s pathetic attempt to bully a company, who signed a contract in good faith, has ended.
Today the Ontario Court of Appeal denied the province leave to appeal the divisional court ruling regarding plate denial for outstanding 407 ETR debts.
Wonder how many millions this wild goose chase cost.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Soiled diapers
I have to agree with this guy...the child care program has all the signs of being a major financial disaster for the taxpayer.
It will however quickly become another soiled diaper courtesy of Canada’s Liberal Party.
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
More waste
Saw this story on the news last night.
The C$280 million Canada spent building a new town for a troubled band of northern natives was of little use because the move did nothing to cut rampant substance abuse and violence, according to secret government documents.
The guilt money the government pays to natives is killing them - again. Once the natives are handed the money, no strings, no-one knows where it goes and to what end.
Remember, it’s your money.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Overpaid cashiers
Finally, a letter in The Star telling the truth about the LCBO’s “profit”.
What timing. Three weeks after the finance minister’s announcement of a panel to review the sale of beverage alcohol in Ontario, comes the annual report of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, cheering its “record dividend” to the provincial treasury. Sadly, the Star swallows the board’s claim hook, line and sinker in its article. What was missing from the story was an explanation of what the “dividend” actually is — and it’s not profit.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Let them move in
Squatters at city hall. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of socialists.
Instead, he said, the city is planning on hiring two temporary outreach workers this fall to help the homeless living downtown find housing and services such as addiction counselling. The two-year program is expected to cost $280,000 and will be paid for by the provincial and federal governments.
Only 280k for 2 workers? I’d love to see the breakdown of the costs. Can we also start calling it taxpayer money? It’s the same little guy that gets soaked, no matter what level is paying for it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Mail him a clue
No outrage at the Red Star, so we’ll leave it to Worthington to show his disgust with one of the original Liberal troughsters.
If anyone knows the ropes, he does. So, for Ouellet to insist that $2 million in largely unaccountable travel and entertainment expenses over eight years is okay because his department rang up a profit is unacceptable, shameful and wrong.
Update: Ok, so that Star is on the case.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Line your pockets
I don’t have much time for monopolies, including Canada Post. Ouellet should be fired - now. He’s already been sitting at home collecting big bucks for months. Do you think we could have avoided the annual stamp increase/rip-off had someone else been watching the till?
Andre Ouellet should be fired outright as Canada Post president because he has failed to document or justify expense claims totalling more than $2 million, questionable hiring decisions, and unfair contracting practices, says the Conservative chair of the public accounts committee.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Growth industry
Good news, says the Star, employment is up, good jobs too. The leader in job production? Why, the always efficient, innovative government sector. More of the same, sheeple! You think taxes are high now? Just watch.
An increase in the number of people seeking work — itself a sign of increased optimism — more than offset new hires, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.3 per cent from 7.2 per cent in May. Service providers, led by 20,600 new jobs in retail trade, did most of the hiring in June. Governments added 31,500 positions, while private-sector employers cut their payrolls 6,700, though levels are still 164,600 higher than a year earlier.
A glaring weakness in yesterday’s employment report was a loss of 11,800 manufacturing jobs, offsetting a gain of 11,500 in May.
Karl Marx would be proud.
Government ineptitude
More proof that the government can’t do anything right - even monitor or regulate a decent government contract.
It’s going to cost at least $10 million to fix the problem — $3 million to correct the computer system and an additional $7 million to test it.
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
Da(m)n good pizza
Hard to believe MP Dan McTeague won by almost 2:1 in a 905 (well, mostly 905) riding. At least he eats well when away.
via Warren Kinsella
Update: Dan responds (as is only fair):
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Ministry of Irrelevance
Your tax dollars hard at work.
SOME CANADA Post outlets are doing a poor job of serving customers in French, according to the languages commissioner.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Penny saved is a penny lost
Government works the opposite of business. The difference? The word is profit. Profit is achieved by saving money - that is the incentive. Profit is a dirty word to socialists and their government friends, so they have no incentive to save money. Their incentive is perverse and inverse: the more they save, the less they get in next year’s budget, as Greg Weston reports.
This annual phenomenon is rooted in the belief that no bureaucrat worth his lunch break leaves a dime unspent, that a penny saved in this year’s budget is a penny lost from next year’s allocation.
This is, among many other things, the problem with government - and the main reason to privatize all services.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Minimization begins
You have to wonder how the Liberals are going to get out of the Adscam scandal: minimize the dollars might work.
The actual sum of missing money in the sponsorship scandal is closer to $15 million, not $100 million as widely believed, Treasury Board President Reg Alcock says.
Perhaps the longer they drag this thing out, the more time to get creative and spin this problem away.
Friday, April 9, 2004
But of course
Qu’elle surprise! The famous Groupaction stole more of our tax dollars, this time to flail the insane gun registry.
The federal Liberals quadrupled a 2000 ad contract to a whopping $2.1 million to try to sell the embattled gun registry to Canadians, just-released documents show. The lucrative contract, handed to Montreal ad firm Groupaction Marketing, was repeatedly amended upwards over a 10-month period—from $515,740 to $2.1-million.
It is to weep.
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
$1500/day
Nice work if you can get it.
Now he is getting about $350,000 a year for staying home.
Canadians need to be reminded about how much money the president of a now non-essential service is not earning now.
Monday, April 5, 2004
Rail subsidies
An interesting post on Transport blog about how clogged roads could easily be solved by free markets - if there was such a thing. So why the soft spot for rail? Nostalgia, perhaps?
The “state must fund rail because otherwise the roads would be clogged” fallacy
Thursday, April 1, 2004
Start digging
An interesting site from your government, with some detailed expense reports. This is what I call a good start when it comes to freedom of information.
:drudge:Travel and Hospitality Expenses Reports
More on flag flap
To top it off, the flags couldn’t even be flown.
:neale:But there’s one final twist. The flags from Lafleur didn’t meet government specifications. According to Braverman “there was no way of attaching (the flags) to anything. So they’d bring them into the shop and say, ‘I got this from Sheila Copps’ office, what do I do with it?’”
Sunday, March 28, 2004
One ton of s**t
Stupid Angry Canadian discusses the government’s latest waste of money.
Amazing. Hot on the heels of various revelations into the skill with which our government can waste money, we are being urged to fight climate change. I’m all for fighting climate change.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Prepare for bailout
NB (and thus Ontario) taxpayers , prepare for a hard landing. Another example of why there is no reason for the government to be in the power business.
Senior officials at NB Power knew that an ill-fated, $2-billion deal to buy cheap fuel from Venezuela was at risk, but kept that information from the provincial government, the Crown-owned utility’s new president testified Thursday.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Hell or high water?
Time to get serious, Mr. Martin, and let us see all the detailed dirt and find out what really happened. Otherwise, get out the white paint.
when Liberal MPs rejected an opposition attempt to obtain confidential information on former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano and his top aides.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Smoking Gun
Look’s like Martin’s hell or high water is here.
A 1994 memo made public earlier this month written by one of Martin’s political staff shows a clear link between Martin and some of these unsavory contracts.
via Coyne
Now that didn’t take long, did it? Time for Harper to turn up the heat.
Monday, March 15, 2004
Flag phonies
I was looking all over the cbc site for this story about the 1996 Flag Flap that was also engaged in recently revealed fraud.
The government’s 1996 plan to hand out one million free flags is another boondoggle involving phoney invoices, a Liberal friendly advertising agency and massive overspending, a former party president says.
There was the added problem that it nearly bankrupted every flag retailer, too.
Braverman said the flag giveaway nearly put Canadian flag retailers out of business. “I estimated that the revenue that we lost was well into the millions,” she said.
via PolSpy
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Lost West
An article in the NYT about how if Martin had a chance in the West before, he sure doesn’t now.
Nowhere is the anger more extreme than on the oil rigs in rural Alberta, where workers typically say their hard work is drained away by high taxes to satisfy Quebecers and welfare recipients.
Overtaxed Ontarians will hopefully come out of the closet on this one too, come election time.
:neale:
Computer scam?
Technology spending always seems to go awry - now it’s the provincial MPAC losing control. Is it because it’s government or because it’s computers, where no-one really understands the equipment or the scope of the projects?
An anonymous letter to Richards and MPAC’s board of directors warned of out-of-control spending in the IPS project, which began in 2002 with a budget of $3 million-to-$5 million and cost $7.3 million in 2003. The leaked letter alleges a bill of $20 million to-$25 million by the end of 2004.
Don’t get me started on MPAC. Why we pay muni taxes based on the value of our house is beyond me.