Analysis:                                              “We Owe, We Owe … It’s Off to Work We Go” By Peter Shurman Hope, it’s said, is never a strategy. So, Finance Minister Charles Sousa, without appearing to change course, is playing the long game…looking towards Election 2018. Budgets are, after all, political documents. The Wynne government, typically late with budgets, tabled its 2016 plan, "Jobs for Today and Tomorrow" with more than a month to spare. Sousa said there’s much to do and needs an early start. The “spin” begins now, a year away from the government’s self-imposed balanced budget deadline and two years before the next election. Somewhat inauspiciously, we’ve crossed the $300-billion debt line. Most of us don’t comprehend $300-billion, but the Wynne government insists it’s manageable. Economists tend to agree. Crucial is "Debt-to-GDP ratio"… debt as a percentage of our annual output of goods and services. It’s just under the 40% magic number I used to thunder about when squaring off with Mr. Sousa in the Legislature. Only Quebec and Newfoundland have higher ratios. But that percentage is notional. Check this out...USA: 105%; Japan: 245%; Italy: 133%; France: 97%. So 40% isn’t ‘good’ but it’s in range. Sousa promises improvement in 2017 on his path to a stated 27% objective. Cyclical debt is good … borrow and leverage by investing in assets that gain in value – like your mortgage loan. But Ontario has borrowed money to finance program spending, creating a structural deficit, one from which escape is more difficult - like depending on your Visa card for food shopping. hoping you might strike it rich. In this financial plan though, we see a tendency to move towards true investment for specific returns. An enlarged “re-announcement” of $160 billion over 12 years for infrastructure; $11 billion for school improvements; $12 billion for hospital construction: all needed. As for my referencing the 2018 election, the Liberals are acutely aware of the need to capture support at either end of the age spectrum and in rural areas. Could they attract youthful support better than with free post-secondary tuition for kids from lower income families? Senior Ontarians will appreciate increased home care, palliative care, and hospital funding but providing the expensive shingles vaccination at no cost is a real winner. Recipients of Ontario Disability and Ontario Works (welfare) benefits get an increase, as does funding for public housing. And rurally, where Liberals don’t match their urban voter success, the Minister is upping special infrastructure funding for smaller municipalities. It’s called covering your bases. The downside is that we pay huge interest, now nearing $12 billion annually and there’s no capital repayment, so it stays around. Think about the massive enhancements to health, education, and social services $12 billion could buy every year! Sousa’s 2015/16 budget was based on real GDP growth of 2.7%. He appears to have been on the high side but still delivered a reduced deficit. Now he’s aiming for a more realistic 2.2%. In his Fall Economic Statement, the Minister promised a $7.5-billion deficit instead of the forecast $8.5-billion but now says it’ll be $5.7-billion and next year $4.3-billion that he insists will be the final forecast deficit he’ll deliver. People don’t worry as much as politicians do over words like debt and deficit. They usually stare blankly and say “we have politicians…let them fix it, but don’t raise my taxes or cut my services”. This budget comes pretty close to those marching orders but here’s what it will mean for everyday Ontarians. Taxes will hold fairly steady other than minor “sin tax” hikes on cigarettes and wine. As for the charges governments impose without calling them “taxes”, the government had already announced a new “cap-and-trade” carbon market costing average families about $13 per month more with some balance to that through elimination of the “Drive Clean” program; dropping the Debt Reduction Charge on utility bills; and funding assistance for home energy conservation retrofits. Ontario will become part of the ‘Western Climate Initiative’ with Quebec and California, ostensibly to improve our environment. Liberal thinkers say it’s about what we breathe but some scientists claim the cost/benefit for Ontario ratepayers is minimal. Since we know the added costs on natural gas and fuel ($13 per month), Premier Wynne likely has a good idea of total net effect if, as she’s suggested, this new $1.9 billion revenue stream really goes to halt the rise of or even reduce electricity costs. Ontarians should monitor government accounting…when they begin selling credits next year, we need to see the ‘flow-through’ as opposed to finding it magically getting into general revenues in aid of the promised zero balance budget. You can’t pay bills with budget titles like “build Ontario up” or “secure our future” but you can educate more young people, and so this year’s “jobs” title is more relevant. The question is when we can really expect to turn Ontario around and, meanwhile, how to govern it so we all get the biggest bang for our bucks. Stay tuned. Budgets are indeed political documents but management and luck remain the key factors. Peter Shurman was the Ontario Progressive Conservative Finance Critic from 2011 to 2013. Posted date : February 26, 2016

I've Never Met Glenn Frey...Why am I So Sad?

Glenn Frey, if you didn't know, was (with Don Henley) a founding member of The Eagles. He died on January 18, 2016 and it hit those who knew of him and were Eagles fans hard because the news was unexpected and came suddenly. He was only 67 but had been ailing, it seems, and that was kept under wraps. Besides, it appears his friends and family expected him to recover.

When I read a tweet in the late afternoon that said he'd passed, I thought it might be another hoax - but I checked around and the news was everywhere. A wave of emotion washed over me and I shed tears. That has never happened before. Why now? I didn't know Glenn and, while I'd always wanted to attend an Eagles concert and expected to, I haven't...and now I never will. 

Glenn Frey left us within a short period of early 2016 that's been marked by the loss of a number of high profile people in the arts. David Bowie, another musician, but better known as a person who lived life his own unique way and taught us all that this was a good thing, died of cancer at 69. Rene Angelil, the man who discovered Celine Dion, bet everything on her, married her, and with her, created an entertainment phenomenon has also gone. So too the well known British actor of distinctive voice, Alan Rickman.

In each case, a body of work lives on. In each instance, I have no personal connection. But, I've paid attention...seen, heard, and known of these people for much or most of my adult life. With Glenn Frey, there was a lifetime relationship through his music. I posted on Facebook (and I have never done this) that his music had been a major part of the soundtrack of my life. Who, in this generation, cannot understand that? I once visited a place called Winslow Arizona...the first thing I did as I strolled through the centre of town was to say to people with me "I was standing on a corner, in Winslow Arizona...what a fine sight to see! There's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowed down to take a look at me". Right out of The Eagles song book! Even now, I am learning to play guitar (guitar for seniors??) and one of the pieces I practice and play is "Peaceful Easy Feeling".

So, losing Glenn Frey is losing a piece of my youth. And losing that is a reminder that the clock only runs one way. One friend of many years responded to my Facebook post by saying "I'm starting to get up there in years. I keep looking at the clock every time I see another of these death notices." Another began ominously too but ended with an upbeat thought."Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. John Donne had it right. So, we may as well get on with the business of living."

I asked someone I know if it was a silly thing to feel emotional about losing one of our contemporaries, even one so influential in our lives through his artistic ability. He said no, that as time wears on, he finds himself occasionally tearing up over a Hallmark card because that's what people do!

I hope this is not coming across as corny or maudlin...I do not mean it to be. This is simply the downside of generational change and the routine side of adjusting to the fact that none of us actually is immortal, regardless of the fact we felt we were not so very long ago.

I recently wrote a book, "Millennials: Boom'er Bust". It's about turning things over to a new group of people who, as surely as we once did, now outnumber their parents in the work force and in the population too. I did the research and so I know the numbers and I have faced the naked reality. But, as it turns out, that's not enough. You have to actually lose some of the icons of your time and watch beacons along your own road fade away before you truly realize that the train of life never stops and that you may just be staring at the caboose!

Oh Peter, some readers must be saying...were you going to take the gas pipe now or, at least, have a good dinner first? Fear not. I am planning to have many more good dinners and never go willingly. Still much too much to do! But that doesn't stop me from tipping my imaginary hat to contemporaries who have preceded me to the exit and those who yet will. The forces that shape us are both harsh and subtle. Harsh is the demanding professor or the strict parent or the business that failed, no matter how devoted and hard-working we may have been. Subtle are the wonderful places we've visited, friends we've made, movies and plays and (of course) music that have all contributed to our character...who we are and how we think.

To Glenn Frey, thank you...I do have that Peaceful, Easy Feeling and I try always to Take It Easy. I am well aware that Love Will Keep Us Alive. Your work, to which we've all been exposed for about 45 years, will ensure it and ensure that you live on with us.

Peter

Greenbelt Review Ignores Housing Supply/Demand Imbalance

An outstanding opportunity is being missed – and it’s right under Ontarians’ noses. It’s the only chance we have, for the next decade, to correct a tragic wrong being perpetrated upon thousands of our fellow citizens seeking better quality of life for their families. And it’s called the Greenbelt Plan Review.

About ten years ago, the government passed a series of laws governing land use, mostly in the GTA and Southern Ontario. The four Acts protect conservation, agricultural, recreational and eco-sensitive territories. A laudable goal when viewed in isolation, but add in the human component and you get a different result.

By 2025, 8-million people will call the GTA home and 13-million will live in the Greater Golden Horseshoe by 2040. As a result of the Greenbelt Plan and similar legislation they will continue to be forced into sandwich-like vertical cubes built either on Toronto’s former parking lots or inside “intensification-designated” residential lands falling under largely immutable Official Plans of the area’s many cities and towns. A burgeoning population has literally nowhere to go.

The result is insatiable demand, with little supply. Gone are the days of a family’s ‘backyard dream’…these days youngsters take their bicycles to the elevator, down 25 floors and over to the nearest city park to ride. How fair does that sound? It may be wonderful if you’re a Greenbelt deer or turtle, but for human beings, not so much.

Yet the current “traveling road show Greenbelt review” under former Toronto Mayor David Crombie appears to be little more than a sham.  It’s an opportunity for ultra-conservationists to rail against urban sprawl, with residential developers once again cast in the role of scapegoats. It also looks as if the panel’s conclusions are foregone with little to no change coming as a relief for those who would own residential property within 100 kilometers of downtown Toronto. Is this panel really consulting? Is it even listening?

U-Live, an acronym for “urban living in viable environments” (www.u-live.ca) is a non-profit movement that seeks to uphold the protections the Greenbelt Plan affords to conservation, recreation and agricultural areas, while addressing the serious housing supply and demand imbalance. U-Live supports expanding the Greenbelt protections to include all river valleys within 50 kilometers of the CN Tower and expand all four protective Acts outward by 50 kilometers, where feasible. At the same time, U-Live is urging the provincial government to afford municipalities more latitude to vary what may be constructed within designated settlement lands and to permit limited (but required) incursions into nearer Greenbelt territory in reviewing their individual Official Plans.

Ontario has an aging population and a growing newcomer base. We need senior accommodations; townhomes; single family semi-detached and detached homes, and we need all of these housing configurations to be affordable. If we fail to acknowledge this by acting now, the door slams for ten more years until the next review. If we don’t address this now, the already huge daily influx to the GTA from far-flung residential areas as distant as Cobourg, Gravenhurst, and St. Catharines will continue to grow, lessening family time and increasing the GHG content of our air.

Rarely a day goes by when we don’t read about the remarkable percentage increases in both GTA and Vancouver property values, to the exclusion of almost every other part of the country. Vancouver is easy to explain…no more land! You can’t build homes on the Pacific Ocean or in the Rockies, both being natural barriers. But the barriers in Ontario are arbitrary, imposed solely by policy and they affect us all.

These arbitrary policies need change. So whether you are a resident of the City of Toronto proper dealing with increasingly unmanageable intensification, a family looking for a reasonably priced home within reasonable distance to the GTA, a farmer who seeks to sell or to protect agricultural land, outline your concerns in a submission to the Greenbelt Review and send it to landuseplanningreview@ontario.ca.

Peter

Should Kathleen Wynne Tell Our Kids About Sex?

The answer to the question “should Kathleen Wynne tell our kids about sex” is, actually, that she shouldn’t but I am happy that her government is finally getting on with the revision of this important course of study. Sex is one of the driving forces of nature that exists in us all. In some homes, having ‘that conversation’ is not only routine…it is part of ongoing education. The kids in those homes are lucky…but they are few and far between.

There are those who say that, with sex, one-size-fits-all (no pun intended) is an inappropriate approach to dealing with our sexuality and that it’s for parents, not teachers, to confront. But most of us come from homes, regardless of background, where parents really didn’t…and still don’t. I have two adult children. My wife and I were both open people. But, despite the fact we always responded to questions, the more nuanced aspects of sexuality still got away from us. And that was pre-Internet! Today, nothing escapes kids who want information. “Porn” is the single most searched term on all of Google…does anyone really think that’s only about deprived adult males?

So, given the Internet provides very graphic and readily available material on every normal aspect and all aberrations of sexuality, what is a parent to do? And what is a school system to do? Both are faced with an unending stream of questions kids won’t actually ask and answers most of us didn’t even know were expected or which we’re ill-equipped to provide.

The new course of school study will deal with nomenclature; same-sex relationships; masturbation; oral sex…and it works its way into a lot of material that scares many adults as much as it might overwhelm youngsters, if learned in the wrong environments or in the wrong way. Those charged with imparting the detail in school settings will not have the loving relationship of parent-and-child to lean on, but they will have a professional ability to speak and listen along with an intuitive sense about how to deal with youthful responses.

When I was young, the boys’ gym teacher taught us what passed for sex education. He was as embarrassed standing up at the front of the room drawing a bad chalk picture of a penis on the blackboard as my father was trying to have the ‘birds-and-bees’ conversation with me! My buddies and I laughed at both efforts, well-intentioned as they were. And I tell this story by way of pointing out that our “sixties” parents behaved in precisely the same way as millennial parents are now. “Don’t you teach my kid about that…it’s my job”. That was the standard line…and I am pretty sure I heard several parents use those very words on last evening’s TV news. By the way, parents may elect to opt their kids out…mine couldn’t.

I believe that what most parents worry about most is bad relationships and abnormal sexual habit patterns developing that are NOT part of an education they can offer their kids. ‘Sexting’…for example, sending digital photos out over the Internet has really caused pain, even death. A young girl is talked into taking a naked “selfie” and sending it to a boyfriend sincerely believing he’s the only person who’ll ever see it…when the boy fires it off to the world where it resides in cyberspace forever, the girl is mortified…and we’ve all read the horror stories of what can ensue…has ensued. Honestly, what parent can teach kids about that?? It didn’t exist when they were young! But the schools are addressing it.

Some parents (and this can be culturally based) don’t want teachers discussing homosexuality. Yet, most kids attend classes where a fellow student has two moms or two dads. This is a first generation phenomenon. How do parents reasonably address this legally supported orientation? They can’t.

Will our schools (supported by our government) do a perfect job of properly addressing what our kids need to know? I doubt it. They don’t even teach decent math anymore. But, as with everything, we need a starting point. I do not often applaud government…certainly not this government, one that has its hands full with all manner of difficulty. But I do applaud it for trying to bring an aspect of education into line with the times.

If parents and morally inhibited leaders want to preach otherwise, it’s a free society. Go and demonstrate or call your MPP. Meanwhile, let’s get on with something that’s long overdue.

Peter

Scarborough-by-the-Sea Sounds Good Right Now!

Is it just because I’ve become ‘an older version of me’ that I believe the weather in this part of Canada has been changing…and not for the better? No one of sound mind will debate climate change anymore. But I’m not sure how many still want to discuss global warming. I grew up sixty years ago in a Montreal I remember as a definitive study in Canadian winter. A well known Quebec "anthem" is Gilles Vigneault's "Mon pays, ce nest pas un pays, c'est l'hiver" in which the title line translates as "my country is not a country...it's winter". My (then) young boy’s body ran and played amid walls of snow; I built snow forts, tobogganed, expected about six months of winter, and really had no issue with any of it. There were blizzards and there were cold days. But that was then and this is now…and that's before even considering that Montreal is at least 200 kilometers north of the latitude of Southern Ontario. We have been experiencing sustained, biting cold and literally tons of fresh snow. Routine temperatures are in the negative range and as low as -20c. In my childhood, we hadn’t yet “discovered” the Celsius scale and -20c. is close to zero when measured in Fahrenheit! Are you kidding me? Yes, I've experienced that previously but not for a very long time, never sustained, and not in Southern Ontario.

So, I give up. I yield. Recently, I discovered that a round trip to Florida doesn’t have to originate up north. Someone told me that I could actually book a round trip for the same price, on the same planes but they originate in Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach and then return there! Who knew? That means I could work from the sunny south, use all the electronic connectivity I have here at home quite seamlessly, and, if a client needed to see me, I could avail myself of one of those south-north-south flights I found out about! Then, I could stay up here and freeze for only two days and spend the other 28 days of the month wearing shorts. Beats the other way around, don’t you think? Consider this my pledge to make that change next winter…no, I’m not kidding!

Life today makes so many things possible. Who knew that the time-wasting cat-fights we all have on Twitter and Facebook could be conducted from Boston’s-By-the-Beach in Delray? And nobody up here would be the wiser! In a recent blog post, I noted that the Americans are a canny lot because they have an amazing ability to see the future. For example, when the Brits were fighting the rebel Yanks a few hundred years ago and finally decided to settle things, the continent was divided. Canada got everything north of the 49^th parallel. As we say in mixed company…B.F.D. 90% of Canucks live within 100 kilometers of the US border for a reason! If those dumb ass Brit negotiators had said “sorry, we want a vertical division”, we could have owned everything from the eastern Arctic to the Florida Keys. The Americans could have had everything from Alaska south to Mexico. Who needs Vancouver or Seattle or California anyway? The midpoint could have been, say, Death Valley! More succinctly, a friend tweeted recently that we should re-open talks with the Turks & Caicos – those islands bluster every couple of years seeking to become the next Canadian province. Great idea. Then we could spend our winter vacations in the sun and not cross a border or pay a premium for the local currency!

Consider this blog post my personal attempt to make light of a bitter cold day in the dead of winter, knowing, as I write this, that we are a scant eight weeks away from rebirth and renewal in what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful displays of new life in the world…Canadian spring. The squirrels come out and dig up my lawn; they denude my oak tree for the acorns; the raccoons defecate over my entire property (but fear not…for I have fox urine a-plenty to spread around)…racoons smell the fox-pee and then, imagining it is meant to inspire dread, makes them look at me through their facial masks quizzically. Grubs wreck my lawn. Leaves on the trees degrade the TV signals. Maple tags clog the pool pump. I should probably stop right there. I still love spring and summer.

Bottom line…I’ve always viewed Florida as a stop gap. I know people there. I have family there. They have restaurants serving good food (if you look for them) and great shopping. There are lots of highways because they’re cheap to build…construction companies don’t have to consider anything called a “frost line”. Then again, I myself have, more than once, labeled Florida as “Scarborough with Palm Trees”. I’ve weighed the pros and cons. Scarborough isn’t so bad and I really like palm trees. You can read my blog posts next year but they’ll be generated with an underlying happier mood, written (as they will be) from Boca Raton.

Peter

Beer, Vaccinations, Kathleen Wynne and Ontario

Two divergent and unrelated news events got me going today. Beer sales in corner stores and vaccinating our kids. How different does it get? Well, I am known as a conservative thinker and a former Member of Provincial Parliament elected under the Progressive Conservative banner. Truth be told, I am more libertarian than I am conservative. So, in a perfect world, I like the concept of “live and let live”. But, it’s not a perfect world. So, conservatism will suffice…and my interpretation of it is that laws are a set of rules that protect us from each other…period. People often ask me about laws enacted to protect us from ourselves…what we can eat or drink or whether we should be allowed to expose ourselves to the ultraviolet light of a tanning bed. My reaction is unequivocal...leave me alone, I’m an adult!

This began to gnaw at me when media reports emerged saying that the Premier of Ontario had announced that we'd see no beer sold in corner stores. She did say the Beer Store monopoly would be changing this Spring but she was absolute in her “no convenience stores” position. Well, Premier Wynne, just who do you think you are? This province elected a majority Liberal government of which you are leader, therefore Premier. We did not crown you Queen nor pump white smoke up a chimney to anoint you the first female Pope. So, you govern...but you don't rule.

Basically, every jurisdiction in North America has beer available in privately owned chain stores. These are often supermarkets but they could, alternatively or in addition, be corner convenience stores. This acknowledges several things…consumer demand, lengthier hours of availability, non-monopolistic competition in price and product, and (importantly) the fact that we are adult decision-makers, fully capable of electing to buy and consume beer when and where we like…or not. No one likes a dictatorial government, notably where the rights being curtailed involve government trying to protect us from ourselves. Please stop this silly nonsense, Premier Wynne, and just give Ontarians what every other state and province has. Quit trying to be 13,000,000 peoples’ mom!!

Perhaps you should focus on another news story of the day and begin doing your job properly...protecting us from each other. As an MPP, I recall, all too often, misguided idiots passing for parents presenting themselves at my office to have documents notarized which would prevent their children from receiving any vaccinations. They’d say they didn’t believe in injecting “monkey pus” into their kids’ bloodstreams. I wanted to jump across my desk and slap them…but, alas, I had to smile and sign.

We are seeing a resurgence of measles in various places around North America, now including Ontario. This tells us several things. a) These controlled diseases are not anymore controlled now than they ever were, absent preventive vaccination; b) There are many people like those parents still out there; c) Communicable diseases can spread rapidly. So, here are some laws we actually need...and, Premier Wynne, it's your job to pass them!

Parents who deny their children a vaccine proven to prevent a disease are criminals and do not deserve to be parents. Premier Wynne, enact a law forcing them to stand aside and shut up as their children are properly vaccinated against all diseases for which we have proven preventives. That would be good legislation for Ontario. Instead, you appear to prefer screwing around with where we can buy beer and when. Hey...leave that to us…we are as adult as you are and, it would seem, many of us are a good deal brighter.

You have clear priorities...fix your flagging economy. Create a solid economic development plan. Develop a parallel jobs plan. Get out of peoples’ lives and out of our faces except when it comes to protecting us from each other…or, in this case, protecting the most precious and vulnerable among us, young children, from the stupidity and irresponsibility of parents who refuse to vaccinate.

Peter