International affairs are not normally the purview of a community newspaper, but it’s impossible, even from our sheltered corner of the world, to ignore the globe-shaking impacts of the horrific Russian attack underway in Ukraine.
Canadians share both outrage and sadness that a conflict over nothing more than a madman’s whim can so shatter the lives of millions of innocent people. We also share a sense of awe and solidarity with the brave residents of Ukraine who are fighting, both citizens and soldiers, with literally everything they have to maintain their freedom.
The international community is responding with historically powerful sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia and also sending arms and aid in various forms.
This past weekend I covered a small demonstration in Fergus, organized by two sisters with roots in Ukraine and relatives in the besieged country.
One comment – “It’s scary because if we don’t stop him there, we’re going to be stopping him here” – sticks with me.
The world is being called upon to stand up to true tyranny here. Hopefully the resolve will be found.
Pennies for your vote?
Meanwhile, here in Ontario, it’s become a sad truth of our provincial politics that the election cycle never really ends and it appears our current government has moved into full campaign mode for a vote still three months away.
Which means, unfortunately for a province trying finding its way forward from a (hopefully) waning pandemic and facing serious civil unrest from those looking to hasten the process, all pretense at governing has ended to be replaced exclusively by politicking.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and company recently went so far as to alter a law they themselves implemented, in order to delay passage of the provincial budget until April 30, just over a month from the June 2 election. Given that timeline, it’s hard to imagine it won’t include some pretty blatant attempts to buy votes.
While nothing technically prevents Ford from physically walking around handing out cash from his own wallet to prospective voters, as he did during a 2013 Toronto city council re-election bid, as premier of an entire province he apparently finds it more cost effective to use your money to buy your vote. Hence the 2022 version of “Buck a Beer”: the scrapping of licence plate renewal fees.
Like one dollar beer, the licence initiative is a policy no one asked for.
Beyond perhaps offering a sarcastic “Happy birthday” to the others waiting in line at the Service Ontario outlet for their annual renewal, most Ontarians aren’t seriously complaining about the nominal $120 fee (33 cents per day) to register their vehicle for use on Ontario’s extensive and expensive road system. It’s a well-focused user fee that impacts only those who own vehicles.
This is unlike an earlier initiative of this same government to scrap the e-test process, which pretty much everyone did hate. The e-test, while well-intentioned (climate change and all), drew ire for numerous reasons, including that it burdened those just trying to keep a heap on the road to get to work far more than those who could afford a new or newish vehicle for business and pleasure use. Once the process ceased to be about tailgate emissions, motorists found themselves spending large sums to replace a series of pricey sensors, which often seemed primarily to be monitoring the function of other sensors, in a desperate effort to get their engine light out before their sticker expired. And, there was no guarantee they were even making a positive environmental impact.
Unlike beer for a buck, ditching the licence fee is a policy Ford can deliver on, as it’s entirely within government control.
But it comes at a cost, $1 billion annually in lost revenue to be exact. And that’s while keeping intact the infrastructure (and costs) to renew licence plates annually because that will still be required.
This is a lot of money to just give up for a government which cries poor at every opportunity. Need more money to fund health care, education, social services? No can do, don’t have the cash! Need funds to fight the pandemic? The feds must pay up, say Ford et al.
Yet they can give up a billion a year, plus initially more than that to make the giveaway retroactive for two years, in order to put literally a few pennies per day in the pockets of some potential voters.
Like the buck a beer bunk they spewed last time around, the policy is aimed at voters this government thinks are ill-informed enough to succumb to an insultingly-low bribe offer.
But it will also appeal to the anti-government types who expect to pay nothing in taxes, but will also howl in protest every time they hit a pothole on an underfunded road.
For the record
Considerable fuss was made online in response to a Feb. 21 social media post referencing the number of spectators on hand to watch the Perth-Wellington Freedom Convoy pass through downtown Palmerston. Some took issue with the estimated count of “about 20 onlookers in the downtown area as it passed through town.”
The photos which ran with the both the post and an article in last week’s paper focused on vehicles in the convoy. Perhaps there would have been less griping on the count, which was only an estimate of those gathered in a two-block area, had we run the photo below? Or perhaps not.
Reality these days is apparently debatable.
