What Ontarions appear to be voting for. Incompetence.

There's a list of lies that Dalton McGuinty has committed in recent years. Worse for me was his manisfesto claim of no new taxes, then literally on the first day in power instigating a tax of more than $800 per person who worked for a living. However, he called it something other than a tax even though it is deducted from my pay and given to the provincial government. There's a list of incompetence ranging from eHealth ($1Billion wasted), to reversal of eco tax, to reversal on power stations and his use of racism in the last campaign. 

All of this was not technically illegal or wrong, other than lying to gullible voters and appealing to base instincts. Yet, I have never been able to figure out how Dalton McGuinty’s provincial Liberal government saw fit to pay out $25 Million of Ontario tax-payers’ money directly to the pockets of tax collectors who remained in their jobs, essentially performing the same duties with the same benefits whilst collecting HST instead of GST.

What happened to the concept of “successor employer liabilities”? Severance payments are for people who lose their jobs. In this case, no one was terminated and the government employees did not lose their accrued benefits. When a company buys another one, a purchaser is responsible for the employees’ rights, seniority and benefits going forward. In this case, the new federal employer is on the hook for future liabilities arising only if they terminate their "new" employees, yet there was no current cost being transferred. In any event, Ontario transfer payments would compensate the rest of Canada should the federal government eventually decide to get rid of tax collectors (fat chance!)

Obviously, we all love tax collectors and want to reward them with gratuitous payments for their good work. However, financially and legally, this act by McGuinty’s crew made no sense.