Review of CBC Article: Ontario deficit could reach $24.7billion: Duncan

I was too young to vote during the previous Ontario provincial election in 2007. My 18th birthday was not until December and the election was a couple of months prior to it. So, I had to watch on the sidelines to see who my fellow Ontarians would elect to govern the province. Now that I can vote, I try to evaluate parties based on their campaign platforms before I decide who should be elected. I also prefer to examine how they stood on certain issues, such as abortion. However, clearly my own values and seeing whether the politicians being elected shared my values proved to be inconsequential because the liberal majority government elected did nothing but lead Ontario into becoming poorer than my home province, Prince Edward Island.

How ironic that everybody was pleased that Dalton McGuinty and his liberal party were elected in a second back-to-back majority. It caused the former Conservative leader to be kicked to the curb and gave more seats to the NDP. The majority of Ontarians all thought Ontario was in good hands. Half-way through the party’s leadership, people are now second guessing the choice they made on their ballots and wondering if they really want to wait two more years to get the chance to make him join the former Conservative leader in the graveyard of bad provincial party leaders who should never have been elected in the first place.

The CBC article I have chosen to analyze states that Ontario’s finance minister, Dwight Duncan announced a $24.7billion deficit for the end of this fiscal year. “Declining corporate tax revenues and increasing demand for public services have dragged down the government’s bottom line, Duncan said.” Although I was furious to read this, it came as no surprise. After all, I did just find out a couple of weeks prior to this that McGuinty’s government blew $1billion on useless things like muffins and vacations. So, that is $1billion that the province does not have spent on useless, irrelevant stuff because it was already on a deficit prior to this.

CBC news did well to remain neutral in this article and allowed all of the parties screen time to articulate their response. Naturally, the only ones optimistic about this are the Liberals and their supporters. Everyone else, including people who voted Liberal in 2007, are as furious as me and want them ousted. Progressive Conservative leader, Tim Hudak gave his opinion that “Canada’s worst government is now running Canada’s worst deficit.” Well, it must be the worst because most governments would wait until the last two years of their term before going on spending sprees. This government still has two years to go. Two years!!!!! Can I vote him out of office now?

Unfortunately a full term for a majority government is 4 years. Therefore, McGuinty has two years to clean up his act or send Ontario further into debt and spend billions of more dollars on useless, irrelevant stuff. The only way Ontarians can vote him out of office earlier is if he were to call an election now or resign his post. I doubt the former will happen because he would be voted out of office with his party tagging along for sure. The only way I could see this guy stepping down is if a third scandal is just getting ready to be unwrapped. Then the opposition parties, everybody else in Ontario and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario would frown upon him and give so many evil eyes that he would just resign and walk away from the provincial legislature and never look at politics again. So, the Christians attending Emmanuel Bible College will just have to wait and see what our “glorious” provincial government will do next.

Action Points:
1.Perhaps governments are behaving so badly because Christians don’t care about politics and then don’t pray for their leaders? Pray that Dalton McGuinty and the liberals make wiser financial choices in the future so that Ontario can have brighter years financially.
2.Start watching the news. CBC has a new political show called Power and Politics which is on CBC News Net (formerly CBC News world)
3.Visit http://4mycanada.ca and see what other what other areas of politics need prayer
4.Watch the At Issue Panel and the Rex Murphy report every Thursday night on The National on CBC. It is the political views panellist and offers impressive insight on what is happening in federal politics.
5.Go to http://www.cbc.ca/politics/ for national and international political information.
6.Pray, pray, pray!!!!!! Prayer is powerful. God can change the way politics is done in Canada and could make our political parties more reliable. So pray for our municipal, provincial, and federal governments so that we can live peaceful and godly lives (Romans).

References
CBC News. (2009, October 22). Ontario deficit $24.7B: Duncan. CBC News-Toronto. Retrieved October 22, 2009, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/22/toronto-fiscal-report-091022.html

Introduction
The last month and a half has seen a lot of events occurring on Parliament Hill that will shape the future of Canadian politics. As Christians, it is important that we pay attention to both because God calls us to be in the world but not of the world and to be a light of the world. Therefore, we need to know what it is happening in it and that includes politics on the municipal, provincial, federal, and even the world stage. However the world and Canada are spinning too fast to discuss what is occurring in both, so federal Canadian politics will be the focus for this article.

Summary of September/October
Canadians inside and outside of politics were worried at the beginning of the fall on whether or not we would be going back to the polls a year after we put our politicians in. This Parliament was elected last year (it was the first time I had ever voted) and it has seen its fair share of political shifting and instability from the previous winter and the coalition crisis.
This fall, the Liberals made the move to refuse to support the minority government anymore and would vote it down at the next and every possible opportunity. Two opportunities have passed and it was the NDP that chose, after all of these months of refusing to go along with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, to save Canadians from another election. Now, this support by the NDP was solely based on seeing that the changes for Employment Insurance passed in the House of Commons, which was something that the NDP had been seeking for years. Therefore, the NDP support is very unstable and could be revoked if the Conservatives do anything stupid.
This is something the Conservatives might do if the Harper government continues to openly support Harmonized Sales Tax (HST). HST combines GST and PST into one tax and is already being used in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland; British Columbia and Ontario wish to bring it into provincial law as well. This would mean that for everything we buy would include PST and GST. For some things only require GST is required, for other things only PST is required, and for some foods tax is not added on at all; many critics of HST say that it will mean Ontarians pay more money for many things.

This is being put condemned by the NDP recently in Parliament because it will mean that Canadians will have to spend more money- money that many of them do not have and they are against average Canadians having to pay more than they need to. Parliament going to vote on whether or not to aid the other provinces in switching to harmonized sales tax and it will be also be a confidence motion. So is the Conservative going to cooperate with the NDP and rethink HST or will this bring Canadians back to the polls?

Opinion
I think that the threat for an election was more of a bluff by the Liberals than something that they really want. Canadians do not want an election and all the parties are aware of this. Ignatieff’s purpose was to remove the responsibility for supporting from himself and the Liberal party. He was also putting the ball in the NDP’s court because if an election were to occur he would need the support from another party. Last winter the NDP would have gladly given their support. However, times have changed and Jack Layton has clearly realized that he needs to be willing to bend a little in a minority Parliament or else no one will really care for the NDP anymore. One year after Canadians went to the polls is not the time for an election, especially when Canada is coming out of an economic recession and an election would only hurt the nation’s progress. Thankfully, the NDP realizes this and will not bring Canadians to the polls just so they can spend more money and not accomplish very much unless it generates a Conservative majority.

Stephen Harper has some responsibility too. He needs to be wise about how he runs the government, and it is not by trying to deliberately, but indirectly force an election. What will that gain his party, except perhaps another minority government or a minority government where the Conservatives are a part of the opposition? However, if Stephen Harper goes along with the HST then the NDP would most likely refuse to support the government any longer and the Conservative Party may greatly cripple this time because HST is something that no one in the country really wants and they will not vote for a party that wants to support it. Unless of course, Ignatieff keeps barking up the “I will always vote down the government” tree and people just get so sick of the Liberals and their political games. Then, well, Harper may be wise in getting the government to vote them down because the Liberals will be gift-wrapping the majority for them.

Action Points
-Pray for our government. This is something that the Bible calls us to do and it would be wise for us to obey it.
-If there is an election this year, you should find out who in EBC’s riding supports Christian values so that maybe it will be a Christian majority instead of a mixed minority.

-Andrena LeBlanc

I have been around EBC long enough to know that this campus can be a very lonely place. I know there are always people around and lots of people to talk to, but sometimes a loneliness that transcends social contact has a way of creeping into our lives. No disrespect to the community here, the people are wonderful, the teachers care about us and I have found wonderful friendships. But still, I remember many times I walked through the cluster of maple trees and just felt utterly alone.

If anyone feels this way, please take a suggestion: learn to refresh yourself in the Lord. This may involve getting on your face before God. It might mean taking advantage of the student counseling services (that are free for students, by the way). It might mean taking a personal retreat between you and God. It might mean confiding in a friend and being transparent. Whatever it means, it will involve pressing through and holding onto the truth that God is still for you, he loves you and will not give up on you. I know the refining fires of life are not fun in any respect, but I am certainly glad we have a Saviour who is with us in it all. With Christ there will always be better days ahead, if not in this life then in eternity. Our hope as Christians lives on.

I love this community.

-Tim Chester