I Can't be bought, Assholes! Part 1

So it has started, each of the political hopefuls is armed and ready with their massive bags of loot in an attempt to bribe me into giving them one more chance to screw me and any chance of our being ready for the challenges of fiscal instability, global warming and peak oil.

Let's start with Dalton:

Planting 50 million trees is pretty impressive but does not make up for the broken promises on shutting coal fired plants and moves towards more nuclear plants when the ones we have are expensive, dangerous(leaking tritium) and unreliable since their retrofits.
40 Billion dollars would build a hell of a lot of wind turbines, provide subsidise for home efficiency retrofits, and fund transit.

17.5 Billion in new transit, that's not bad, good for the environment, divert people from their cars and it will better prepare us for peak oil. Of course this is not today's spending it's an election promise which may or not be implemented by a Fiberal Government and could be left to the last year of a mandate even if it was funded. This needed to be in the last budget not dangled as a future plan.

This new found concern for the environment is nullified by policies like new HOV lanes for the QEW. Now if these lanes were to replace existing ones it would encourage car pooling but no, these are additional lanes which will speed up commuting for HOV users AND those alone in their cars. For HOV lanes to work we need to replace lanes not increase lanes. Make the lives of those foolish enough to drive from Burlington to Toronto alone each day hell! This plan rewards everyone and is not incentive enough to encourage car pooling or transit use in the numbers required to make a difference.

A new holiday. Like everyone I like time off but considering Ontario's economy is going to suffer in the wake of higher dollars, U.S. economic downturn and our overall uncompetitiveness on the world stage how the hell can you justify more paid days off which will further raise production costs and lower efficiency. When manufacturers are complaining they are not competitive you'd think you would consult them before adding higher costs to their bottom line. This is the most shallow self serving promise so far! Perhaps it should be Cynic day not family day.

Let's not forget the impending U.S recession/depression and chance of some form of fiscal crisis in the banking industry. I hope parties don't make bold promises based on projected revenue growth since I expect growth to vanish in the next 12 months.

I'm sure we can count on more bribes from Dalton but so far he's not found my price. Future critiques will depend who pisses me off next.

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