These are
not normal times. I live in a city that is gasping for breath, struggling to keep pumping and in reality, they're lining up in the US and Mexico for all the left over usable parts!
My city is Windsor, Ontario. A one trick pony, auto industry and all it's associated offshoots. My city is in the Province of Ontario, lead by a man, I once considered reasonably intelligent, Dalton McGuinty.
Here's the last couple of genius ideas that have seeped out of The Palace in Toronto. Lets start with the right hand of our conductor. Before you can sell you home in this province you have to have an energy audit... oh and it'll cost about $300.00.
Vladan Veljovic is president of Greensaver, one of Ontario's oldest energy auditing firms. "Home inspectors currently do between 25,000 and 30,000 energy audits a year across Ontario, Veljovic says. Under the new rules, that could to increase to about 200,000, with a corresponding jump in demand for inspectors." (thestar.com) 200,000 times $300.00, that's $60,000,000.00. (That's 60 million for those of you large number impaired, though there are far less of us now than there were prior to the numbers floating around since September 2008's financial meltdown.) Now they will need to " hire" or "certify new inspectors but there's not any detailed legislation covering the job description, so maybe those guys who keep knocking at my door trying to convince me that they are from my local power company while trying to get hold of my actual bill can get real jobs!
Certification requires taking a five-day course, according to Natural Resources Canada, followed by an exam and the supervised inspection of seven houses. The entire process takes about two months, depending on how quickly the home inspections can be scheduled.
http://oee.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/residential/business/participants-networks/r-2000/plan-evaluators.cfm?attr=12Now for the left hand... Harmonized sales tax. Wow, what a great idea! Apparently business will find the paper work easier. One report, maybe 4 times a year instead of GST 4 times a year and PST anywhere from monthly to once or twice a year, depending on the nature of your business. (Never mind that computer accounting software does it for you, that's non elemental to this discussion apparently.) Well bully for business! You who's trying to feed and clothe your kids. Now you can pay one convenient 13% tax on everything! Yep even the stuff that was PST exempt. Lucky you. Hey maybe it'll be as spectacular as the Quebec and PEI systems where they charge the PST on the GST in their great tax of harmony!
Can't see our conductor passing up that opportunity.
Mr. McGuinty, with all respect I cannot help but ask, have you lost your mind? Is this the time to saddle us with extra payments? Maybe you need to come on down to Windsor, lose a few filling driving over our rutted roads, oh, avoid Howard where the inside lane is often blocked by out of work factory folks staging a blockade to get what's rightfully theirs while Chrysler tries to get it's machinery out and ship it to the US! Oh, avoid the area around the Downtown Mission that's seeing a rise in numbers as the line up might delay your progress. Don't try to go down College because the bridge at Wellington is closed and well, our fight with the Feds over border crossings is holding it hostage no matter that those of us who live near or go to the University it find it a daily hardship. (I plan on doing something about this in the near future!)
All in all, I'm furious and frustrated. Why at this time would anyone, never mind one of the people we actually trusted to look out for our best interests, even consider such untimely and obviously ivory tower ideas. Come back to the real work Sir and open your eyes. I failed to mention previously we have two, yep two, Provincial Cabinet Ministers from our beleaguered town, haven't heard a peep out of either one of them about these issues?
