Short On Cash? No Wonder!

The CEO of Hydro One has been fired this week. The same week in which Ontario's auditor general released a report that revealed mass corruption within the ranks of Ontario's public service. Millions of dollars have gone missing from Ontario coffers, spent on items that cannot be accounted for. These items include lavish vacations to the Caribbean by Childrens' Aid workers, luxury cars, fine dining, and $44,000 spent by the Hydro One boss. The Ontario Government under Dalton McGuinty is always complaining to the feds and citizens that it's always strapped for cash. That's why our taxes are so high, according to the finance minister. Now we're starting to see where all this extra tax money is going. To keep civil servants living in the lap of luxury. They're off laughing all the way to the bank while we toil in our jobs, giving half of our hard earned pay to them. People should certainly be more outraged than they are. Unfortunately, Canadians only seem to get outraged when a certain doughnut shop chain raises the price of coffee by 10 cents. The government takes thousands off them, criminally wastes it, and they don't even bat an eyelash. It's no wonder the Americans view Canadians as being so dumb, its because we are.

So what's our solution? There's a couple of long and short term ones we could try. First off all, there needs to be tighter accounting and tighter budgets within government departments and crown corporations. Every single penny should have to be accounted for. The second is to begin laying off civil servants en mass. The bureaucracy has simply gotten too big. A great deal of civil servants are under worked and overpaid. Take Hydro One's boss who resigned but ran away with three million dollars. Three million dollars can get a surprising amount done. Several bridges could be repaired and hundreds of hospital beds could be opened.

Of course we cannot do either of these options. The problem? OPSU. The Ontario Public Service Union. They prevent layoffs and basically allow government workers to get away with anything. Even those who get caught don't get punished. As David Dingwall infamously said "I'm entitled to my entitlement". Same works for Ontario's public service, and Hydro One's boss is an excellent example. In my opinion, government workers should not be allowed to unionize. I feel that this is a reasonable limit on the rights to freedom of association. Under a democratic system, it essentially puts one massive, unelected organization in total control of government. It is a oligarchy that only supports the needs of the few in a system that is supposed to be the voice of the many in the interest of all. I doubt that government employees are would be "exploited" without the protection of their union. It's not like they do backbreaking labour in mines and factories. The more we do the eliminate unelected, self-interested oligarchies from our government, the better our democracy will be. More importantly, we will finally be able to freely check the abuses within the bureaucracy.