Want My Vote? 10 Things that Need to Change

We're coming up to another Ontario election and boy, we're in quite a mess. McGuinty hasn't exactly been honest with the public and has made many questionable decisions. So, here's a list of 10 realistic things that need to be done to fix Ontario.

1. Eliminate the Health Tax: The controversial "health care premium" enacted by McGuinty after promising not to raise taxes. Ontarians on average are paying $900 more in tax to the province while the health system has seen little improvement. Scrap it.

2. Eliminate the City of Toronto Act: This act gave Toronto special privleges and taxing powers. So far, Toronto's socialist city council has been abusing it and threatens to tax the city into the ground. Does Toronto really need all that power? It's also highly unfair to other communities that end up paying the bulk of the cash used to fund the cities projects.

3. Return Municipal Terms to 3 Years: McGuinty, in order to suck up to David Miller, made municipal council terms four years instead of three. Four years is far too long a term for those positions in my opinion and makes councils even less accountable.

4. Keep Coal Plants Open: Coal fired generating stations should remain in operating indefinitely. Clean coal technology should be put into place to cut smog if that's such a big concern. McGuinty's concept of forced conservation needs to stop. Smart meters should also be eliminated. Lakeview power plant in Mississauga also needs to be reopened and we need more nuclear plants to keep up with demand caused by excess development.

5. Improve Transit Outside of Toronto: Every time McGuinty announces a new transit plan, it only benefits Toronto while ignoring other growing communities. GO service on the Milton line (which services two major cities) for example needs to be more regular. It's also time to plan for the future. Diesel GO trains should be phased out in favour of high speed electric trains. This type of train which is used extensively in the United States and Europe and can travel up to three times as fast as the current diesel models; and they build them in Canada! There's a lot of talk but we need to stop being afraid to invest in infrastructure.

6. Reduce Fees for Higher Education: It has been recently found that certain user fees colleges and universities have been charging are illegal. All incidental fees that do not directly fund education (ones that fund so called "campus life") should be either optional or eliminated all together.

7. Quit Dumbing Down Education: School is a place to learn, not a place to pad standardized exam results to make Ontario students look better than they are. We need to make schools more student friendly, unlike what has happened in recent years that's made them teacher-centric again. Teachers are there to do a job and they should be fired if they cannot do it. Let their union whine. We're only selling short our kid's futures if we let them have their way. We also need to make school boards more fiscally accountable.

8. Slow GTA Development: GTA growth is happening at an out of control pace due to corrupt municipal councils. Make the Green Belt means something and put the breaks on urban sprawl.

9. Get Tough on Crime: Ok, so Ontario doesn't make the laws in the criminal code but it doesn't mean that it can't fund police better. The OPP also needs to be made more accountable as in the past couple of years, they've become increasingly incompetent.

10. Fix the Health Mess: Americans often tout our health system and we sure like to toot our own horns about it but it's certainly not something to be proud of in its current state. People, even those in serious need, often get ignored in emergency rooms for hours on end, or have to wait months for badly needed surgery. Start opening up some private clinics to ease the burden and try and encourage more clinics into communities that lack them. Many people end up in the ER because they lack family doctors and have nowhere else to turn, which is what's causing the ER crunches. The health system needs reform, not more money.