There are no real choices in the upcoming provincial election.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture is putting together a platform that is sure to be endorsed in part, if not in full, by all of the major parties.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has also just issued a news release praising the government for working to cut red tape. I'll bet the Liberals love that! Maybe accreditation is coming soon from the appeals tribunal, which held re-accreditation hearings in June.
All parties are sure to endorse supply management for the dairy and poultry sectors. None are calling for an inquiry into the egg industry, despite compelling evidence that some things are very much amiss.
None are criticizing the failure of supply management in the chicken industry where the processors with the most eager customers can't get enough and the ones who dominate the industry trying to throttle their growth.
None are calling for an end to the failed milk board efforts to put a lid on quota prices. The failure is that the growth of the most innovative, progressive and efficient producers is stymied.
None seems to mind the turkey industry is dominated by fewer than 10 "farmers".
None is willing to help low-income consumers as much as millionaire quota holders.
And then there's health care. I have a 93-year-old mother-in-law who has been in desperate need of a space in a nursing home. Nobody can make arrangements; we are all forced to go through the Community Care Access Centres. There are lots of paper pushers in that bureaucracy, but none of them can place needy seniors because the province hasn't allowed enough spaces to be built. It's been like that for 20 years.
Yet there are tens of millions in subsidies for electric cars, for solar energy, wind energy, and any business that has expansion plans in the works. The businessmen with good, sound ideas and plans don't need subsidies, but why turn them down? And then there are the poor ideas and plans that simply waste taxpayers' grants, loans and tax breaks.
They have called an election, but there are no real choices. It's all smoke and mirrors, bombast and promises they either can't keep, or never intend to honour.
want the marketing boards to solidify their dominance.
