The wacky Ontario NDPers are winding down their first and last term in office (please, Lord) with a howling display of governmental incompetence and bungling.

Here, in no particular order, is a partial list of their biggest goofs.

  • It was Bob Rae who hired his old pal Maurice Strong as chairman of Ontario Hydro. Under Strong’s excellent direction, the corporation lost 3.6 billion dollars, fired 10,000 people and is now 34 billion dollars in debt. Strong now proposes to increase this debt by purchasing 12,500 hectares of jungle in Costa Rica in order to compensate for the pollution that Ontario Hydro plants have caused in Ontario! (I’m not making this up.) Incredible as it sounds, Strong is now aiming to be Secretary General of the United Nations! And with all his powerful connections, he is reported to have a very good chance in 1996 when the post becomes vacant.

Vote their conscience

These kind of credentials must be the key that got Strong the whole-hearted backing of Premier Bob Rae for the UN job. (Senior executives seeking powerful UN jobs don’t forget to mention how badly you bungled your last job.) But more important than that is to have friends of the caliber that Strong has—Jean Chretien, Al Gore, Paul Martin, Andrew Sarlos and Stephen Lewis—and have all their unlisted phone numbers.

  • The NDP spread the canard about the need for “same sex” couples to receive the similar benefits as married couples. The Premier claims the plan has been a minimal cost to the businesses that have already implemented it. When all is said and done, this legislation is going to cost government and business untold amounts and, when you factor in the over 57 government statues that will have to be changed, well, you get the picture.

Rae told his party that they could vote their conscience on the “same sex” bill but he would not campaign for them in the upcoming elections if they voted against it. Also, the manner in which the government undertook the first reading of the bill was classic NDP. Attorney General Marion Boyd waited until the last minute to hold the vote. By the time the vote was announced, several MPPs opposed to the bill had already returned to their constituencies. Two NDPers who were going to break ranks were not even notified until the vote was over.

  • Intent on fulfilling his fantasy of a dissent-free Ontario, Rae turned his Attorney General (former kindergarten teacher and non-lawyer) Marion Boyd loose on 18 pro-lifers. In the process he probably blew a cool million taxpayers’ bucks chasing and suing 18 decent individuals for supposed picketing offenses. Heck, picketing was practically invented by NDP. Now they’re trying to ban it and scare off any future dissenters.
  • With the government debt rising and available health care dollars shrinking, the NDP could still manage to find $14 million to support their precious Toronto abortion clinics. They had the gall to ferry women down from Northern Ontario to Toronto for abortions, but couldn’t find the cash to pay transportation costs for heart patients to go North where treatment facilities were available.

Popularity falls to 14%

  • Employment equity is another NDP policy decision which should be declared a disaster area. The practice is forcing employers to hire people—not on the basis of skills—but on the basis of some far-fetched utopian quota which will have to be policed by an army of thought-control police. It’s gotten to the point where young, white males are going to have to put on make-up and dresses in order to get a job in Bob Rae’s politically-correct world.

The NDP started off as a collective of pseudo-intellectuals, unions and left-wing types. After “Rae Days” all that’s left is the Canadian Labour Congress and a mob of vocal homosexuals and lesbians holding on. Right now they sit at 14 per cent popularity and that isn’t anywhere near good enough to get them another term.

Rae shouldn’t worry about his future employment. If I could afford a crystal ball I could see him going back to his old pal Maurice Strong and landing a big job at the United Nations. Like they say, one hand washes the other—and it doesn’t hurt if you’ve got the unlisted phone numbers either.