Vacuousity of the Ontario NDP

Howard Hampton predictably kicks off his campaign in Hamilton today, but I've got my hands full with the shrill Dippers in and around my new Toronto abode. There's a lot wrong with the Ontario NDP, but let's start with the petty stuff:

It is deeply embarrassing the way that a number of Dippers have endeavoured to make the MPP wage hike a defining issue of the new campaign. This intention is made pretty clear in any campaign speech I've heard so far. How stupid do they think Ontarians are?

On a practical level, the hike amounted to about $230 000. This is a blip in the finance of Canada’s biggest province. Single school playgrounds received more.

Then there are the principled implications. An independent body instructed the government that MPPs were underpaid, comparative to other legislators in the country. The government accepted the pay raise suggested to them.

And the NDP cries that there has been some ethical violation? Funny that – ‘equal work for equal pay’ sounds to me like an important principle of the labour movement. In fact - consciously or not - the NDP has adopted exactly the line that management often uses in disputes with unions: “a pay raise is unacceptable, because someone somewhere is paid less than you!”

To top it all, the silk-stocking dilettantes make a showy public display of donating their extra money to charity. I vaguely recall something in the Bible about that... As long as they don’t expect any rewards in heaven. [Whoops! - here I go scripting John Tory's political defence for him.]

This failed stab at populism only demonstrates how out of touch the NDP really is. I didn't get a 22% raise in wage. I would've liked one. But Ontarians face real problems. Let’s talk about those.