Jim Flaherty

I'm an Canadian with an Irish background, but unlike the Italians and other immigrant groups, Irish Canadians are not influenced by the Irish roots of their politicians. We are appalled by truly awful Irish Canadian political leaders such as Brian Mulroney, Jim Flaherty, some would add Dalton McGuinty and the repulsive Mike Duffy come to mind. Thomas D'Arcy McGee might have been the best of the lot and they assassinated him.

I think Dalton McGuinty was a decent premier, but the Ornge scandal, the cancellation of the gas fired plant and other scandals were inexplicable. I'm going to write an entry on Dalton's legacy soon enough.

I want to write about the former insurance defence attorney Jim Flaherty. I watched another interview with Flaherty as he prepared to head to Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of finance leaders.
Flaherty is from Whitby, Ontario a suburb of Toronto. He is nominally the Minister for the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The man has a massive, unrelenting hate on for his home province. He can't help himself as he trashes the economic record of the province. Flaherty has done more harm to Ontario than any politician in the country. He is the Finance Minister, yet he refuses to alter the EI rules that punish Ontario.  He fails to correct fundamental, well known flaws in the federal transfer and equalisation program, that transfer $Billions from his home province to other parts of the country.

Flaherty's hate for the government of Ontario is so great that he punishes his friends and neighbours. The constituents of Whitby are represented by a man that has no interest in their economic well-being.

Flaherty's wife, Christine Elliot, is the Deputy Leader in PC leader Hudak's party. She opposed her husband's plan to harmonise the HST. Flaherty has failed to deliver a national securities regulator and base that office in the financial hub of Canada, Toronto. He has delivered nothing to the City of Toronto.

Flaherty, who at first denied there was a worldwide financial crisis, has turned massive surpluses from the Paul Martin era, into record deficits. Do you notice the right-wing press, which dominates Canada, give Flaherty a break on the deficit front, yet skewer Dalton McGuinty? McGuinty had no oil revenues to pay down Ontario's debt.

Flaherty's unrelenting criticism of Ontario, may influence debt agencies to downgrade Ontario's credit rating, risking $Billions more of the taxpayers money. Ontario needs Flaherty to quit trashing his home province and deliver us a fair deal on EI and transfers.

Ontario already delivers services to its residents at a cost of less money than any other province in the country. This despite the fact that the federal government transfers $Billions of Ontario's wealth to other provinces which  have greater levels of service.