Top 10 reasons not to vote Liberal in upcoming byelections

TORONTO - With all the strutting and chest-thumping the Liberals are doing in their battle with the teacher unions, you may have forgotten there are two byelections on.

That’s just what the Liberals want.

They hope voters in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo will forget their mess.

So, a refresher on Liberal scandals, mismanagement, hypocrisy and boondoggles.

Here are 10 reasons not to vote Liberal:

1. $190 million to cancel a power plant in Mississauga in the middle of the last election:

In a move that would make a tinpot dictator in a banana republic blush, Dalton McGuinty pulled the plug on an unpopular power plant under construction in order to save a few seats in the western GTA.

2. Ornge Air Ambulance scandal: Forget the Liberal spin that’s blaming this outrageous piece of mismanangement onto a rogue agency run by a rogue CEO. This is their baby.

They created Ornge. They allowed CEO Chris Mazza to put in place a massive web of companies that squandered huge amounts of public money.

3. Bonus pay for everyone: Turns out, 98% of Ontario public service managers were eligible for bonuses last year.

McGuinty tried to backpedal on the plums recently, blaming it on former Tory premier Mike Harris for instituting the pay for performance bonuses in the first place and promising a review.

Well, Harris’s idea was to reward excellence — not mediocrity. The Libs paid everyone. They’ve been government for nine long years now. That’s plenty of time to end the bonuses.

Instead, they used it as a backdoor way to hike managers’ pay.

4. The HST: Who can forget the sneaky way McGuinty hiked the price of just about every consumer item 8% when he agreed to combine the provincial PST with the federal GST two years ago?

The savings we were supposed to get from laying off tax collectors didn’t materialize. We just got a different pocket picked to pay for them.

Those tax collectors got $25 million in severance — and they didn’t lose their jobs. They simply moved to the federal level and got a 3.5% pay hike.

5. Eco fees: McGuinty brought in fees on 9,000 consumer goods in 2010, disguised as an environmental fee. Shoppers suddenly found the fees tacked onto their bills at the cash register, with no explanation where the money was going.

6. The sneaky way the Liberals amended the wartime Public Works Protection Act ahead of the G20. It created the so-called “five-metre rule” and led to a policing shambles. Provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin called it, “the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history.”

7. Their botched Green Energy program, the failed FIT program, the desecration of rural Ontario with wind turbines.

8. Soaring energy costs: Two years ago, the Libs forecast energy costs would go up 46% over the next five years. They gave us a 10% rebate on our bills to help offset that. Nothing like being bribed with your own money.

9. Credit warnings and downgrades: McGuinty’s disastrous overspending has turned what was once the economic engine of the country into the poor man of Confederation. Moody’s recently down-graded our credit rating and Standard and Poors put us on a negative outlook.

10. Liam Reid: The three-year-old Whitby tot will go blind if he doesn’t get surgery in Michigan. OHIP won’t pay for it. Health Minister Deb Matthews and McGuinty should hang their heads in shame.

Bonus: Finally, (I know, this is number 11), the biggest reason voters shouldn’t mark their ballots for McGuinty: He doesn’t deserve it.

$190 million to cancel a power plant in Mississauga in the middle of the last election: