Saturday, January 28, 2012

Dumping Deadheads

Everyone has an expiry date for their effectiveness and usefulness. Blackberry whiz kids Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis had passed their dates, and finally were removed last week. Whether their replacement by a new operating team comes too late to save the once revolutionary company is an open question.
 
Another leader past the expiry date for his effectiveness is Dalton McGuinty, the premier of Ontario. The latest example of why he needs to go is the scandal at ORNGE, the provincial air ambulance service. The ORNGE board of directors was fired earlier this month after revelations of questionable financial practices. The forensic accountants now are at the books.

This is latest in a series of scandals involving the McGuinty government. Remember E-health where $1 billion of taxapeyers’ money went into the wallets of consultants? And, the Ontario Lottery Corp. scandal that revealed the rip-offs of thieving retailers?

If I stretch and crane my neck I can look down the lake to see the lights blazing at the former Leslie Frost Centre, which McGuinty shut several years back, purely for political reasons. The Ministry of Natural Resources complex sits there empty, lighted, heated, maintained  and protected by security. It was being managed by the mysterious Ontario Realty Corp., which was shut down last year under a cloud of suspicions.

Time to Say Goodbye

None of the many McGuinty scandals smell of old-fashioned corruption. Just sloppy governance. McGuinty himself is a quiet, respectable guy. Family oriented and all that. However, he has done an abysmal job as a political CEO responsible for ensuring that taxpayer money is spent carefully.

The honourable thing is for McGuinty to fall on his sword and let someone else direct his minority government. Ontario doesn’t need another election. It needs a fresh, dynamic and effective leader who will provide tight financial governance. Few leaders fall on swords anymore. So it’s up to the Liberal caucus to get the Dump Dalton movement going.

Good luck with that, but maybe someone can get it started before the flood of misspent tax dollars washes the province away.



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