Who Is Buying the Pizza?

I totally get why Education Minister Liz Sandals feels the way she does about receipts. They are a pain in the butt. So difficult to organize. Always impossible to find when needed.

They swell our wallets, clutter our vehicle dashboards and are bad for the environment. The Internet tells me that 640,000 tons of paper receipts are used in the US each year. And, it takes 1.2 billion gallons of water annually to produce those paper receipts.

So we understand why Minister Liz can’t be bothered asking for receipts for the taxpayer dollars she gave teachers’ unions to cover their travel, hotel and food expenses while negotiating new working contracts. After all, she does have a masters degree in mathematics and knows the price of pizzas. With those qualifications who needs receipts?

“You’re asking me if I have receipts and invoices; no, I don’t,” she said when asked if she got receipts for $2.5 million in teacher union expense spending. “You don’t need to see every bill when you’re doing an estimate of costs. I don’t ask.”

"We know what the meeting rooms cost. We know what the food costs. We know what 100 pizzas cost.”

When you are that smart and up on the cost of pizzas, asking for receipts seems old-fashioned and unnecessary.

The practice of getting and giving receipts might be old-fashioned in the sense that it has been around for a long time. Roughly 5,200 years actually. All the way back to the time when writing was invented.

So billions of people over 50 centuries have thought receipts are a good thing, especially when it comes to managing money. Billions of people, but not Liz Sandals.

Written receipts are believed to date back to 3200 BC in Mesopotamia. The oldest known existing receipt was given 4,000 years ago to a guy named Alulu in Samaria. It was for the sale of five sheep, a lamb and four grass-fed goat kids and was written on a clay tablet.

Presumably Alulu was not as smart at math as Liz Sandals, and not up to speed on the price of livestock, so that’s why he asked for the receipt.          

Someone must have told Premier Wynne about Alulu and receipt history because she overruled her education minister. She says the teachers’ unions have not yet been given the $2.5 million but when they are receipts will be required.

So Ontario taxpayers can breathe easier knowing that their government says it intends to follow the 5200-year-old practice of getting receipts.

That still leaves us with a worrisome problem, however. Why are taxpayers paying teachers’ union expenses while they negotiate higher salaries and better working conditions?

Minister Liz says the money is being shelled out because of the transition to a new bargaining system with teachers.

“When you are going through a transformational process, if you want the transformation to work, the first thing to do is to get the people into the building and committed to making the process work by being there . . . ” she said.

I assume that means that unless the government pays travel, hotel and food (including pizzas) expenses, the teachers’ negotiators will not show up to negotiate. The last time I was in a union we paid dues to build a fund to pay expenses like negotiating working agreements.

However, this latest scandal is about more than just who pays for the pizza. It’s all about politics.

During the 2014 provincial election the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association together spent more than $3 million on political advertising. Most of it was for ads attacking the Liberal government’s main opponent, the Conservatives.

So the government makes secret payments for teachers’ union expenses (including pizzas), plus gives them special favors and rich contracts. In return the teachers’ unions spend money, some of it which came from taxpayers, to ensure the government stays in power.

The government says it is routine to pay teacher union expenses incurred in negotiations.

Routine? Sleazy is a more accurate, more appropriate word.

The Teachers' Deal and Premier Pinocchio

The start of a new school year brings memories of Miss McTeague and Grade 3.

Miss McTeague was a hard taskmaster when it came to simple arithmetic. Like two and two equals four. And two times three equals six.

Also, Miss McTeague would wave a stern finger at us and warn that if we told fibs, even itsy-bitsy ones, our noses would grow like Pinocchio’s.

Premier Kathy and other members of her Ontario government obviously never attended Miss McTeague’s class. If they had, they would not be so inept at math, and more honest with taxpayers.

The Ontario government has negotiated a new three-year “net zero” deal with high school teachers. The deal provides a 2.5-per-cent wage increase over two years, an additional paid day off and more generous sick leave.

Also, the province gave up its demands for flexible class size. That means the government must spend additional money to hire additional teachers.

All that is a “net zero” deal with no additional cost to the taxpayer – at least in the minds of Premier Kathy and Education Minister Liz Sandals. So zero plus 2.5, plus more benefits, plus more teachers equals zero.

We’ve seen this “net zero” before. Back in 2013 Sandals said contract negotiations with teachers would not cost one cent more. Later, however, the government’s auditor-general said that negotiation resulted in not quite a “net zero” deal. In fact, it cost us $460 million.

Sandals says that net zero actually means that teachers are being given increases but the additional spending is being taken from other parts of their collective agreement.

“Any salary increases are offset in other areas within the collective agreement,” she has said.

Premier Kathy says, yes the teachers’ contract includes more compensation, but none of it will be paid for with “new” money.

Neither she, nor her education minister, will say where they will get the money to offset the new spending that makes for a “net zero” deal. Fewer textbooks? Turning the school lights lower? Who knows?

This is yet another example of politicians weaving words and phrases to make themselves and their political parties look good.

People have had enough of this nonsense. They want their political leaders to be straight up with them, to tell the truth no matter what the consequences.

What is wrong with saying: “We committed to not increasing our education budget. We were unable to do that. We negotiated the best contract that we could.”

Voters could look at that and decide whether the government had done a good thing or a bad thing. Many voters likely would say that teachers deserve to be paid whatever we can afford to pay them. Teachers are important, a damn sight more important than politicians.

Actually, what is most important at the moment is the federal election and Premier Kathy’s very public campaign to elect Justin Trudeau as prime minister. An Ontario teacher’s strike would have been disastrous to that campaign. And so would telling us that avoiding a strike will cost us all more.

This is another example of the ‘more services but no new taxes’ wet dream being experienced by governments across Canada.

You will witness that first hand if you do any fishing or hunting in Ontario this year. Service Ontario  has quietly added a $2 “service” fee to every fishing or hunting licensing transaction. An example: Ontario charges $22.26 for a licence to hunt small game. Add to that the new service fee of $2, plus HST of $3.15 and you get a total of $27.41. (Yes, there is HST on the service fee).

The new fee, not a tax of course, must be paid whether you deal in person with Service Ontario, by telephone, or online.

The government says the new fee will go to fish and wildlife management. We’ve all heard that one before.  

No new taxes, eh? If she continues to be less than honest with Ontario citizens, one day Premier Kathy will trip over her nose while jogging. And, people will start calling her Premier Pinocchio.

Miss McTeague would not be amused. Neither are Ontario taxpayers.