Cobourg Blog

Has anyone noticed a trend in the last few years about what jobs are available? In general, there are fewer manufacturing jobs and more service jobs. Every few years I read an article that talks about that in general terms and it’s happening right before our eyes. Workers who are in manufacturing are being replaced by automation and by off-shore workers who are paid less. Unions can slow down the process but not stop the trend. The best thing unions can do is to stay away from the factories - witness the Japanese factories in Ontario. The next thing they can do is offer concessions - witness the recent concessions at Ford. But eventually, there will be fewer manufacturing jobs.
To cope with the coming change, we need to direct our energies at service jobs. These include financial, call centres, construction, retail, travel, health, and more. Some very specialized manufacturing that benefits by being very close to the end market will survive but automotive manufacturing in Canada will basically get to be quite a small industry.
Since Ontario depends more on manufacturing than western provinces, Ontario is truly in danger of becoming a “have-not” province. So instead of subsidizing industries with little future, Governments should be developing new ones. Focus should be on retraining and support for new small businesses. Why throw good taxpayer money at a lost cause? Buzz Hargrove is already trying to convince politicians to support the CAW - um, sorry, support auto manufacturing. But I bet Buzz is pleased that he’s not too far from retiring from this losing game.
John Draper

Looks like Ontario voters did not agree that breaking promises was something that was unacceptable.  Maybe they think all politicians break promises!  And John Tory’s mistake of trying to be fair to minorities did not in the end do more than distract from the rest of his message.  But the Conservative’s mistake seems to have been to focus on why the Liberals were bad and not why the Conservatives were better. So we are stuck with the “same old” for another 4 years - anyone who voted Liberal should not complain in that time - they lost their chance.   One other notable change is the increase in Green party support - I would suspect they will gradually grow over the next period - mostly at the expense of the NDP.

And the other major thing to note is that the MMP system did not win support so we’ll continue with “First Past the Post” .  As Paul Macklin was recently quoted as saying “it needs more study” and “there are other alternatives”.  The consensus seems to be that MMP is too complicated, too likely to lead to minority Governments and too likely to elect unwanted party nominated candidates.  If you want to avoid wasting a vote - then the single transferrable vote works.  But it too has problems - notably an increase in spoiled ballots.

John Draper

We have heard that few people truly understand the upcoming Referendum to be held on election day, October 10.  That’s partly because many people don’t care and partly because it’s complex.  But a vote in favour of the new system could change Provincial Politics forever.  So it’s very important that this issue has the right outcome.
The advantages are clear:  more say by minority parties and a party seat count closer to the total vote.  But notice that the improvements are for the party and not for the local voter.  If we fully trust Political parties to run the Province, then why bother with the idea of local representatives?  I think we can safely say we all like a local representative and we like him/her to be accountable.  This proposal is moving away from that - with fewer local representatives yet more politicians overall!

On top of that, if the changes are approved, we also get a Government with very little chance of forming a majority.  Other countries form coalitions when faced with this but this has never (perhaps rarely) happened in Canada.  Imagine the Bloc agreeing with any other party or even the NDP agreeing with anyone - remember a coalition requires general agreement, not agreement on one or two issues.

Let’s hope that the electors’ natural resistance to change will say NO to this proposal. It’s a bad idea.

If we want a system where all votes count, then use a single transferrable vote - sometimes called preferential voting.  This has it’s own set of problems but none of the problems of the proposed MMP system. Australia has been using it for over a 100 years to elect their House of Representatives (equivalent to the Commons).

John Draper

Extending funding of schools to include all religions and not just Catholics seems fair to me. But if someone teaches Creationism as an alternative “theory” to Evolution, they are teaching Religion. There is absolutely no scientific basis for it. So of course it is not in the Science curiculum laid down by the Province. I disagree with many of the religious teachings taught in Religious schools but I also believe in freedom of religion. People teach kids at home about their beliefs including some whacky ones. So teaching these things in school is not so terrible. But it absolutely must be made clear when the kids are taught that it’s a religious belief and not science.

Then when kids grow up and get a mind of their own (usually around 25 - 30 - sorry students!), they can decide for themselves.

Teaching Creationism as an alternative science theory is plain bad science and wrong. I trust John Tory understands this point - but then I trust him to understand this more than I trust the news reporters to quote him correctly.

John Draper