This columnist is losing it!

Five years into the reign of the Ontario Tories, Straight Goods columnist Pat Daley gets mad as hell and decides not to take it anymore...

By: Pat Daley

  June 5/00 - After weeks of opening the daily paper to see Canadian Alliance leadership candidate Tom Long's white-bread face...
  After five years of living under a regime that he helped to invent...
  This columnist is losing it!
  Last Friday, Claudette Bradshaw - the federal minister for homelessness - announced that the cities of Ottawa, Hamilton and Toronto will get more than $83 million for projects to help people who don't have a place to live.
  The same morning, the Globe and Mail reported that the Ontario government intends to introduce legislation denying access to subsidized housing for anyone who receives a student loan. And, there's a good chance the same prohibition will eventually extend to anyone receiving welfare.
  They call it "benefit stacking." A Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing spokesperson told Straight Goods that student assistance is not currently counted as income for social housing purposes. But, according to the Globe, a recent cabinet submission outlining the legislation isn't suggesting that the income count; it's suggesting students getting assistance be disqualified for public housing.
 

A 1999 study showed that one-quarter of Ontario residents are spending more than 50 per cent of their income on rent

  Never mind that a student loan is a LOAN, meaning it has to be repaid. Never mind that food banks have been springing up on campuses across Ontario and the country. Never mind that Ontario's "rent controls" now allow landlords to raise rents whenever a tenant moves.
  Last year, a study by the advocacy group Putting Housing Back on the Public Agenda, showed that one-quarter of Ontario tenants are spending more than 50 per cent of their income on rent. The lucky ones who get into the dwindling supply of public housing only spend 30 per cent.
  The proposed legislation will be introduced sometime by Tony Clement, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who once responded to a looming transit strike in Toronto by saying people are too dependent on public transit.
  Funny that the government that doesn't want students "double-dipping" had no problem with its first Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister collecting his salary on top of receiving benefits from more than one pension plan - in the public sector.
  You can just hear the tax-cutters: "Life's tough, kids. Get used to it."

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Husky CEO Robert Schad's foundation provided most of the financial backing for the successful campaign to end Ontario's spring bear hunt

  The good news from last Friday is that not all corporate honchos have bought into the "my money is mine, all mine" philosophy.
  Robert Schad is president and CEO of Husky Injection Molding Systems. You may have heard of his foundation, which provided most of the financial backing for the successful campaign to end Ontario's spring bear hunt.
  Now his company is providing the equipment, training and technical support for an independent injection molding facility that will be owned and operated by the Moose Deer Point First Nation near Parry Sound, Ontario.
  Niigon Technologies will manufacture computer, electronics, automotive and medical components for North American companies. Any dividends it pays will go to a trust fund for investment in social, environmental, wellness and infrastructure projects on the First Nation.
  It sure beats nickel-and-diming people to death for the sake of tax cuts.

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