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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

lenaitch said:
A significant part of the 'administrivia' that staff of ministries, agencies, partners, etc. perform is a direct result of multiple layers of accountability and reporting demanded by the government itself.
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This. I have an allied conference coming up. It's overseas. I have to fill out pages of paperwork and get an Associate Deputy Minister to sign off before I can even book my flight. Takes two months of back and forth with the ADM's office for the paperwork to be correct. Meantime the flight and hotel costs have gone up 40%. All because anybody could file an ATI and there needs to perfect justification for single dollar spent on my trip.

People are right when they say there's waste in government. Just not in the way they think. Nobody in a large multi-national would need signatures from someone two levels down from the CEO before taking a business trip. Nor would they take two months to book and watch fares go up. But that waste is a direct result of the level of accountability the public demands. The public doesn't seem to understand that you can't insist that government be as efficient as a business and also face oversight that no CEO could imagine in his/her wildest nightmares.

I remember a colleague who became a federal public servant after working for years at GM. He was just shocked at the bureaucracy to get basic things approved. As a GM engineer, he was flying to China every month in business class with an email from his manager. I get to fly in economy to Australia after an ADM took two months to signs off. And yet people think government is soooo wasteful.

It's like the constant nonsense we see in the media over any PM or minister using military aircraft. Trudeau flew to the Bahamas in a military transport? How dare he? Nobody considers that the crew has minimum flying hours they have to hit. That the PM on any commercial service would be massively disruptive to both the airspace and flight itself. His protection detail would have to buy out the several rows of business class for security reasons. And they'd still have to send a separate aircraft with any other equipment of personnel. All in all, cheaper to use the VVIP fleet. But people whine about it, so politicians and even senior bureaucrats are terrified of using service air and will almost always end up using a more expensive option for optics.
 
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Great analysis kEITHz. A lot of the scrutiny comes from the culture of perceived penny-pinching and tabloid journalism. "Look at these fat cat bureaucrats who charged taxpayers $29.04 on a cookie tray." It's something that populist right-wing politicians can jump on, and is something that Ford Nation thrives on. Unfortunately, those efficiencies can only go so far. I recall that 2011 KPMG report that city council commissioned under Ford that found something to the effect of $10 to 15 million in efficiencies for a budget of $12 BILLION dollars. That is hardly a decimal point.
 
tiffer24 said:
Stem cell research also offers hope for cancer treatments, the same disease that killed Doug's father and brother...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toro...rio-institute-regenerative-medicine-1.5137512

The Ford government plans to stop all funding to an institute that supports Ontario scientists at the cutting edge of stem cell research.
Provincial officials have told the Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine (OIRM) that its $5 million in annual funding from the province will cease next March.

His work has shown that stem cells isolated from the umbilical cord have the potential to prevent brain and lung damage in premature babies and promote healthy development of the organs as the children age.

"We believe this research could be a game-changer for these pre-term babies and could substantially improve their outcomes," Thébaud said Wednesday in an interview.

The funding to OIRM came from Ontario's Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. The minister responsible, Todd Smith, said the researchers can turn to the private sector. But scientists in the stem-cell field say the private sector is not willing to invest until their studies reach a late phase. To get there, they say government funding is crucial.

The scientists see a bitter irony in the government's move, since stem cell research was born in Ontario. James Till and Ernest McCulloch discovered the existence of stem cells in 1961 at the Toronto-based Ontario Cancer Institute.
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Lost for words. Willing to spend millions, and perhaps billions to get get beer in the corner store. But not willing to spend money on education and healthcare and and now stem cell research. Promises of no one will lose their job can't be kept. Now we will see the best researchers and doctors move south of the border or elsewhere if the funds and grants are available. Nurses will lured to the US with lucrative salaries and special perks. This government has absolutely no, foresight. Yes R&D is expensive, but it's going to cost a hell of a lot more to obtain it from outside facilities and resources. As a matter of fact a friend was offered a very attractive job in the Netherlands in Leiden and is seriously considering it. So the brain drain will start.
 
And didn't our beloved Premiere just deliberately flush a billion dollars down the toilet because he didn't feel like honoring the previous government's agreement with the Beer Store? He gets to do that and still have his apologists shriek that's somehow 'fiscally responsible?" How does that work, exactly?
 
kEiThZ said:
People are right when they say there's waste in government. Just not in the way they think. Nobody in a large multi-national would need signatures from someone two levels down from the CEO before taking a business trip. Nor would they take two months to book and watch fares go up. But that waste is a direct result of the level of accountability the public demands. The public doesn't seem to understand that you can't insist that government be as efficient as a business and also face oversight that no CEO could imagine in his/her wildest nightmares.
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As well, when someone is found bending or breaking a government rule, rather than dealing with that employee and that instance, the standard response is to create yet another rule or layer of bureaucracy that impacts everyone.

It's like the constant nonsense we see in the media over any PM or minister using military aircraft.
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But, but, they're flying Taj Mahals I tells ya.
Thirty plus years old, purchased used (the Challengers might be older).
 
John_Dee said:
And didn't our beloved Premiere just deliberately flush a billion dollars down the toilet because he didn't feel like honoring the previous government's agreement with the Beer Store? He gets to do that and still have his apologists shriek that's somehow 'fiscally responsible?" How does that work, exactly?
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If it gets him re-elected in three years it’s worked just fine, DoFo would say.
 
I think kEITz analysis is important. A lot of spending problems in government come from sources that a line-by-line analysis can’t uncover. Auditor Generals etc. have a chance at uncover this stuff and that is why they are hated by all political parties. I’m not sure what the solution is but it appears that costs both internal to government and charged by private companies on contract to government are grossly inflated and that this is the real problem. However, what to do because without absurd levels of accountability government corruption would fester.
 
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