Gordon Prentice at Large - Politics in Newmarket
- Details
- Written by: Gordon Prentice
The Ford Government this week posted an eye-watering deficit of $9.8 billion in its 2024 budget. 
Our MPP, Dawn Gallagher Murphy, says that shouldn’t concern us because the Government is on the path to balance the budget. It hasn’t lost its way.
Her predecessor, former MPP and health minister, Christine Elliott, now a lobbyist for the private health sector, spent her entire political career railing against deficits.
Anathema
She told MPPs
“deficit financing is anathema to Conservatives”
because that means
“we are paying more and more in interest payments”
Christine Elliott took every opportunity to denounce the last Liberal Government for running up deficits.
Heresy
And now her close personal friend Peter Bethlenfalvy, Ford’s Finance Minister, is the author of this heretical $9.8 billion deficit.
In the 2018 Provincial election, Bethlenfalvy contributed $10,000 to Elliott’s election campaign in Newmarket-Aurora.
So I don’t expect to hear any criticism of Bethlenfalvy from Elliott, Ford's former Deputy, the health minister turned money-grabbing lobbyist.
Nor from Gallagher Murphy who hailed the Budget on Twitter (X): 
“Building a Better Ontario continues the government's Plan to Build, keeping costs down for Ontario families while retaining a path to balance.”
$13.9 billion in debt interest
In the meantime, the Ford Government will be shelling out $13.9 billion on debt interest in 2024/25.
Gallagher Murphy believes borrowing to fund tax cuts is the way to go – whether it’s Ford’s 5.7 cents a litre cut in gas taxes or getting rid of licence plate fees.
The six-month extension to the gas cut will cost $620M. Eliminating the licence plate fee costs the Provincial Treasury $1.1 billion in lost revenue every year.
Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are now spending 35% more than the last Liberal Government and the provincial debt
“has soared by $116 billion to $462.9 billion, the largest debt of any sub-national jurisdiction in the world.”
Carbon Tax or Carbon Rebate
Yesterday, Gallagher Murphy told MPPs that no Ontarian should have to choose between filling up their car with gas or filling up their pantry. It was another jab at the “Carbon Tax”.
Across the country about 80% of people can expect to get back in rebate more than they pay. In Ontario, a family of four will get a $1,120 rebate in 2024. (Gallagher Murphy says Ford’s cut in gas tax has saved the average household $320 since it was introduced in 2022.)
The Federal Government has done a very poor job of explaining carbon pricing. So that people who should know better say the “Carbon Tax” is just another audacious money grab - unrelated to the fact that the Canadian north is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet and our forests are going up in smoke.
New job!
Perhaps in her new job as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry she will at last make the connection between climate change and what she must know is happening out there – thawing permafrost, disappearing ice-roads, shrinking ice-cover, starving polar bears.
And, year after year, vast swaths of forests burning out of control.
We could see the blue haze here in Newmarket.
Remember?
Update on 29 March 2024: From Newmarket Today: Newmarket-Aurora MPP blasts Carbon Tax increase
Update on 30 March 2024: from the Toronto star: Ontario budget an "abdication of responsibility"
"The Ontario budget set base funding for forest firefighting at $134.9 million this year. $81 million less than it spent overall in 2023.
"But (Alex) Catherwood (press secretary to Minister Andrea Khanjin) said it would be "completely inaccurate" to suggest the forecasted spending was a budget cut, saying the Government would "spare no expense in ensuring the safety of people, property and communities".
From Christine Elliott's 2018 Candidate's Campaign Return to Elections Ontario:
- Details
- Written by: Gordon Prentice
Today (27 March 2024) the new Chief Executive of Southlake, Dr Paul Woods, tells Newmarket Today the hospital is struggling to find a new site for its proposed new acute hospital.
It is a tragedy it has come to this.
From the outset Southlake and King Township should have been transparent about Michael Rice's gift of land and the conditions attached to it.
Southlake should have worked closely with York Region and with the other lower tier municipalities such as Newmarket in their search for a suitable site for a new acute hospital instead of keeping them at arm's length.
Withheld
The story of what happened under Dr Wood's predecessor, Arden Krystal, continues to unfold. Key information is still being withheld by Southlake. And, in the background, the RCMP’s investigation into the Greenbelt scandal grinds on.
To this day, the disgraced former Housing Minister Steve Clark has still not offered an apology to the Legislative Assembly for his role in the Greenbelt scandal. The recommendation by the Integrity Commissioner last August for the Legislature to reprimand Clark lies on the Order Paper as Premier Ford and House Leader, Paul Calandra, refuse to bring it forward for debate and a vote.
Long-term-care
On Monday (25 March 2024) Southlake confirmed that it had been planning to include a Long-Term-Care facility within the new acute hospital complex in the protected Greenbelt at Bathurst in King Township.
The developer Michael Rice gifted land for a new hospital at a meeting at King Municipal Centre on 1 November 2022 with Southlake’s then Chief Executive, Arden Krystal, and its Vice President of Capital Facilities, John Marshman and King’s Mayor, Steve Pellegrini.
King and Southlake insist to this day they have no records of the meeting.
It defies belief there are no records of such a consequential meeting. Public bodies such as hospitals and municipalities have a duty in law to keep records.
Protected Greenbelt
Rice told the Integrity Commissioner, David Wake, that when he bought the 2.78 sq km tract of land he initially thought there would be no change in its protected Greenbelt designation – at least not in the short term.
He nevertheless believed a hospital could be built in the protected Greenbelt with ancillary medical buildings and a Long-Term Care facility alongside. He did not say if he had taken professional planning advice before coming to this conclusion. King’s Planning Chief, Stephen Naylor, refused to give his view on whether a hospital could be built at Bathurst in the protected Greenbelt saying it was a matter for the Province.
Rice changes his view
Rice told Commissioner Wake that by September 2022 his view had changed. He said that while he always believed that parts of the Greenbelt would eventually be opened up for development, even by a Liberal Government, Ford was moving more quickly than he anticipated.
On 15 September 2022 Rice bought the Bathurst Greenbelt lands for $80M. With development approval the land would be worth many times this sum.
Bathurst lands would fit the bill
On the evening of 14 September 2022 at the BILD dinner, Rice met Steve Clark’s Chief of Staff, Ryan Amato, and quickly concluded the Government was moving to open-up parts of the Greenbelt for development. He told Amato he had land which would fit the bill and, two weeks later, gave Amato
“a map outlining the area proposed to be removed from the Greenbelt, a rationale supporting the removal, a summary confirming consultants had been retained to do environmental and servicing assessments and an explanation of various servicing options for the site.”
There was no mention of an acute hospital on the Bathurst lands. 
Rice told the Integrity Commissioner that if he had known in the summer of 2022 that the Bathurst lands in King were to be removed from the Greenbelt
“he would not have entered into discussions about using part of this particular site for a hospital”.
"Sticking to it"
But given his earlier discussions he was “committed” to the hospital and was “sticking to it”.
I am left wondering if Rice told the meeting on 1 November 2022 that he wanted to include ancillary medical buildings and a Long-Term-Care facility within the acute hospital complex. And if not, why not?
Known Opportunities
Southlake’s Land Acquisition Sub Committee (LASC) held its first meeting on 5 December 2022.
The Chair, John Marshman, reported back from memory on the 1 November 2022 meeting and Rice's gift of land. There were no written reports. Sub Committee members were simply told the gift was a
“known opportunity”.
It is unclear how Sub Committee members got to know about these "known opportunities".
Were there other “known opportunities”? What happened to John Dunlap’s offer of land for a new hospital?
Was that a known opportunity?
Sites for new Southlake "limited"
The Sub Committee decided to engage Colliers International to advise them on real estate matters. Colliers reported in May 2023 saying sites for a new hospital were very limited.
In coming to this conclusion:
“sites which fell under current conservation land statuses or within the Greenbelt or Oak Ridges Moraine areas were not considered as realistic opportunities based upon current development restrictions.”
This was three months before the Ford Government formally dropped its plans to allow development in the protected Greenbelt.
LTC fit
On 16 January 2023 Southlake held a meeting on the “Bathurst & Davis Drive Opportunity”. At the top of the agenda was an item on the “LTC fit” which we now know to mean long-term-care.
The meeting considered the location of the hospital and:
“requirements that may need to be built into an MZO (Minister’s Zoning Order)”.
Where did that come from - the MZO? Who brought that forward and why?
Update on 4 April 2024 from the Newmarket ERA
See also: Timeline: Southlake and the sale of the Greenbelt lands in King
Read more: Southlake struggling to find a new site for its acute hospital complex
- Details
- Written by: Gordon Prentice
Last week's UK Budget tells us the Conservative Government is abolishing “Non-Dom” (non-domiciled) tax status. 
For me it is a bitter sweet moment.
I wanted to see an incoming Labour Government get rid of this crazy hangover from colonial days. Instead we have the weird paradox of a dying Conservative Government abolishing a tax device which, over the years, has benefitted thousands of its own well-heeled supporters.
Non-Dom status allows the super-rich – who claim their true home is elsewhere – to pay UK tax only on the money they choose "to remit" or bring into the country - not on their worldwide income.
They park their millions in tax havens off-shore.
Deceitful
I spent years on the trail of the deceitful multi-millionaire, Lord Ashcroft, establishing that he was indeed a tax dodger who got into the House of Lords on false pretences.
Ashcroft, a former Chair of the Conservative Party, was “raised to the peerage” after promising the then Leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague, that he would bring his tax affairs on-shore and become a UK resident for tax purposes. He never did.
After ten years in the House of Lords – voting to make the laws of the land – he was revealed to be a non-dom, liable for only a fraction of the tax that would have been payable as a UK resident.
Freedom of Information
Although I was a member of the UK Parliament at the time, it took a Freedom of Information request – two years and more from start to finish - to force him to admit his non-dom status after a brazen cover-up lasting a decade.
Non-Doms can no longer sit in the UK Parliament.
In 2010 – the year he was exposed as a tax cheat – Ashcroft donated £5M to the Imperial War Museum enabling it to build an “Ashcroft Gallery” to house his collection of Victoria Cross medals.
Ashcroft's "fascination with bravery"
Ashcroft, who describes himself as an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster, tells us he has a fascination with bravery which goes back to his childhood.
There is nothing brave about the shamefully dishonest way he behaved to get into the House of Lords.
The valiant soldiers whose medals lie in Ashcroft’s Gallery must be turning in their graves.
Note: Michael Ashcroft retired from the Lords in 2015 though he still keeps the honorific title “Lord”. Despite his retirement from the Lords, Ashcroft still active in UK politics.
The transcript of the celebrated Jeremy Paxman interview of William Hague on the Ashcroft peerage is here. The BBC video has been taken down and is no longer available.
From the Guardian: Michael Ashcroft's former daughter-in-law, Jasmine Hartin, fined for killing police officer in Belize.
