Dear sisters and brothers:
I looked at my calendar today and it says that Ontario
voters go to the polls in a provincial election on Oct. 6, 2011. That’s
actually pretty soon. In two months we’ll being saying the election is
“next year.”
What will that election be about?
I don’t have a crystal ball. Sometimes the unexpected
happens. But unless something really unusual happens it’s a pretty good
guess that public services and the economy are going to be top-of-mind
issues for most voters.
Dalton McGuinty didn’t cause the global economic
meltdown that’s hitting Ontario today, but two years from now you can
bet that voters will be asking whether he helped or harmed the economic
recovery – and whether he helped or harmed the province’s bottom line.
On public services, we all know that the demand for them
goes up during a recession. How well Mr. McGuinty protects and sustains
our public services is certain to be a key factor in his re-election. Or
his defeat.
It’s a tough situation to be in. If he cuts public
services, nobody is going to be happy about losing them. Plus, every
dollar he takes out of public services is a dollar he takes out of the
economy – and it hardly makes sense to spend millions on economic
stimulus while cutting millions in public services.
How McGuinty approaches that $24.7 billion deficit will
decide his political future. I am sure he’ll be tempted to try to take
some of that money out of the pockets of public employees.
This is a risky approach. While OPSEU represents about
125,000 workers in the Ontario public sector, in total more than one
million public sector workers have paycheques that are tied to the
province. That’s a lot of voters.
Two years from now, a big chunk of those one million
workers will be standing in a polling booth. I won’t be surprised if the
big question we’ll all be asking is this: “When times were tough, did
Dalton McGuinty treat public sector workers fairly?”
What Dalton does will determine our answer.
