nanny
by Eric Dowd
Toronto -- Dalton McGuinty has a new, unwanted nickname and it will be mentioned often in the 2011 election and may even help decide the outcome.
Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has accused the Liberal premier of being a “nanny premier,” meaning he interferes constantly in residents’ lives with rules and restrictions they don’t need.
McGuinty has brought in more laws supposed to protect residents than any previous premier.
This writer can vouch for this, having covered the legislature for more than four decades during which no premier produced as many, and before that laws to protect were in less demand.
Some extreme right-wingers in the Conservative Party have grumbled for years McGuinty was creating a nanny state, but none of is leaders had used the phrase, one reason being much of the public favors many of his laws to protect.
John Tory, leader before Hudak, also was a moderate Conservative raised in a tradition government intervention could be useful and supported many of McGuinty’s laws to protect, as did some other Conservative MPPs, so they would have difficulty calling them nanny state laws now.
But Hudak placed himself firmly among those who believe McGuinty has gone too far with laws to protect by saying, while his party focuses on creating jobs and defending the family budget, the premier worries about saving residents from the menaces of plastic bags and dandelions growing on their lawns.
While Conservatives focus on improving healthcare and ensuring students can read and write, he said, the premier muses about teaching sex-education to six-year-olds and policing what kind of dogs people can own.
Hudak said McGuinty does not trust Ontarians to live their own lives, but creates jobs for bureaucrats, and the Conservatives want him out of residents’ personal lives, homes, backyards, fridges and wallets.
The Conservative leader has not been specific about which of McGuinty’s laws he would kill. Plastic bags fill garbage dumps and last almost forever, so the fewer the better.
McGuinty has banned pesticides that get in water and harm the environment. His ban on smoking in workplaces, enclosed public spaces and cars in which children are passengers is hands-on healthcare, because hospitals are reporting they are admitting fewer patients who have smoking-related illnesses.
McGuinty has attempted to prevent the proliferation of just one breed of dog, pitbull terriers, the most dangerous, and attacks by them have decreased, so an opponent who attempted to reverse this policy in an election could get bitten.
McGuinty has put some curbs on what students can eat and drink by ordering elementary schools to remove junk foods such as potato chips and pop from vending machines and replace them with healthier snacks.
He also has required bars and liquor stores to post signs warning pregnant women alcohol can cause birth defects, but it is difficult to see a critic whipping up enough indignation to repeal these.
The Conservatives would be embarrassed if their party wanted to cancel McGuinty’s law that bans talking on hand-held cellphones while driving, because its original proponent was a far-sighted Conservative, John O’Toole.
The same day Hudak accused McGuinty of being a nanny premier, news media were reporting home owners eager to install new, energy-saving technology are being massively defrauded by companies falsely pretending they can provide it.
Conservative energy critic John Yakabuski said it is shameful the province is not protecting consumers, an instance where the Conservatives sought more, not less protection.
Hudak can claim some of McGuinty’s laws are inadequate -- for example, many are being cheated by door-to-door sellers of energy contracts half-a-decade after he promised to end this -- and some will agree he has too many laws that protect anyway.
But collectively these laws to protect are among the best things the premier has going for him and an opponent will have difficulty winning an election by drawing attention to them.
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