I watched Ontario PC MPP Lisa MacLeod comment on yesterday's Ontario budget on CTV Morning News (Ottawa) this morning. The comment that struck me most forcefully was that Ontario spends over a million dollars an hour -- every hour of every day -- on interest payments on the provincial debt.
I checked her math and discovered she understated the problem by $210,000. We're actually spending $1,210,000 an hour to pay interest of $10.6 billion a year on Ontario's existing debt of over $260 billion. God help us when rates rise.
Given this reality, it is hard to believe that our government thinks it prudent to add to this debt at an even faster hourly rate while continuing to spend at least $1 billion a year in duplication costs so that Catholic Ontarians can have a segregated school system. That's at least $114,000 an hour for Catholic schools -- every hour of every day -- for those of you who didn't do the math.
An image of priests tending an eternal Ontario flame with endless stacks of $20 bills springs to mind -- while people suffer as our truly essential services rot and decay for want of adequate funding. Another image springing to mind ... Emperor Nero with a fiddle.
Happy Catholic Education Week (May 5-10, 2013). Come celebrate by the fire. Your MPPs are already there. They brought the fuel after lifting it from your pockets.
I checked her math and discovered she understated the problem by $210,000. We're actually spending $1,210,000 an hour to pay interest of $10.6 billion a year on Ontario's existing debt of over $260 billion. God help us when rates rise.
Given this reality, it is hard to believe that our government thinks it prudent to add to this debt at an even faster hourly rate while continuing to spend at least $1 billion a year in duplication costs so that Catholic Ontarians can have a segregated school system. That's at least $114,000 an hour for Catholic schools -- every hour of every day -- for those of you who didn't do the math.
An image of priests tending an eternal Ontario flame with endless stacks of $20 bills springs to mind -- while people suffer as our truly essential services rot and decay for want of adequate funding. Another image springing to mind ... Emperor Nero with a fiddle.
Happy Catholic Education Week (May 5-10, 2013). Come celebrate by the fire. Your MPPs are already there. They brought the fuel after lifting it from your pockets.