The province, and a return to tribal warfare.

• Author: Atkins, Michael

I have achieved the age of 55 without incident. I am qualified for Freedom 55, but it has not been offered. Worse still, the premier wants me to have the right to work anywhere past the retirement age of 65 in the province of Ontario. This may sound humanitarian, but knowing what I know about myself, and knowing what I observe in Ernie, I am not sure it is a good idea.

I have been waiting for Ernie to call the election for weeks, but every week he just runs more ads about What his experience tells him to believe, which of course has to do with what his handlers tell him is a wedge issue.

What is going on?

What happened to "I am Dalton McGuinty's worst nightmare?" The premier has concluded, it would appear correctly, that there is no need for two Daltons.

That said, I liked the interim Ernie better.

I do not like the renewal of war with the teachers. This government has decimated the education system, and after acknowledging it needed fixing the government is going to take the easy way out. It is going to demonize its workers one more time to the delight of a majority of parents who are quite properly fed up with the chaos induced by both parties.

The strategies of divide and conquer will prevail. At a time when we need to reaffirm support for public institutions we are going to rip them apart again. We are going to relieve senior citizens from paying school taxes as if they did not have grandchildren, and the right and responsibility to support public education as do the rest of us. It is a cheap vote purchase plan, but it has huge future consequences for public education.

The Eves government (as opposed to the Ernie Eves who ran for leadership of the Tory party) supports tax breaks for people who can afford private schools. They are putting the nail in the coffin of public education in this province.

Next up we are going to force municipalities to have referendums to raise taxes. The cities are provincial creations. They have been dumped with a host of inappropriate responsibilities (like public housing) and not given the taxing power to do the job, which is not unlike the predicament of the boards of education. Our cities are starving for cash and now we will punish them for choking to death. The irony is that in a short election you can make it...