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Wednesday, October 14, 2009 Orono Weekly Times - 5 Politically Speaking by Bill Stockwell Premier Dalton McGuinty has had better weeks than the second week of October. It all started with the release of the Provincial Auditor General`s report on the waste and mismanagement of tax dollars during the watch of Sarah Kramer, the recently resigned chief executive officer of eHealth Ontario. Kramer stepped down from the position she held for ten short months when word leaked out of mega mismanagement within the organization. She walked away with a $317,000 severance package and received a $114,000 bonus owed to her from her employment contract. eHeath was established in 2008 to develop electronic health records for all Ontarians by 2015. When the e-Health project was restructured Premier McGuinty appointed Dr. Alan Hudson as chairman of the program, who agreed to take the position on the condition that he could hire his protégé, Sarah Kramer, as CEO. The Auditor General states that once McGuinty agreed to these terms he then intervened in Ms. Kramer`s appointment. Over the following months, more eHealth horror stories became public in spite of the efforts of Health Minister David Caplan to gloss over stories that appeared in the Toronto media on a daily basis. Caplan stood firm in his defence of the management of eHealth during the early stages of the media onslaught, but he eventually succumbed to the pounding he received from the Opposition's demands that he step down. The Opposition`s claims that Caplan was asleep at the switch when it came to overseeing the eHealth portfolio, quickly turned to the previous Health Minister, Deputy Premier George Smitherman, once Caplan resigned from Cabinet. Progressive Conservative leader, Tim Hudak, called for Smitherman to resign along with Caplan, claiming that Smitherman headed up the Health portfolio from 2003 to June of 2008, during which time the Auditor General`s report stated that money paid out to consultants for the eHealth program soared from $886,000 to $10 million. However, Smitherman`s response was that he has given "no consideration" to resigning from Cabinet. Just for the record it should be noted that the auditor`s report further stated that once Caplan took over the Ministries reigns from Smitherman, the money paid the consultants by eHeath continued to grow, from $10 million to $38 million. It seems of late, no matter how bad the McGuinty government gets, there is little outcry from the Queens Park media to "throw the rascals out". The eHealth fiasco can be added to a growing list of actions from this bunch that are far from acceptable to the Ontario taxpayers. McGuinty championed the bailing out of General Motors and Chrysler, the passage of legislation to harmonize the G.S.T. and the P.S.T., actions that will cost the taxpayers megabucks in the months to come, raised taxes when he promise he wouldn`t, and repealed, rather than followed, the balanced budget law. Now some of his cabinet "superstars" are falling by the wayside, with Michael Bryant resigning his seat to join the City of Toronto`s Economic Development Office, and then involved in an unfortunate auto accident that forced his resignation from that post; Caplan being lead off to the penalty box, and Smitherman being attacked for mismanaging the taxpayers dollars. This eHealth attack on Smitherman may push him into leaving provincial politics to take a run at the job as mayor of Toronto in the 2010 municipal election. Although none of this is helpful to Dalton McGuinty, he still has two years to recover before facing the Ontario electorate. It also doesn`t hurt him that both the opposition parties have new, untested leaders. In March of this year Andrea Horvath, the M.P.P. from Hamilton was elected leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. Horvath was a councillor from the City of Hamilton before being elected to Queens Park in a 2006 by-election. The question that will be asked, come election time, will be if Ontarians have forgiven the N.D.P. for Bob Rae's premiership during the early nineties. Tim Hudak, the recently elected leader of the provincial Conservatives is travelling the province, attempting to get himself known as a fiscal Conser-vative. If, over the next two years, one of these two premiership hopefuls makes contact with the Ontario voters, McGuinty could be in trouble. If not, it will be the same old, same old. Are your Green Bin liner bags compostable? Some of the Green Bin liner bags commercially available are not compostable, according to a news relase issued yesterday by Durham Region's Works Department. Green Bin liner bags advertised as biodegradable or oxobiodegradable are plastic-based bags that do not break down and reduce the quality of finished compost. Certified compostable bags do completely break down and become part of the finished compost. As part of the Region's Green Bin Education and Compliance program, the first time non-compostable bags, or other plastic bags, are spotted inside the green bin, the waste collector will leave a non-compliance tag on the green bin, and take the waste. The second time non-compostable bags/products are in the green bin, the waste collector will leave an educational lime-green sticker, but still take the waste. On the third offense, an information hanger will be left on the green bin, and the materialsleft at the curb. For a list of 100 per cent certified compostable liner bag brands or to view the logos that identify a bag as 100 per cent certified compostable, visit the Waste Management section of the Region's website at www.durhamregionwaste.ca, email waste@durham.ca, or call 905-579-5264 (toll-free at 1-800-667-5671). Material collected through Durham Region's Green Bin program is processed at a composting facility in Pickering. Finished compost is offered back to Durham Region residents for use on their lawns and gardens through yearly spring compost giveaway events. Reduce Reuse Recycle Donations always appreciated at the C l a r i ng t o n E a s t F o o d B a n k 987-1418 905-983-5301 ·oronotimes@rogers.com ORONO WEEKLY TIMES