Ontario Premier Mike Harris discusses education policy at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont., on May 28, 1999.Rene Johnston
As Chris Blizzard notes in today's Sun, the Ontario PC Party released an interim position on the economy she says casts back to the Common Sense Revolution.
Writes Ms. Blizzard: "While Tories were sleeping, times changed. This isn't 1994. Everything old isn't necessarily new again."
Close readers of public policy might note that the "Ten Ideas for 2010" are all re-announcements of promises made in 2009 or earlier.
More importantly, they might say each draws from the same "cut, cut, cut" agenda that Hudak and his mentor, Mike Harris, brought to Ontario for nine tumultuous years.
In fact, comparing each pledge to similar rhetoric in the Common Sense Revolution, and how that then translated in government, one can quickly see how each promise would be put into action:
1. Suspend the Tax on New Jobs - Cut taxes.
2. Eliminate Job Killing Red Tape and Regulations - Cut environmental regulations.
3. Make Home Ownership More Affordable - Cut other taxes.
4. Restore Balance to the WSIB System - Cut access to benefits for injured workers.
5. Expand Job Opportunities for Young Workers - Cut the ratio of journeymen to apprentices.
6. Create Jobs in Northern Ontario - Cut other environmental regulations.
7. Cut Wasteful Government - Cut spending.
8. Stop Corporate Welfare - Cut investment in jobs.
9. Cap Spending - Cut health spending per capita.
10.Bring Public Sector Agreements in Line with Reality - Cut wages.
Even Tim Hudak would probably agree there is nothing new here, except refried Mike Harris.
The obvious omission is the HST.
Mr. Hudak had branded the tax reform a "job killer" but is strangely silent on his own plans for the consumption tax in this "jobs plan."
Perhaps the work of Jack Mintz demonstrating almost 600,000 new jobs as a result of the tax reform package has convinced Hudak the HST should stay.
Or perhaps Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper's advocacy for the job creating reform changed his mind.
So while the HST omission is puzzling, the ancestry of this set of proposals is not. Even the wording ("ending corporate welfare") is taken verbatim from the Common Sense Revolution.
In his mimicry of a old playbook, Hudak places himself in double jeopardy.
One challenge is the staleness of the ideas, warmed over from a decade and a half ago.
But more troubling is Hudak's agenda in comparison to Premier McGuinty's: Cut Ontario vs. Open Ontario.
While not everyone will rejoice at 20,000 new post-secondary spaces, a Green Energy Act, exporting our water technologies or making Toronto a world financial centre, they are undeniably 21st century solutions to 21st century challenges.
Thatcher-Reagan-Harris-style hatchet wielding feels as dated now as a thin, black leather tie.