Press Releases
McGuinty's "Buy Korea Policy" is bad for Ontario
(Queen's Park Report - February 9, 2010) News of Dalton McGuinty's $7 billion sweetheart deal with South Korea's Samsung Group has been met with fierce opposition from many corners. Here's why.
According to Mr. McGuinty, the Samsung deal to build wind turbines for
Ontario will create 16,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next 6
years. While that might sound nice on the surface, you only need to
scratch a bit further to figure out that it's a horrible deal for
Ontario taxpayers.
Of those supposed 16,000 jobs, only 1,440 of them would be permanent
jobs. The real kicker is in the cost of those jobs. Mr. McGuinty is
doling out $437 million in taxpayer subsidies to Samsung, costing
Ontario taxpayers $303,000 per permanent job created. That's atrocious.
If taxpayers are on the hook for that kind of money, you might say
we're getting some pretty decent jobs. Not so. Under this plan, South
Korea will get all of the high-skilled and high-tech jobs, and all of
the research and development that goes with those jobs. Under
McGuinty's "Buy Korea Policy" Ontario will only get the assembly line
jobs. That's a raw deal.
As if that's not enough, Ontario companies didn't even get to bid on
this deal, making it the mother of all untendered government contracts.
To be fair, Samsung isn't the only foreign recipient of our tax
dollars. French video game developer Ubisoft got a handsome $263
million grant to apparently create 800 jobs in 10 years. That works
out to $330,000 per job. And then there's the promised government
rebate of $10,000 to subsidize GM's Chevy Volt electric car - a car not
even made in Canada, never mind Ontario, and a plan that analysts
estimate will cost $3.5 billion to implement.
With just these three programs, Mr. McGuinty has handed out over $4
billion in subsidies to foreign companies. That's a hefty sum.
I believe it's time for Dalton McGuinty to stop picking winners and
losers in business and focus instead on targeting taxes that would make
Ontario desirable for investment for all companies, not just McGuinty's
chosen few.
While Mr. McGuinty touts these foreign deals, Progressive Conservative
leader Tim Hudak has been travelling Ontario talking about ideas to
promote struggling Ontario businesses. Some of those proposals include
implementing a payroll tax holiday to make it easier for Ontario
businesses to hire more staff; a one year suspension of the land
transfer tax to make home ownership more achievable and to help create
construction jobs; and the reinstatement of the Red Tape Commission to
remove barriers to growth for Ontario businesses.
I'd rather support Ontario businesses so that they can grow and prosper
and develop leading technologies that we can sell around the world, not
the other way around.
It seems getting a good deal for taxpayers is something Mr. McGuinty has long forgotten.
