The biggest con-job in recent Ontario politics was Premier Dalton McGuinty’s announcement of a new statutory holiday, Family Day (Feb. 18) and it is now turning into a family-size row.
The Liberal premier said in the Oct. 10 election campaign he would designate a day each February as a holiday for all with pay, but glossed over the cost and is having to come to terms with the fact there is no free lunch.
If workers don’t work but receive pay, employers will have to foot the bill, and among other downsides some workers will not get extra time off or cash.
McGuinty tried to justify the holiday by saying Ontario has long winters, workers deserve a break between New Year and Easter and working parents need more time together.
But the Liberals are imposing new costs on employers when the economy is weakening and have failed to explain why they can afford this now.
McGuinty had no estimate of costs and did not even ask business. Greg Sorbara, finance minister at the time, claimed governments had talked for years of a new statutory holiday, which was untrue.
Individual backbench MPPs had asked for another holiday, but no government had shown interest in agreeing to one. Sorbara also said the economy can support one now, but did not explain how.
The real explanation is the Liberals were looking for votes to sew up an election at that time they were not certain of winning.
They had four years in government in which they could have announced the new holiday, but waited until the vote.
They promised the new holiday the same day Progressive Conservative leader John Tory officially launched his campaign and, because it was novel and not hinted at before and another day off for all is among the biggest news, news media reported it extensively. Tory went as unnoticed as if he was campaigning in outer space.
This was such an obvious bribe, a day off for your vote, residents should have felt insulted. McGuinty believed he could buy their votes so readily and it should have cost him support.
It was the most blatant bribe offered in an election campaign since another Liberal premier, David Peterson, promised to cut provincial sales tax 1 percent in 1990 and was chased out of office.
But most Toronto media helped keep the focus on the joys of having another day off and McGuinty did not lose the respect he should have.
The cost to employers, who include many small businesses, has now emerged as substantial, but uncertain because of complications. The value of a day’s output of manufactured goods and services is about $2 billion.
But many employers will not have to give all their employees an extra day off. One reason is they already give employees more days off each year than the statutory holidays the province requires and may be able to designate one of these as their Family Day.
Some workers also will come back re-charged by their extra day off and their increased productivity will help offset the lost day of work.
But economists and business groups still estimate the loss from the new day off as a minimum $500 million.
The political fallout also has been bitter. Tory, when the holiday was announced, said he was all for families having an extra day together, but the Liberals’ timing suggested they were interested mainly in winning votes. This was prudent, because his popularity was slipping and most voters appeared pleased with what they heard about the new holiday.
The Conservatives’ leader in the legislature, Bob Runciman, has now said the Liberals’ announcement of the new holiday shows they are failing to understand the problems facing particularly manufacturers and his party wants it re-named Unnecessary Fiscal Burden Day.
The Liberals are retorting this flip-flop is no surprise, because the Conservatives have never cared for working families or even for families – this day is not drawing Ontarians into one big happy family.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
