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THIS WEBSITE HAS MOVED TO: http://www.CuriousAboutGeorge.ca
THIS WEBSITE HAS MOVED TO: http://www.CuriousAboutGeorge.ca
Health Minister George Smitherman is cleaning up the mess created by his plan to personally test an adult diaper used in nursing homes…
“For him to suggest that’s his answer is a disgrace,” said Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory. “It’s some kind of a sideshow he seems determined to put on when, in fact, I think people in Ontario would say: `George Smitherman, do something about it. Let’s see the revolution you promised in long-term care.’”
Witness the recent “Ehealth” scandal that saw $1 billion in taxpayer money frittered away on… well, nothing. An unapologetic McGuinty accepted Health Minster David Caplan’s resignation, but did nothing to demote George Smitherman, who is more responsible for the wasted billion than Caplan. For the premier, it’s another day, another billion.
http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2300309
What is most disturbing about the Grier story is not the fact that he was lobbying, but the fact that his clients — mostly pharmaceutical companies — were getting hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts — and then donating large amounts of cash to Smitherman’s riding association and to the Liberals.
It’s that you-scratch-mine-and-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of buddy system that is of most concern.
“We know Mr. Smitherman — we know he had a reputation for handing out sweeheart deals, and he handed Grier’s clients over 100 million in taxpayer dollars,” Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod said.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/christina_blizzard/2009/11/22/11863516-sun.html
The Toronto Centre Liberal riding association raised nearly $430,000 for George Smitherman in 2008 — the same year its president, Jason Grier, lobbied ministries Smitherman led for a long list of corporate and government clients.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/11/15/11751631-sun.html
But then there is the unfortunate business of his record. For all the gruff, tough talk Smitherman has presided over a ministry that has broken spending records, added a whole new level of bureaucracy, and managed to blow a billion bucks on consultants. Tough? Not in my book.
And what about that record deficit? Smitherman sat at the cabinet table while the government gave in to every public sector union demand including the latest gift of $1.5 billion to the teachers union for junior kindergarten. Not the guy I would want running my bank book.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/john_snobelen/2009/11/15/11751546-sun.html
It may be that some cabinet colleagues, in addition to feeling the popular Caplan had been shafted, had grown alarmed at what problems might arise from Smitherman’s assiduous wooing of the South Korean Samsung Group as an energy investor in Ontario.
That Furious George was, as the Star’s Robert Benzie has reported, “gang-tackled” by his cabinet colleagues on the concessions he was making to Samsung was remarkable.
Alarmingly, Ontario’s mad rush to embrace renewable energy sources that aren’t viable without massive public subsidies and are incapable, given current technology, of supplying “on demand” power to the grid, is being led by the same two politicians, McGuinty and Energy Minister George Smitherman, mainly responsible for the $1 billion eHealth boondoggle.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/10/27/11536651-sun.html
With the eHealth maelstrom threatening to swallow Furious George whole, he may not be able to yell his way into the mayor’s office, according to some of his critics at Queen’s Park and current city councillors.
This past week, Deputy Premier George Smitherman has come under fire for his role in the $1-billion eHealth scandal that saw hundreds of millions of provincial health-care dollars wasted trying in vain to set up electronic health records in Ontario.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/10/11/11369736-sun.html
