Wynne Yes Man Red Ed Bad Pairing for LCBO
Yesterday the Ontario Liberal Party shone the bat-signal down University Avenue to let Ed Clark know Kathleen Wynne needed him back. With Wynne Yes Man Red Ed now chair of the LCBO, well-connected, insider friends of Kathleen Wynne will continue to get ahead while you and your family struggle to get by.
Protecting the LCBO from Ed Clark
As one of the Crown Jewels of Ontario’s Government Business Enterprises, LCBO revenues help fund education, health care, and other services – reducing the need to resort to traditional taxation.
We cannot trust it in the hands of one of the architects of the botched Hydro One privatization. Ed Clark remains the wrong choice to lead the LCBO at this critical time.
Kathleen Wynne and Ed Clark’s fire sale of Hydro One may have been great for the Liberal insiders who divided up the spoils among themselves but it was a bad deal for Ontario families. What Ed Clark told the CBC about hydro rates after the privatization (“I think they’ll go down”) shows he will say and do anything to protect his boss (Will Ontario’s Hydro One sale raise your electricity rate?, CBC News, April 20, 2015)
While Liberal insider are surely popping the champagne corks at this appointment, LCBO CEO Dr. George Soleas must do whatever he can to maintain his independence from partisan interference from his new chair. Remaining board members should likewise be vigilant and exercise their challenge function assiduously.
Ed Clark’s Liberal pedigree
The Toronto Star called Ed Clark Wynne’s “high-profile problem solver” for helping the Liberals undermine the Auditor General (The battle behind the auditor general’s report, Toronto Star, November 30, 2016). The Globe and Mail said he was in Dalton McGuinty’s “kitchen cabinet” (Alberta paranoid about its wealth, Toronto Star, August 7, 2006). He participated in “exclusive dinners” with former federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (Ignatieff reaches out to top economists, The Globe and Mail, May 21, 2009). And he was one of the “architects” of Pierre Trudeau’s Energy Program (Turbulence follows former ‘Trudeaucrat’, National Post, August 9, 1999). For that, as the Globe reported, “In 1985, one of Brian Mulroney’s first surgical moves as prime minister…was to have Mr. Clark fired.” (The power of persuasion, The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2009).
Quite right.
Like a bad bottle of wine at a restaurant, it’s time we send back Wynne Yes Man Red Ed. The election is only a few months away.