The graphic links on the right will take you to some of the education sites I visit when I'm looking for news, information, even curriculum materials for the classes I teach. If you're not a teacher, they may not be of much interest, but if you are teaching in Ontario, especially at the secondary level, you will probably recognize most if not all of these logos.

Here we are again; another provincial election campaign just underway, with hopes that the newly-elected government in the fall of '07 will continue to restore public confidence while using a fair measure of public money to restore the infrastructure and resources of the public education system. (Imagine that; an educational system where people of all religions and cultural influence are invited to attend, and share goodwill and ideas with their neighbours; a "public" system.) There was an attempt to dismantle this system recently; to create a crisis that only they could solve. It's easy to do; just starve your constituency for resources until they can no longer function properly, then promise to restore the funds. without regard during the last incumbency of the Ontario PC Party. (Note that this was not a "Tory government"; there hasn't been one of those yet!. But oh, how convenient it is to use that single word to describe both the party and it's leader!)

It is interesting to observe the pot calling the kettle greasy when the eight-year, oft-repeated promise of Harris, Eves, and Company was a balanced budget, made so by the many crippling, unscrupulous cuts to a wide variety of cherished public services, including educational ones.

Remember the 'glory days' of the Harris government? You may recall we were actually "in the black" one year, and each of us hard-working Ontario taxpayers received a $200 cheque as a rebate; a much-touted 'return on our investment' in the Ontario Government. (Aside: I gave my $200 to CJRT.FM, a donor-based radio station that played classical and jazz music, and had coincidentally lost their quarter million dollar Ontario Government grant that same year.)

In the end, though, they failed to keep their big, all-encompassing, dynasty-building, common-sense promise; to balance the budget. Instead, they left behind a 5.6 billion dollar crater in the Ontario provincial bank statement.

But yes, folks, Dalton McGuinty told a lie. He made a promise and then he broke it; baldly and without remorse or hesitation. He raised taxes when he said he wouldn't. Bad Dalton. Down boy. I like to think he was simply gullible. He actually believed that the PCs would leave office quietly, leaving a modest surplus, or at least a minor bank-balancing problem. Such a naive man, our Dalton.

But there's a certain satisfaction in making the best of a bad situation (instead of inventing a crisis), and I think Dalton knows that now, and so do the citizens of Ontario who have watched the education sector since 2004. And Ontario has been prosperous during those years, if not greedily so by the CEOs and profit-takers.

I suppose I should just say it. I don't really care who wins the election as long as we don't get stuck with another "Tory" government this year. As Jack Layton might say "They're wrong on all the issues", at least all the ones that matter to me.