Chris Savard
Seaway News

July 28, 2006:

The media has been filled recently with reports of big dollars being spent on two re-branding initiatives by the McGuinty Liberals.

First, taxpayers learned the Ontario Government spent $219,000 to change the Ontario trillium from the government’s historic symbol to something that better suits the McGuinty Liberals own partisan purposes.

The new symbol was drawn for $219,000 by Liberal-friendly advertising agency Bensimon-Byrne, the same company who created Dalton McGuinty’s infamous “I won’t raise your taxes” campaign ads in the last election.

What is particularly puzzling is that there appears to be little reason to change the logo. Beyond the initial design costs, it will cost Ontario taxpayers tens millions of dollars to implement the change of the logo, in what is nothing more than a make-work project for a friendly advertising agency.

Then, on the heels of this spending spree to change Ontario’s Trillium logo, Dalton McGuinty is now wasting millions more of taxpayers’ dollars on another project to re-brand the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLGC). The McGuinty Government is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to take out the “C” in OLGC.

Ontario PC Leader John Tory was recently quoted as saying ““Dalton McGuinty’s advertising friends have hit the jackpot once again while taxpayers suffer. This is another huge waste of money. If spending $219,000 of taxpayers’ money to needlessly change the Trillium wasn’t bad enough, now Dalton McGuinty is spending millions to take out the ‘C’ in OLGC.”

Since the Liberals came to power, Bensimon-Byrne has compiled an amazing record of winning so-called competitions for McGuinty Liberal government work, including:

• Over $9 million in Ministry of Health contracts;
• $2.835 million for an Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation contract with a monthly retainer more than double what they were receiving before the Liberals were elected;
• $2.5 million for a Ministry of Citizenship contract for 2004-08;

Tory and the Ontario PC party recently launched a website called www.savethetrillium.ca, to give Ontarians an opportunity to send Dalton McGuinty a message about his change to the Trillium, Ontario’s symbol for more than 40 years. The new symbol looks very similar to parts of the Ontario Liberal Party logo.

I am sure each of us can think of a number of better ways that our hard-earned provincial tax dollars could have been spent in our riding, instead of being wasted on these unnecessary re-branding projects.

chris@chrissavard.ca

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