It was an interesting time.  My 1st reaction was one shaking my head.  What was an online newspaper?  Of course I had quite an idea since I was early into the Internet and I could see how the ability to access information online was going to change the game.  However, like many other people I couldn’t quite figure it out.  It had only been what seemed a couple of years since I first showed John what we could do on a computer.  Building an online newspaper seemed so science fiction at the time.

You have to understand how revolutionary John’s idea was at the time.  I remember paying bills on the Internet for the 1st time.  I was told by my bank at one point that I needed to get confirmation that my taxes had been paid.  The only problem was I paid my taxes over the Internet, something almost unheard of at the time.  When I went to the local municipal office to get confirmation that I paid my taxes, they told me they couldn’t help me because they really did know what the Internet was.  Long story short, I somehow got the bank satisfied with my explanation and somebody got confirmation that everything was paid.  Needless to say, when the Internet was born there were many people who didn’t know Al Gore.  My friend John Gardiner was at the forefront of revolution.

Harnessing that revolution was always the great challenge.  We all knew that we were at the reins of a wild bucking bronco but finding a way to turn that into cold hard cash was always a difficult reality. Even today in 2011 many online ventures lose money but for whatever reason are wildly successful.  Twitter is one of those.  In fact a Saudi billionaire invested $300 million into Twitter yesterday.  I guess when you have money to burn; you can do those types of things.

John and I have been friends since 1978.  So that is a long time and you could even make an argument I’ve been friends with John almost longer than anybody else on earth.  We have a long history, forged by mutual respect and a synergy that is very powerful.  I’ve often told John to not worry about me because we are joined at the hip and we understand each other even when we don’t talk.  So over the past 9 years all of my work showed up on John’s desk even when I was on the other side of the earth.  I’m sure John didn’t bat an eye.

On December 12th John announced to Cktimes.ca columnists that he could no longer operate CKtimes as a business and would be shutting down the paper by Christmas.  He then surprised me by saying that he would keep it going starting January 10, 2012 if there was enough interest.  He also advised us that he would completely understand if we could not go on with what he called the “regular grind of writing.”

That is where I find myself.  Over the last 9 years I have given everything I had to Cktimes.ca.  That involved the writing of this column, East-West and their respective podcasts.  A few years ago I also brought my agricultural commentary to cktimes.ca every week.  It meant creating pictures for each column, sometimes editing and creating 3 podcasts each week in addition to a very heavy workload on my ever-expanding farm and in addition to my expanding writing and speaking career outside of it.  In that time I never missed a deadline other than for East-West, where I had to rely on the communication vagaries in Bangladesh.  Sometimes, it was a very exhausting time for me and I know with John ceasing to run Cktimes.ca as a business, I cannot continue.  It’s been a heck of a ride, but now it’s over.

I can remember writing my column and editing podcasts in several locations around the world.  That’s what John Gardiner meant to me.  Without John’s support throughout my life, my world would be different.  There would be no Rick Fines, no Blues Bands, no Star Trek, no Hanover, no Hippie Reunions, No Glass Onions and certainly no Agridome.  This is not the end, only a new beginning.  John and I, still after all this time, joined at the hip.  Sam would be so proud.

In my mind one of the warmest places in Canada with the best climate has a lot of advantages versus the rest of the country.  When you add the low cost of living that we have here in southwestern Ontario it adds a pretty good one-two punch for anybody who lives here.  All you have to do is read about the cost of living in places like Vancouver Montréal and Toronto to realize you have a pretty good deal by living in southwestern Ontario.

Of course I am very sensitive about being a homer when it comes to boosting your own area.  When I go to family events I hear from people who live near the greater Toronto area who tell me they would never want to live here.  To them it is a bit like southwestern Siberia instead of southwestern Ontario.  Where would we work?  That is often the question.  It’s a hard one for me to argue with, as our unemployment in southwestern Ontario is usually much higher than the greater Toronto area.  I always shoot back that they could sell her house in Toronto and retire in southwestern Ontario.  The conversation usually ends with the realization that there is no greater place than living close to the greater Toronto area.

They may be right, I don’t know.  My day job farming soils of Southwestern Ontario gives me an unusual tie to the land, something maybe not everybody would understand.  When I am in foreign lands or even in other parts of Canada I often like to walk out into the fields and touch the soil.  I just like to see what it looks like and see how it feels.  I’ve often wondered how it would feel to farm the land far from southwestern Ontario.  Even thinking about it seems so foreign.

The climate here in southwestern Ontario is much warmer than the rest of the country.  Yes, my friends in BC’s lower mainland and Vancouver Island might have an argument with that.  Look at any weather map of Ontario and you will consistently see that southwestern Ontario has the warmest climate by a long shot.  That fact alone in this very cold country should count for something.

However, despite how much I like this place and even with all its advantages it isn’t heaven.  I remember very clearly coming out of the doctor’s office one day, having been told that I have spots on my lungs.  However, the doctor said don’t worry, everybody in southwestern Ontario does.  It was something about the pollution in the air we breathe coming from the United States.  I guess that is a hazard of living here that I never expected.

There are probably quite a few things wrong with Southwestern Ontario.  Southwestern Ontario to me is west of London, so that is a bit of a restrictive geographic definition.  One of the greatest challenges we have is the lack of immigration.  Most immigrants to Canada fly to Toronto Montréal or Vancouver and stay there.  They bring with them all their entrepreneurial skills and of course their money.  In my mind they could always make those skills and there money go so much farther in southwestern Ontario.  However, that has never happened.  However, if I were a politician in southwestern Ontario it would be my main priority.

Chatham-Kent is a laboratory for outmigration in southwestern Ontario.  It is the only area in southern Ontario, which consistently loses population.  So the great challenge is always how many schools to close or how to ration health care.  I ask could you ever imagine a day in Chatham Kent when the challenge would be to build more schools and to build several more hospitals?  That’s the direction that I would like to go and immigration is key, in fact it’s the only answer to make that happen.

Voices expressing this idea are few and far between.  It is what it is.  Even my voice is growing much more weary.  It’s almost like people in southwestern Ontario want to keep it a secret.  The problem is no growth means fewer jobs, less economic activity and eventually a lower standard of living.  Well, we don’t want to go there.  If you are new to Canada, come on down.  Southwestern Ontario is the place for you.

Interestingly enough today the Ontario auditor general released his 460 page annual report to the Ontario Legislature.  In the report he released some of the most damning opinion about the problems of our present Liberal government.  He released quite an indictment of Ontario’s Green Energy Act and the resulting economic calamity that has come from it.  Those wind turbines and solar panels dotting Southwestern Ontario come at a cost.  According to Ontario’s auditor general it was done without the proper planning.

One of the most damning opinions given by the auditor general was regarding the $110 million Samsung deal, which will go to the South Korean consortium over 20 years.  This was in addition to the high FIT premiums, which were paid on electricity generated from solar panels.  Essentially, the Ontario auditor general said this was done with no formal economic analysis to determine whether the deal was sound!

My question is how does that happen?  Can you imagine sitting around a table and approving $110 million worth of tax payers money over a period of 20 years which will essentially change the landscape of rural Ontario and not have any economic analysis behind question?  It’s just totally inconceivable that it could happen in 2011 and it tells the story that this great green energy thrust was built on nothing other than musings and opinions.  It was almost like it was done on a hunch.  Yes, I know that is a bit harsh and surely not true.  However, the Liberal should have been taken to the woodshed for that.  They surely were in rural Ontario.

The Ontario auditor general also said that there would be $220 million a year added to our Hydro bills to pay the premiums generated from green electricity.  Its like crazy head is going on.  It’s all hard to believe, almost like science fiction but it’s all real.

Then there are the 50,000 jobs the Premier McGuinty has been talking about being created by the Green Energy Act.  Of those 50,000 jobs, Ontario’s Auditor General Jim McCarter says that 30,000 of those will be short-term construction jobs.  So it is not necessarily what it seems.

To top it off, the Auditor General also said that neither the Ontario Energy Board nor the Ontario Power Authority were consulted about the agreement between Samsung and the government.  Slamdunk! This is nuts.

I have never really taken a lot of time writing about my opinion regarding green energy in Ontario.  I was always a skeptic based on the Disneyland economics that were being talked about.  However, it is one thing to engage in an economic opportunity, which you deem reasonable and well founded.  There were lots of farmers who took advantage of that.  Some got paid and some didn’t.  I was asked about my opinion of these green energy projects at the time and I said it would depend on whether the government changed its mind or whether the green energy companies had the economic staying power.  At the time it was a bit of a license to print money but really never made sense.  Now Ontario Auditor General Jimmy McCarter is saying the same thing, except its even worse.

If this information had been released before last month’s provincial election, it may or may not have had an effect with the outcome.  If you look at electoral map of Ontario you will see a complete wasteland for the Liberals in rural Ontario.  It’s almost like rural Ontarians knew of the problems with regard to the Green Energy Act.  Yes, there was lots of opposition and it certainly transcended at the ballot box.  However, urban areas did not look at it the same way and maybe even with these new revelations coming from the auditor general, it wouldn’t make a difference.  Needless to say, these allegations are spellbinding, crazy head stuff, something we would not attribute to Western governments.

Something this rotten usually doesn’t have a happy ending.  All the money is gone now.  There is a chance that some of the spending will be curtailed and unfortunately some of that will be on the backs of people who invested heavily in some of these green energy projects.  It is too bad.  Everybody loves being green.  However, the Emperor has no clothes now.  Ontario’s Auditor General has laid out how bad this thing was.  The sad part is, its not going away.  We’ll be paying for this stinker for a very long time.

There are no records of that 1st Agridome 25 years ago.  The reason for that is I wrote it by longhand on a pad of paper.  Then I drove it 14 miles to my editor John Gardiner at the old Wallaceburg (Ontario) News.  That is hard to imagine now.  However, it is just as hard to imagine that 25 years after, we are no longer driving all tractors and combines.  In fact many tractors and combines are being steered through the fields by satellites in space.  The rate of change over the last 25 years has been blinding.

A new Macintosh computer soon extinguished my long hand.  In the late 1980s a fax modem arrived which meant I typed out a column, then press a button where it was sent right to my editor’s desk.  Under the Agridome was soon picked up by regional newspapers.  In 1994 it was picked up by DTN, a large American company and here we are today.  Now, in 2011 it’s all about voice recognition software.  I don’t use a pen or the keyboard anymore.  I just think and talk and the rest is history.

25 years ago our agricultural space was so much different.  In the 1980’s most of the corn grown went to feed animals with a small percentage going into food and residual use.  Now more than half the corn grown in North America goes to produce ethanol, which we burn in our cars.    In 2011, we continue our best to try and feed a hungry world.  If that means we burn some food up in our gas tanks, so be it.

Over the period of the last 25 years I have made 4 trips to Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on earth.  It is not lost on me when I am there that I am a food producer who sees people with empty stomachs.  I was shocked on my 1st visit there in 1993 to see extended stomachs, people starving on the streets and poverty everywhere.  On my last visit in 2009, I was completely immune from that.  I had made the mental adjustment to recognize poverty alleviation and feeding the people should be the focus of mankind.  So when I am out producing my crops, I know it is for me but it is also my attempt to alleviate poverty in this world.  I have stared straight into the eyes of people with empty stomachs and it is not easy.  So sometimes I am constricted with the constant demands for higher food prices among some of my farmer colleagues.

The highlight of my 25-year career writing the Agridome was being pushed to the front of the line to lead the Ottawa Farm Solidarity rally in April 2006.  At that time Canadian producers were being pushed against the wall by low prices and governments who had no interest in any semblance of a safety net.  When 10,000 farmers massed on to Parliament Hill on that cool April morning, I felt a chill going up my spine.  It was my responsibility to give them hope and say the words, which the rest of Canada would hear that night on national news.  It was a riveting moment and one that will never be repeated.  I will always appreciate the confidence Canadian farmers showed in me that day.  I’ll surely never see another day like it.

Since that time, we have seen an explosion in the agricultural economy created by increased food demand and ethanol.  As I gripped the microphone that day, it was hard to see that coming.  All of us were grasping at straws for a solution to make Canadian agriculture thrive.

That quest continues and I will be here, who knows, maybe even for another 25 years.  Thank you all. Thank you At Issues readers.  I did my best.  I don’t know if I’ve got another 25 years in me.  However, I’ll give it a go.

It has meant that huge amounts of capital have been moving around markets very quickly.  US treasuries have been the final destination for much of that money and the value of the US dollar has gone up because of that.  That’s like giving a glass of cold water to somebody in hell.  I say that because the Americans have their own problems with debt.  Just today the US Congressional super committee which was set up to reduce government deficits by $1.2 trillion announced that they had failed to do so.  That led to a tumbling in the stock market and general nervousness is starting to become a real constant.

The world needs financial clarity right now because capital likes safety and it would seem that there is nothing safe.  In the meantime commodity prices are dropping and jobs are being lost.  The world needs an infusion of optimism.

It is a difficult situation we find ourselves in.  For those of us working at honest jobs in southwestern Ontario, much of this must seem so foreign.  How can the intransigence of European banks lending money to southern European nations impact us?  The problem lies in the degree of how big this is.  There is so much capital tied up or loaned out with the specter of no repayment very big on the radar screen.  At a certain point, that will either mean bank failure or countries defaulting.  Usually when the loan is given which goes bad there’s give-and-take on both sides.  In this case loans to governments are a different matter.  Many of the European banks are simply looking for a bailout of sovereign debt.  They don’t want to eat much of those themselves.

It is serious now but it will be much more serious if there is a “run on the banks” as they say.  Can you imagine Europeans in 2011 lining up outside of some of their bigger banks just simply to get their money and stuff it in their mattress? It is hard to imagine but if people lose enough confidence with their banking institutions, it will happen.  Perish the thought.

There is lots of blame to go around but probably the biggest culprits are those who just want to kick the can down the road.  That is a metaphor for dealing with the problems later someday.  There is no question in my mind that a common currency without a common fiscal policy makes little sense now.  This is such a slow-moving train wreck.  Every day it’s like another car falls off the tracks, markets plunge in there never ending battle of risk aversion.

Of course there are many other things going on in the world that can cause economic jitters.  About 30 people have been killed in Cairo’s Tahir Square, the site of the revolution that took place there earlier this year.  Apparently military rule is not what those protesters were wanting when they ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.  Despite the fact that elections were scheduled for about one week from now, political unrest there adds to the economic uncertainty equation.

Then there is Iran.  Iran has announced that they will not kowtow to Western interests with regard to their nuclear technology.  Western countries including Canada have imposed new sanctions on Iran to try and curtail their nuclear production.  I have no problem with Iran having a nuclear technology.  Pakistan has it and that doesn’t seem to be a problem to anybody in the West.  However, one rogue missile sent into Israel from Iran would have obvious catastrophic effects on the world economy.  So in Western capitals, Iran is now top drawer.

With this going on, how can we be positive about the global economy?  Well, it is pretty hard.  There seems to be a myriad of problems that are putting the brakes on economic growth.  Yes, I did mention China a few weeks ago.  Let’s hope they have something left.  We might just have to depend on Asia getting the world economy out of this mess.

For those of you who don’t know and for those of you who don’t care please stay with me.  The NBA locked out its players on July 1st.  The issue is about money, the owners feeling that they do not make enough and the players not wanting to give up what they have.  There was little movement over the summer as both sides seemed intent on letting crunch time get closer, that being the start of the regular season.  As we have moved throughout the year the rhetoric has got louder.  Both sides in the ongoing labor negotiation have raised the temperature.  Then there was today when it seems the whole thing blew up.

I am not going to explain the nuances of the labor issue because I have a very difficult time understanding it myself.  What happened on Monday was that the union disbanded taking the NBA to court in an antitrust suit.  There was a disclaimer of interest with regard to the union.  I don’t know what that means but I do know that it means there will be no NBA basketball for the foreseeable future.  In fact the season might be lost.  For basketball fans like me it is unfortunate.  However, I think the damage goes much farther than that.  The casual fan, the person that might be mildly interested in watching the pro game is certainly being discarded.

The NBA has all kinds of casual fans going to games.  For instance the stadiums are full of people that don’t know anything about basketball but are there for corporate reasons.  That’s okay with me, as I understand that’s the way of the professional sports world.  I might find it annoying because I’ve been at Piston games where I was thoroughly ensconced in the action while the people beside me were only interested in the Jumbotron.  Then there are all those casual fans that might watch the NBA game on television.  Those are the people that they are really going to lose and the collective damage from it will be great.  It is such a shame.

Now some of you might be thinking that I might be going a little bit soft with regard to my favorite sport.  For instance some of you might think it is only billionaires disagreeing with millionaires and why should I be so concerned about that.  Well, you might have a point there.  Needless the say, I like what I like and NBA basketball is been a fixture of my life since childhood.  I grew up watching Channel 50 and seeing all those Pistons through the years.

The issue I see in the latest breakdown in the NBA labor negotiation is that it is affecting the hard-core fans like me.  Sure, some of you may have watched hockey in your younger days or baseball and still do.  You are hard-core.  I might be hard hard-core, because I hardly miss a minute the Piston action all season.  However, these labor events plus the LeBron “Decision” event last year really has muddied the waters for me.  I’m finding myself completely disconnected from the NBA like never before.  It’s a personal thing for me and surely that’s where it should end.  However, if the NBA has alienated a 40-year hard-core fan like me, what’s that say for most of the people that are even mildly interested in professional basketball?  It’s not a good thing and permanent damage is being done.

I’d just like my guys to get back on the basketball court and play ball.  In fact, I’d like to play ball again but I’m too old now.  I played until I was 45 years old but then hung up the sneakers.  It got to be dangerous–LOL.

So we shall see what happens next.  I’m expecting the season to be canceled and for the air to be let out of the basketball. It’s too bad all those billionaires and millionaires spoiled all the fun.  They better hope we’ll come back someday.

So I wonder how that “hopey changey” thing is working out for our American friends?  It is a bit of a rhetorical question because Mr. Obama has been faced with some terrible economics since he was handed the Presidential reins from George W. Bush.  I cannot imagine how much worse an economic transition for any President to accept going back to the Great Depression.  It hasn’t worked out for President Obama mainly because of the economy.  Since 2008 the US economy has done very little.  Unemployment has been terribly high and it’s only in the last few months that we have seen some good numbers coming from of the American economy.

Those good American economic numbers are being drowned out by the problems in Europe.  I don’t have to go over that story again.  Every day in our economic news, headlines are dominated by the problems in Greece, Italy, Portugal and other places in Europe.  That bad economic news is almost helping President Obama deflect some of the blame for the economic problems in the United States.

So a year ago he was elected and in another year we will see if President Obama gets another 4 years in the White House.  I do find it quite interesting watching the political race in the United States partly because of the anemic opposition that is being put up from the Republicans.  American television is inundated with 9 candidates from the Republican Party debating populist issues.  This debate has been hijacked to a large extent by the populist tea party movement, which can’t agree about anything other than less government, less taxes and less liberals.

I’ve lost count of the Republican Presidential candidates.  There is Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former House leader Newt Gingrich, former Utah Governor, John Huntsman, Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, businessman Herman Cain and a host of others.  There’s nobody that stands out other than maybe former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.  He however, does not have the Royal jelly of the Republican Party, seen as hostile to tea party motives.  So front-runners for the Republican nomination have been going back and forth, the latest flavour of the day has been Herman Cain.

Of course Mr. Cane has had many problems over the last week with accusations of sexual harassment dogging his campaign.  He actually led the Republican field in the polls before the sexual harassment allegations came to light.  However, it is hard to imagine a black conservative candidate winning the Republican nomination.  Now with these sexual-harassment allegations gurgling on every tabloid television show, it’s going to make it that much harder.

It shows you how dirty politics can be, especially in the United States.  It also shows us how despite the problems that Mr. Obama has politically, a year from now it might be 4 more years of “Yes we can!”  Mr. Obama is leading Mitt Romney in a “put together” a poll by major news firms, but of course it’s all conjecture at this point. Nobody knows what is going to happen but it’s pretty clear to me that any solidified political opposition to President Obama is not coalescing anywhere.  If the economy improves and Mr. Obama avoids any mistakes, I think you will be reelected a year from now.

For Canadians it is difficult to understand why the Republican Party would have such a problem with Mitt Romney.  Sure, he is a Mormon and in the United States that creates some negatives for a lot of people.  However, he also orchestrated the Massachusetts health care plan, which is about as good as it gets in the United States.  However, something like that is anathema to the Tea partiers within the Republican Party.  So the debate continues as the Republicans look for a candidate to defeat Obama.

The high water mark so far for the Obama presidency has been the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.  I’m sure as the Presidential election gets closer, the Democratic Party will bring that up.  It hasn’t quite worked out for Barack Obama like he may have thought 3 years ago.  However, unless the Republicans mount a better challenge, I don’t see him losing a year from now.

I know that there is a double negative in that last paragraph.  Canadians are not all that happy with investing their money in a bank account and getting less than 1% interest.  So over of years, investors have been encouraged by their own banks as well as their friends and neighbors to invest in far more complex vehicles for their money.  Usually this means exposure to risk assets in far-off lands.  Some of you might have a great risk aversion and want that money invested in emerging markets.  Others may not and some of it may have ended up in some Greek or Italian bonds.  There are so many choices for that disposable income.

So the basic problem in Europe has been countries like Portugal, Italy and Greece being unable to service their sovereign debt.  In other words those countries spent far more than they were bringing in.  The only problem with that is that they are part of the European Union, which has a common currency, the Euro.  So now that they cannot pay that debt back, countries like Europe and France are not too fussy about paying it back for them.  On top of that European banks have guaranteed much of this debt, which is essentially no good.  So if you remember that Lehman Brothers problem back in 2008, this makes that look almost like Sunday school.

So when the Chancellor of Germany and the President of France last week announced that there was a European bailout package in place, there was joy in the markets.  In fact the Dow Jones had one of its largest days ever since 2008.  Commodity markets spiked on the news because it was the thought that somehow these rotten sovereign assets could be salvaged.  In other words there was joy in Joy-ville.  It was the 1st good news in a long time about the European debt problem.

The European deal hinged on convincing private banks to take a 50% loss on Greek bond holdings and give the country a chance to pay off their public debt.  This will help reduce the Greece debt to GDP ratio to 120%, which is down from 180% now.  The Europeans have also decided to increase their bail out fund to about $1.4 trillion.  They are even enlisting a country like China to help them raise the money.  So it was a huge deal.

Moreover, be careful what you wish for.  China this week is saying that it is not going to be the moneybags Santa Claus for Europe.  I’m sure from an Asian perspective, it is so delicious.  For centuries, European powers have tried to push China around, even colonizing parts of it.  Add Japan to the mix with their occupation of China in the 1930s and 40s.  So now in 2011 the Western world has come asking for “Eastern capital” to help them out.  It is so bizarre, asking a developing country to provide capital to bail out Western European nations who were living too high on the hog.  As this new week dawned, markets staggered a bit.  China will not be fooled in the markets know that.

That attitude might be a bit hard to take for some Western European nations.  However, it might be a harbinger for the future.  We all know that it’s always better to have the money versus not having the money.  It just so happens that China has been the factory for the world over the last 20 years and they are rife with foreign reserves.  Now, when they look out their window, it’s obvious they have so much more power.  This latest problem with the European debt bailout issue will be one of the 1st times they will exercise it in a way which will affect the economic lives of Western citizens.

In Canada, our economic growth forecast is not so good but it is still positive and much better than other parts of the world.  Needless to say, the European debt problem continues to fester even after the deal struck last week.  Yes, it will take time to bring Europe back.  In the meantime, the global economy will grow slowly, backing up on the economic shores of Southwestern Ontario.  So let’s hope the cup is half full.  Let’s hope the deal struck with the implication of Chinese help comes through in spades.  Our world is changing, no doubt.  Asian help is on the way.

I say that because since his election with a minority he has been talking about a minor majority.  In other words he is only one seat shy of a majority government and that is very rare.  So you might think that with one seat shy, somebody could be coaxed across the floor or somebody could be coaxed to not show up for a vote.  Both way, that helps the government survive and it is a tenant of the minor majority.  However, at the end of the day, regardless of what you call it, it’s a minority government with an average lifespan of about 18 months.

There have been a few postmortems on the election campaign.  Conservative leader Tim Hudak was expected to be the next premier when the election was announced because he was leading by about 11 points in the polls. However, that’s why we vote in the society is to keep score.   By the time the election was over Mr. McGuinty almost had his majority back. What was interesting was the complete rural urban divide of the electorate.  Mr. Guinty gets no rural seats and is elected in Toronto and the big urban centers.  The NDP takes the North, seats in the Hamilton area and Essex County.  The Conservatives sweep rural Ontario with the exception of Taras Natyshak, who will be representing Essex County for the NDP.

That is how the cookie crumbles for people in rural Ontario who are chafing at the notion of another mandate for Premier McGuinty who is the architect of the green energy strategy.  Opposition to the Green energy act in rural Ontario did mobilize during the campaign and at the end of the day did help cause the Liberals to lose their majority government.  There is not a lot of middle ground when it comes to wind turbines.  With no local control over where all these new green energy projects are put, it has made for some draconian moves in rural Ontario.  Housing subdivisions have been completely taken over by solar panels.  There are other more bizarre examples.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that rural Ontario voted against the McGuinty government.

Having said that, the Liberals still almost got their majority back.  And they got it back partly because of the inept campaign that was run by the Conservatives.  Sure, the Conservatives gained a lot more seats and helped hold McGuinty to a minority, but they were expected to do so much better.  I couldn’t quite figure out why in the early part of the campaign they started talking about “foreigners”.  That was construed wrongly from the 1st time it was said and it cost them many votes.  It was insane.  All the Conservatives had to do at the start of the election campaign was smile and point at Premier McGuinty and his policies.  However, they decided to dig themselves a hole and jump in it.  After the faith-based school debacle of 4 years previous with John Tory I couldn’t believe it.  NDP leader Andrea Horwath knew all she had to do was smile and she would gain seats.  She did that in spades.

So we move ahead.  I am thinking that this Liberal minority government lasts about 13 months.  I think that the Liberals are going to have a very hard time understanding that they no longer have a majority.  In some parts of the province their policies are extremely unpopular.  All you have to do is look at your Hydro bill to understand why. Add the budget deficit to the mix and you get a tough way ahead.  When you consider the constant demands on Ontario healthcare, the optics gets even worse.  The bottom line is the immediate future for our provincial government will be one where tough decisions will need to be made.

Those tough decisions will need to be made by all 3 provincial political parties getting together.  Whether that happens or not, I don’t know.  I think there will be momentum to defeat the Liberals.  Whether that makes sense or not is another question.  Sometimes in politics common sense is left at the door.  For the people of Ontario they can only look on and hope.

I am always a little bit reticent to get on the bandwagon of relatively rich protesters in the Western world when we have people starving to death in the Third World. I don’t think the occupy protests have much to do with the Arab spring.  However, if the occupy protests grow any larger, it could get real messy.

If you don’t know what I mean you have not been watching the news lately.  Earlier this year a group of protesters took to occupying Wall Street as a way to protest corporate greed.  It has morphed into a whole bunch of different other causes now with the 1% and the 99% taking center stage.  Protests have spread around the world and some have turned violent like in Europe.

In Canada we have had protests in Toronto with roaming bands of disaffected snarling traffic and gaining media attention.  It is been encouraged a little bit by unsuspecting politicians who have said the wrong thing.  It is always the cheap vote getting tactic to attack Wall Street or the rich.  Our politics is full of people doing that.  Even President Obama got into the mix, being asked a question about the occupy Wall Street group last week.  He said something to the extent that everybody has some issues with what goes on with Wall Street and many took that for tacit support for the occupy protests.

The 1% versus the 99% argument doesn’t hold much weight with me.  For instance I don’t think we want to live in a socialist society where everything is split equally.  What happens in societies like that is that corruption usually is rampant because human nature is such that we want more and more.  There is nothing particularly good about capitalism either because of the income disparities across society.  What I like is capitalism mixed with some type of social responsibility where the less fortunate and people who are disabled are supported by the rest of society. We are debating utopia here and usually there’s not too much to that.  We live in an imperfect world.  Let’s get used to it.

I had a little bit of debate about the occupy protest last week on twitter.  As many of you know I have led a few protests in my life.  In 2006 I helped lead many protests regarding some problems we had in the Canadian farming industry.  In April of that year I helped lead 10,000 Canadian farmers on Parliament Hill.  That number makes these occupy protests in Canada look negligible.  However, they were highly organized and were not organic.  In other words we had a specific cause and we had specific numbers to get on Parliament Hill.  We did that.  In the age before social media, it was quite the accomplishment.

The occupy protesters have much broader goals, almost the flavor of the day.  That might not be their intention, but as more people join the movement there will be a potpourri of causes put into the mix.  I had a friend of mine complain the other night on twitter that the occupy Wall Street group had some Maoist signs present.  He said where is the social justice with that with Mao being responsible for the death of 40 million Chinese.  I questioned him about that, but he backed it up with some pretty good documentation.  The point is it looks like the occupy movement is being infiltrated by anybody who has the cause of the day.

Of course my great friend, mentor and editor John Gardner should be leading the charge for the occupy movement.  John has got some great economic ideas, which he passes by me from time to time.  I don’t necessarily agree with John’s economics but I do admire his passion.  The occupy movement is something that he is been waiting for at least since 1969.  Regardless of how long we have been waiting the occupy movement should not be ignored.  If critical mass continues, it could really change our society.

On the other hand, if nothing happens, it’ll be the same old thing.  Protesters come and go, but in the end the world stays the same.