Imagine the sapper's surprise if that one explodes prematurely.
"For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his owne petar"
-- Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv."
Posted on 10/28/2004 3:54:34 AM PDT by Clive
What are the chances? The possibilities are too intriguing to ignore.
Premier Dalton McGuinty's majority Ontario government could be forced to hold an election or referendum by a seemingly inconsequential labour arbitration involving, on the surface, 70 employees.
Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority could yet crumble over the scandal left behind by his predecessor unless he can successfully stickhandle past the Gomery commission.
In both cases, they would have no one to blame but themselves.
Mr. McGuinty's problem can be directly traced to an effort to get just a little too clever with the wording of the Ontario Health Tax in last February's provincial budget.
The Ontario Taxpayers' Protection Act, which Mr. McGuinty pledged in writing to uphold during his bid for office a year ago, prohibits any new tax, or any tax increase, which has not been clearly spelled out during an election campaign.
Not a problem, thought the Liberals at Queen's Park, they just called the new tax a "premium", and skirted the law (not to mention the election promise not to increase personal taxes).
Except now they're being bitten by the legal trickery.
A labour arbitrator has rendered a ruling that could cost the government tens of millions of dollars.
In finding the up to $900 annual tax is a premium, not a tax, the arbitrator has instructed a Guelph nursing home to pay the premium on behalf of employees.
As was the case in Guelph, the majority of union contracts, including those of provincial public servants, contain clauses requiring employers to pay for most if not all premium increases for employee insurance benefits.
It would be easy enough for the Liberals to erase the problem, they could simply rename the premium a health tax ... ah, but then there's that bothersome Taxpayers' Protection Act and its referendum requirement.
Although he bobbed and weaved on whether it was a tax increase or not last February, the premier is a little more forthright now, saying this week "Our intention has been very clear from the outset. This is a tax provision, found within the Income Tax Act and our intention is that taxpayers (i.e. not employers) will pay this new premium."
Notice he still avoids using the words "tax increase" or "new tax," but he has finally been forced to admit his actual intent.
Dalton the Devious, caught in another lie.
A tax referendum is a long shot, but don't rule it out.
Prime Minister Martin's legal challenge has everything to do with electoral honesty as well.
His assurances during the campaign that he was kept out of the loop on Quebec matters by the Chretien crowd, and therefore even as the most senior minister from Quebec had no knowledge of how the federal sponsorship program was being administered, will be put under the microscope at the Gomery inquiry.
Mr. Martin will be called to testify under oath, and he has promised to appear.
The revelations that his riding aides placed sponsorship calls directly to the Public Works minister's office, and that Mr. Martin offered personal assistance in a letter to one of the central players in Adscam, goes directly to whether he was truthful or not with the Canadian people.
If it turns out that contrary to his claims he was willfully blind to the advertising scams, or worse, his party will have no choice but to do the unthinkable and jettison the PM as quickly as possible.
Even some Liberals relish the thought.
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Can't wait for this to happen to our libs on this side of the border. They invented that liberal word game.
Spending is "Investment".
Tax cuts are "Spending".
And Tereza informed us yesterday that "real security" is
feeding your kids and getting them ready for school.
Now....if they could only find a new meaning for the word "petard".
Imagine the sapper's surprise if that one explodes prematurely.
"For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his owne petar"
-- Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv."
Dictionary.com defines it as:-
pe·tard
n.
1. A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall.
2. A loud firecracker.
[French p*tard, from Old French, from peter, to break wind, from pet, a breaking of wind, from Latin pditum, from neuter past participle of pdere, to break wind.
Word History: The French used p*tard, “a loud discharge of intestinal gas,” for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city.
“To be hoist by one's own petard,” a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means “to blow oneself up with one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices.” The French noun pet, “fart,” developed regularly from the Latin noun pditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd-, “fart.”
When it comes to Liberals then they are an bunch of old petards.
Thanks for the etymology lesson. I didn't know that. I always thought a petard was some sort of dagger.
Rumor has it that a silent yet deadly version can be formed from a box of White Castles and a six pack of Schlitz beer!
It would at least make an interesting "Mythbusters" program.
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