I remember Bolshevik Bob when he was the first "socialist" premier of Ontario.
Bob will forever be famous for signing agreements with huge swaths of public sector workers in the province, and then turning around and unilaterally "amending" them.
Amending them down, that is. Gave the nurses a nice pay raise and then closed tens of thousands of hospital beds.
Gave the teachers a nice pay raise and then told them they were going to take enough days off without pay to bring them back to where they were before that nice pay raise.
"Rae days" were born.
When he wasn't busy screwing the workers he was busy jetting around the world trying to entice multi-national corporations to set up shop in Ontario.
His sales pitch was "look how tough I am on organized labour, build a branch plant in Ontario!"
Didn't meet with a whole lot of success as I recall. The multi-nationals didn't trust him because he was a "socialist," and the workers didn't trust him because he'd just stabbed them in the back.
Which made him a perfect candidate to join the Liberal Party!
Which is where he's been till today.
Today he announced he was leaving party politics to be the point man for the First Nations trying to negotiate agreements with mining companies wanting to open up the "Ring of Fire" area in north Ontario.
I think Bob is a fundamentally decent human being. His heart has always been in the right place. He's not a guy who you'll find sinecured into some seven number bullshit "advisory" job with Glencore in a couple of years.
In spite of everything he has clung to his integrity.
Not too many career politicians can make that claim.
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