First Chrysler's CEO Sergio Marchionne made an embolden plea in the pages of the Globe and Mail for taxpayer subsidies in Ontario. Then a few weeks later, he decisively flip-floped to say he is not interested in the corporate welfare. 

Good on you, Sergio, for eventually getting it right!

These revelations were coupled with varying reactions from the political parties. Tim Hudak rejected the plea immediately, whereas Kathleen Wynne said she was "stunned" and "taken aback" that the car manufacturer no longer wants handouts from taxpayers. 

It's no wonder Wynne was surprised. Corporate welfare is all we really have to offer these days. 

Ontario has made itself completely uncompetitive. Thanks to a decade of Liberal policy madness, the province has little else to offer but wheelbarrows full of cash from the taxpayer or directly borrowed, contributing to our record debt levels.

As was clearly pointed out by Chris Vander Doelen in the Windsor Star, 

"Ontario’s competitive problems... include an increasing regulatory burden, energy prices 40 per cent higher than the U.S. and still rising, workers’ comp costs up to four times higher than U.S. rates, high wages and property taxes, incompatible vacation rules, gridlock around Toronto, infrastructure gaps and political uncertainty.

We like to ignore those problems and focus instead on the pretty gift wrapping that covers them up: government incentives."

Talk about a death spiral. Vander Doelen continues,

"The trouble with Ontario is, it can’t handle the truth. And the truth is that many of our most politically popular public policies are killing our manufacturing.

It’s fine to oppose all new highway construction around Toronto in favour of more subways and LRT lines. But General Motors can’t ship its transmissions from St. Catharines to Oshawa on an LRT, so that plant is likely toast.

Build all the wind turbines and solar farms you want. But understand that charging industry the highest energy rates in North America so you can pay 83 cents per kilowatt hour for “green power” for the next 30 years is going to mean a lot fewer good paying factory jobs.

Go ahead and raise the minimum wage, create a new Ontario pension plan, keep the WSIB premiums sky high and keep piling on those new regulations: just as long as you don’t mind your kids moving to Alberta to make a living."

This should be a wake up call. The government's many pet projects are also the culprits of our once-great province's great decline.