Usually, I try not to talk politics too much in anything I write. However, this morning on my way into work, John Tory was on the ‘Derringer in the Morning’ morning show in Q107, out of Toronto. Tory, who is the head of the Ontario PC party, made some comments that really got me thinking.
Tory spoke for a part on two projects recently taken on by Dalton McGuinty’s government, the rebranding of the OLGC and the redesign of the Trillium. Being somewhat interested in his comments, I took the time to look further into this. These projects are a huge waste of government money, pointless, and serving no purpose except to keep a few contributing Liberal advertising companies in the big bucks.
The first project, paid for by Ontario tax dollars, is a rebranding of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. The OLGC was the governement run corporation responsible for all the casinos, lottery sales etc. in the province of Ontario. Well, the visionaries at the OLGC decided that it would be smart to rebrand themselves as, you guessed it, OLG.
Yes, all they have done is drop the ‘C’ off of the end of the name. All the logos and whatnot have remained essentially the same; Apart from the removal of the ‘C’ from the logos, nothing has changed.
Of course, hundreds of thousands of dolalrs have been spent on logo redesigns, and hundreds of thousands more have been spent on television advertising campaigns which will serve no purpose other than to promote the rebranding. This cost, of course, doesn’t cover yet the cost of reprinting promotional and other materials that need to be replaced in thousands of lottery retailers across the province. That cost is projected to be in the millions, all paid for by the taxpayers… You can read more about it on the Ontario PC Party website here and here.
Of course, this is following up on a move by the McGuinty Liberals to redesign and rethink the trillium logo for Ontario. Apparently, the trillium in use today just isn’t good enough, so tens of millions of our taxpayer dollars should be thrown at it. Haven’t I seen this before? At any rate, I have yet to see any reason why the current symbol is insufficient. It’s been a part of Ontario’s identity for fifty years. Why are we changing it? Why is so much money being spent on it?
Here is a graphic from the ‘Save the Trillium’ campaign illustrating the change that will be made. Again, remember that this is costing tens of millions of dollars!
Yes - that beauty on the far right is worth millions. It looks to me like poison ivy. What a waste.
Now, I am not too concerned over the actual rebrandings. Neither one will affect me that much. I am a little concerned by the millions of dollars that are going to waste as a result of this. This comes in a time when the Ontario Government claims it has no money to help pay for treatments of autistic children. This comes at a time when they have cut funding for physiotherapy, chiropractic and eye exams. Of course, this isn’t the first time they have done this.
These last couple of campaigns appear to have gone to Bensimon-Byrne, a Liberal-friendly advertising company which has recieved nearly $20 million worth of advertising contracts since the McGuinty government came into power in late October, 2003. Is there is a bit of reciprocal back-scratching going on between the Liberal Party and Bensimon-Byrne? It appears so - Bensimon-Byrne has been known to make sizeable contributions to the provincial liberals’ war chest come election time.
This is a waste of our money, and just the latest in a string of irresponsible moves by the McGuinty government. What’s next?
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