With the kids out of school and hot humid days becoming commonplace and even welcome across Ontario (except for Toronto where humidity brings one smog alert after another), it is tough to think about Queen's Park and the larger questions of Ontario political life.

Yet several questions remain unanswered that our MPPs will have to address when the legislature returns this fall. And if by chance you should bump into your MPP (especially government members) on the barbeque circuit or see them at the local store up in cottage country, you may wish to keep some of the following questions close at hand.

MPP Pay

Just before the legislature rose for the summer, the Speaker's commission on MPP compensation released its report recommending a 32.6% pay increase for all MPPs.

Ask your MPP if s/he supports this recommendation And find out if they believe that they should be setting their own pay immediately or if pay changes should only go into effect for the next elected parliament.

And if Chris Hodgson (Management Board Chairman) is your MPP, ask him if we should read anything into the 14% pay hike (retroactive back to 1996) just given to Ontario's top civil servants (from $160 K to $182 K) and deputy ministers (from $143 to $162K).

Gas Taxes

The Gasbusters committee report was made public on June 29th and it makes 14 key recommendations. To be fair, some of them such as urging "big oil" to better explain the pricing structure of gas echo what the CTF has been saying for five years. But some of the buck passing and duplicity in this report deserves a huge taxpayer thumbs down.

The report chastises the feds for treating gas taxes as sin taxes and not plowing more of the $5 billion annual federal take back into provincial infrastructure. Here's a question for your MPP: How much does the province truly plow back of its $3 billion in gas tax revenues and associated road fees

And while you're at it, here's another one for our duplicitous friends. Why do they have the nerve to slam the feds for applying the GST on all other taxes yet ignore the fact that the GST (charged twice) and the federal excise tax combined still come short of the largest tax at the pump, Ontario's 14.7 cents/litre fuel tax

Health Care Ads

New polls tabled in the legislature in late June show that Ontario's $3 million barrage of attack ads against Ottawa for cutting health care funding did not necessarily help win the hearts of Ontario taxpayers, in fact, they may have actually failed.

The polls show that public approval for Ottawa's role in health care actually increased as a result of the ads. For your MPP: Why was $3 million wasted on attack ads when it could have been better used to buy an MRI machine, hire critical care nurses or entice doctors to practice in northern parts of the province

Ontario Realty Corp. (ORC)

Now a question for opposition MPPs: Why did they totally abandon their pursuit of a legitimate full-blown land-flip(s) scandal at ORC in favour of chasing ambulances and following funerals in Walkerton

Admittedly, the Walkerton tragedy was a huge story and one certainly does not want to belittle this tragedy or underestimate the immeasurable grief that this community will suffer for some time to come, but at least four separate investigations are underway, not to mention potential lawsuits … so we will find out what went wrong or who or what is ultimately to blame.

Simply put, a balance could have been struck between Walkerton and ORC questions. Too bad, now the government sails away from the ORC scandal for three more months.