So it transpires, according to this article in the Hamilton Spectator, that Gwen Boniface, our beloved, warm and fuzzy ex-Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, had in fact left the country and taken up her new post in Ireland even prior to her resignation from the OPP.
How Monte Kwinter squares this fact with his barefaced lies to the media that 'she remains in charge until October,' I'm not quite sure, except that, of course, lying would come naturally to Mr. Kwinter after all those years of being a Liberal.
So presumably, she's not working unpaid for the Irish, and being in charge of the OPP until October (maybe by MSN Messenger?) she continues to be paid by the taxpayers of Ontario. Nice work if you can get it.
This ties in with another case of double-dipping I came across the other day. A representative of the elementary teachers' union was on CBC, expressing 'concern' that the government might investigate the excessive number of sick days teachers are taking these days. She didn't feel that an average of 12 days, or up to 20 days off sick was unreasonable.
Three or four weeks off sick, out of 9 working months each year seems high and I'm sure it bears investigation, but the real kicker for me was the revelation that teachers get paid for sick days not taken at the end of the year. That's right. If you show up for work for all the days you're supposed to, you get paid twice for 20 of them. Apparently this applies to most people in the public sector in Ontario. Budget deficit, anyone?
Of course, on the days when a teacher does call in sick, the taxpayer is bilked three times over: once for the teacher who's at home in bed, once for the supply teacher, and once at the end of the year to reward the supply teacher for not being sick that day. Makes my head hurt, but I bet it makes sense to Monte Kwinter.