il ne regrette rien

Bob sings his old songs:

Regrets? Bob Rae has a few.

But unpaid leave for public-sector workers – or "Rae Days" – is not one of them.

The Toronto Centre Liberal MP's once-blond hair is snow white, thanks in no small measure to his days as Ontario's first NDP premier from 1990 to 1995.

His almost five years in office may be best remembered for the policy forcing public-sector workers to take up to a dozen unpaid days annually for three years to save jobs and almost $2 billion.

Those tumultuous days, when Ontario was in the grips of a deep recession, come flooding back for the 61-year-old Rae when he hears Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is musing about imposing unpaid days on provincial, municipal and hospital workers and others who draw a paycheque from the taxpayer.

From the big-government perspective it was the "compassionate" thing to do. Better to force people to take unpaid days-off that firing them en masse to save money. Not being very "compassionate" when it comes to other people's (coerced) money, I would have preferred a massive round of layoffs. For all his faults, that's exactly what the Mike Harris government did shortly there after. Lenin once observed that capitalists were so short sighted they would sell rope to their own hangman. It seems unions are no more perceptive. Had the Ontario union movement not failed to understand that Rae was trying to save them, a less fiercely anti-union government might have come to power in 1995.