Opinion: Team Troll lines up for misguided shots

I’ve said it before and I am sure I’ll say it again at some point, but social media has absolutely no redeeming value, none, save for helping with an Amber Alert or some emergency, life-saving measure.

The rest, the world would be a far better place without it.

Aside from the mind-numbing tedium which is constantly bombarding those who can whittle away an entire day leafing through crap (pardon my French), the keyboard jockeys who simply know nothing about what they are talking about continue to amaze me.

If you spend even a minute or two swiping through a dozen screens of info in a day you will know of what I speak.

It’s unavoidable.

Economics, relationship advice and political spin rockets out of control. The internet should carry a per-character charge and world hunger and money to cope with climate change could be funded in a week.

A story I did last week on Hamilton Health Sciences where West Lincoln Memorial Hospital is concerned was retweeted by Premier Doug Ford.
In marched the trolls.

Some of the rhetoric was downright hilarious. Some was valid opinion. There are those who are worried about the stability of WLMH rebuild funding in the wake of the LRT program cancellation in Hamilton. How could one not be concerned.

The question has been asked and answered many times of MPP Sam Oosterhoff and he has asked the same question internally. He is 100 per cent of the belief that funding is rock solid as that is what he has been told. That is all one can really go by, so until I see otherwise, I believe it to be true.

The whole process has been held together with elastics and Band-Aids for 20-plus years so why, all of a sudden, should we give up on hope now?

Back to our friends who live under the bridges of social media…..there was a whole line of tweets which proclaimed the Tories to be stealing the thunder of good ol’ Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals.

Team Troll explained to all social media ears about how this process was started by Wynne and how dare Team Ford take credit for such an important plank in the Liberal platform.

So let’s stop there for a moment, shall we.

The boneheaded Liberals were NEVER going to build WLMH no matter how much it was merited as long as Wynne nemesis Tim Hudak was the MPP for the area. Never.
My fave, courtesy of Ron @kellr2010:

“Started and funded by Kathleen Wynne. The Conservatives have not started or even proposed a single new hospital for Ontario. Ontario is surviving because of Wynne’s investment.”

Now, that’s a beauty!

Our local health care sector got about as much investment in the last 10 years as our local high schools which were run into the ground by District School Board of Niagara to justify the new super school…which would be next to nothing for those keeping score at home.

From that initial comment, another series of tweets spun off it, 20 or 25 slap a “like” on there and all of a sudden, it’s on the interweb, it must be true.

Still a week later, “How many more announcements and press conferences can you squeeze out of this minor funding news?” – thanks @lindahaslett.

Get a clue, would ya!

Did you read the story. WLMH move from Stage 1 to Stage 2 with $1.5 million announced to help fund that part of the process. Both of those are brand new, never even dreamt of by Wynne on her best day.

You wonder why local interests are pushing every single day and staying on top of the near-dormant HHS to inch the process further?

Everyone knows, if the shovel is not in the ground and contracts signed before the next provincial election, the Liberals would kill the WLMH rebuild again in a heart beat.

There is still lots of work to be done and it is appearing as though the needed timeline can be met. The Ministry of Health finally seems to have its guard up where HHS is concerned and is monitoring all on an ongoing basis. Good on them.

To be clear, like it or not, if/when the WLMH rebuild happens it will be ALL Team Ford who should be thanked.