I have a message for Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty this week: stick a cork in it!

Personally, I have had enough of Mr. Flaherty's ongoing personal campaign to attack and discredit the Ontario government, Premier Dalton McGuinty and this province's corporate tax rate.

I'm still trying to figure out the goal Flaherty is trying to achieve by behaving in this manner.

Not a week goes by that the Federal Finance Minister isn't lobbying some volley across the bow of the Good Ship McGuinty.

On Monday, Flaherty (a former Ontario Finance Minister) called on McGuinty to lower corporate taxes in Ontario in this week's budget. A week earlier he said Ontario was in danger of becoming a "have-not" province because its corporate tax rates were hurting the all-important manufacturing sector here.

Flaherty - who twice ran losing campaigns for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives - apparently believes he is still in opposition at Queen's Park.

From a political standpoint, Flaherty's - and by extension Stephen Harper's - attitude about Ontario makes no sense.

They need to win seats in Ontario if they ever want to form a majority government. McGuinty has a majority government. The Federal Conservatives can't do anything to help their provincial cousins with this line of attack. All they're doing is alienating the very voters they need to win over whenever the next federal election is held.

It makes no sense to me. And what is even more troubling is Flaherty's apparent belief that he has no responsibility for Ontario's troubles.

"It's all McGuinty's fault," is what he is essentially saying about Ontario's battered economy. It's as if the Federal Finance Minister has no means available to him to help what continues to be the economic heartland of the nation.

By behaving this way Flaherty is acting like a little brat who can't get his own way. I think it's clear he doesn't like McGuinty.

But, guess what, Jim? Ontarians do! That's why they elected him to two straight majority governments. Dalton McGuinty is the Premier of Ontario. Nothing Jim Flaherty says can change that.

Perhaps a more productive course of action would be to accept that McGuinty is the choice of the people of Ontario and figure out a way to work with him that will benefit both governments.

Sniping, name-calling and negative number crunching certainly have not accomplished much.

Wouldn't it be in the interests of both governments to sit down and work together and come up with some programs that will make both Queen's Park and Parliament Hill look good?

Why wouldn't Flaherty called McGuinty up and say: "Hey, Dalton, I know you're having some trouble. Why don't we try this: if you cut your corporate tax rate by one percentage point, the federal government will create a pot of a few hundred million for corporate development grants and we'll also bump up the EI benefits for people that might lose their jobs during this down period."

That would be called working together! A joint program negotiated by the province and the feds to help Ontario's economy might just impress the voters here.

Acting like spoiled children almost certainly will not.