Worth Repeating

In my previous post, I wrote about the Ford follies involving luxury spas on Toronto's waterfront. This letter to the editor about the premier's predilection for favouring private interests at the expense of taxpayers is well worth reading.

Public vs. private interests

In 1999, Mike Harris’ Progressive Conservative party sold Ontarians down the river by signing away Highway 407 on a 99-year lease to a private consortium. In the quarter-century since, Ontarians have looked longingly at this asset, which has expanded and runs across an increasingly busy part of the province, as it makes money for foreign shareholders, and costs the people of Ontario dearly in access to transportation options, exorbitant tolls and gridlock.

Last Thursday, Premier Doug Ford’s Conservative government, having sold off Ontario Place for a private, foreign-owned spa on prime public land, watched as the urban forest of mature trees on the site was turned into wood chips to make way for the plans. Earlier this year, Ford paid off another private consortium (The Beer Store) to get out of a contract a year before it was to expire just to get beer into corner stores. Last year, instead of using taxes paid by Ontarians to improve public health care, Ford decided to promote private health care by encouraging use of for-profit clinics in the province.

Is it just me that feels that every time we give the Conservatives the keys to our province they insist on selling it off to private interests and stick it to the taxpayers who should have access to, control over and benefit from these assets?

Brigitte Nowak, Toronto