Showing posts with label doug ford crass manipulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doug ford crass manipulation. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Sometimes It's Difficult To Know

Sometimes it's difficult to know what is going on in the mind and motivation of Ontario premier Doug Ford. Is he merely a benighted soul who embraces a simple mantra of 'private sector good, public sector bad'? Is he incapable of grasping the perilous climatic times and food challenges we face? Or is he simply so arrogant that he thinks he can ride out the outrage over the Greenbelt theft? Then again, perhaps his associations and friendships with wealthy developers have warped his concept of the "ordinary folks" he publicly proclaims his affiliation with?

All are legitimate questions, ones prompted by his appearance at the 104th Annual Plowing Match, a yearly genuflection in which politicians show their 'common folk' bona fides. Doug Ford riding a tractor makes us all want to vote for him, eh?


This year, however, as a result of his ongoing theft of valuable Greenbelt lands that house so much arable land, his reception was more muted than in times past, the media describing the crowd as merely 'polite.'

Among the waves and hellos from the sidelines to the premier and his caucus as they wended their way along the opening day parade route in a tractor-pulled wagon, there was also some discontent among attendees at the event held in Dufferin County, west of Orangeville.

“If Doug Ford keeps going the way he’s going — for (future generations), where’s their food coming from? Farmers feed us,” said Mona Blain, whose husband’s family has been farming for 100 years in southwestern Ontario.

“Farmers keep our world from going hungry, and when you keep building on our prime farmland, where’s the food coming from?” said Blain, who voted for the Progressive Conservatives in the last election.

“When you start giving away land for billions of dollars and helping out your friends in the process, there’s something wrong,” she added.

While many attending expressed similar concerns, Mr. Ford, ever the cliche-master, offered this chiropractic bromide, avowing

“we’re always going to have the agriculture, the food sector’s back, but most importantly we’re going to have the farmer’s backs.”

Not so, according to opposition politicians.

Ford “is not listening to rural people, he’s not listening to farmers. They are saying very clearly that they want the land returned to the Greenbelt,” [Marit} Stiles said.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said 60 per cent of the land removed from the Greenbelt is in the Duffins Rouge agricultural preserve east of Toronto, “and that’s some of the best farmland in North America.”

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser said while Ford didn’t mention the Greenbelt in his speech, it was the “elephant in the room.”

While the plowing match is a celebration, he said, “people are angry, and they are angry in rural Ontario and they are angry in urban Ontario.” 

One thing is certain, however. In appearing on land in which horse manure is spread far and wide, Doug Ford shows he is very much in his element.

 

Sunday, January 8, 2023

Promises Made, Promises Broken


It is no secret that post-election, Doug Ford has behaved like a thug high on amphetamines. Suddenly gone (or brutally betrayed) are the promises of new amity with unions, pending solutions to our health-care crises, and professed reverence for the sanctity of the Greenbelt. 

Might makes right seems to be the philosophy undergirding Doug and The Thugs.

In its Sunday editorial, The Toronto Star examines an administration devoid of integrity, suggesting the new year is the right time to correct the ship of state, a forlorn hope, in my view.

Having won the trust of Ontario voters on June 2, it seems the government set about on a deliberate campaign to abuse it.

Where to begin? Well, the Ford’s government attempts to bulldoze education workers is as good a place as any. It well captures the philosophy of the re-elected government.

Recall that the Ford government introduced back-to-work legislation to preempt job action by the workers, among the lowest paid employees in the school system. It then invoked the notwithstanding clause to bar any legal challenge.

That was provocative in the extreme, an irresponsible use of the notwithstanding clause to sweep away employment rights. The government did back down and withdraw the legislation. But it had shown its stripes.

Then came the housing debacle.

The plan to open up 7,400 acres of natural Greenbelt lands to build up to 50,000 homes has sparked widespread condemnation. The public anger came through loud and clear in the more than 29,000 comments filed during the consultation period. A summary underscores the strong support for continued protection of the Greenbelt and “broad opposition” to any changes.

But post-election, the voice of the people means nothing to this regime.

Such a chorus of objections would have given a more responsible government pause. But not this one, which bulled ahead with no change to its plan.

That opposition doesn’t take into account the other troublesome elements of the housing strategy, like undermining conservation authorities and eliminating development charges for some types of housing. Cities rely on these charges, paid by developers, to build infrastructure. While the province has promised that municipalities won’t suffer financially, that promise remains a work in progress.

All of which has served to distract us from another pressing issue.

It’s telling that the province’s zeal to build more housing has overshadowed what most Ontarians would rightly say is the real crisis in the province — health care. Children’s hospitals in particular have seen unprecedented crowding and postponed surgeries. 

Finally, there is the gifting of taxpayer money to build, of all things, a luxury spa at Ontario Place.

The proposal to give over waterfront land for a privately run spa — using public lands and public money — is a disgrace and should be stopped. As we have written, this waterfront space should remain entirely accessible for the public.

The editorial ends with a plea for the Ford Follies to end, to be replaced by responsible, mature leadership and governance. A tall order, one that I very much doubt this government is capable of, at least with its current lineup of arrogant incompetents.

And the next election is too far away to prevent the massive damage already well in progress.

 

 

 


Friday, May 10, 2019

How Supple Are They?



I hope, for the sake of their well-being, that each loyal soldier in the Doug Ford regime has a gym membership they regularly use. Otherwise, I fear they will sustain myriad and grievous injuries to their joints and sinews. Twisting oneself out of shape while proclaiming black is white and lies are truth can exact a horrible toll.

Perhaps somewhat ironically, the one whose well-being I currently feel the most concern for is Health Minister Christine Elliott, a once principled and competent woman who, upon entering the Ford cabinet, has proven to be, along with Attorney General Caroline Mulroney, most adept at amazing feats of contortion.

Consider the following from Rob Ferguson:
Layoffs of 44 staff at the Ontario Telemedicine Network following a funding cut by Premier Doug Ford’s government won’t curb plans to provide more virtual care to patients across the province, Health Minister Christine Elliott maintains.

Elliott said Wednesday none of the cuts at the telemedicine network were front-line care providers and called the firings “reasonable and pragmatic.”
Elliott seems to be an unabashed enthusiast of the far-right's core belief: less is more:
“It doesn’t mean that we take any ... direction away from digitization. It is vitally important in our modernization of our health-care system.”
Those who have not consumed that particular variety of Kool-Aid beg to differ:
... Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the health minister failed to explain how telemedicine remains a priority, particularly for remote and rural areas with less access to medical professionals than major cities.

“This government is so full of contradictions. It’s one after another. They say they support something and then they turn around and cut it. Telemedicine is just one example of that,” Schreiner added.

“The other one is they said they’re all for adapting to climate change and then they cut the tree-planting program and the flood prevention program.”
Until we all get "with the program," the vast majority of us, I suspect, will share Mr. Schreiner's bewilderment.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth the Ford



In almost biblical fashion, Premier Doug Ford has smote his enemy, aided and abetted by the OPP union.

Brad Blair, the OPP whistleblower who complained loudly and very publicly about the sweetheart deal engineered by Doug Ford to install his longtime pal, Ron Taverner, as the head of the police service, has paid a high price for his outrage: he has been fired.
“I want to advise you that Brad Blair is no longer a deputy commissioner with the Ontario Provincial Police effective immediately,” Interim Commissioner Gary Couture said in a memorandum to members of the force.

The dramatic move follows a complaint last week from Ontario Provincial Police Association president Rob Jamieson about the release of an email — contained in a Blair court filing on his bid to scupper the appointment of Ford friend Ron Taverner as OPP commissioner — on the premier’s concerns about unfamiliar faces on his security detail.

Jamieson wrote to Deputy Community Safety Minister Mario Di Tommaso, who was Taverner’s supervisor at Toronto police, last Thursday stating the release of the email likely resulted in bodyguard Sgt. Terry Murphy being “stood down” from Ford’s detail, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Star.
Anyone with a critical intelligence will ask, quite legitimately, whether this can be the reason for Blair's dismissal. For my money, Doug Ford appears to be a very vengeful man, intent from the beginning on payback against a very brave man for his very public exposure of the Premier's cronyism.

I don't think the story ends here, not by a long shot.