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.
