In his ongoing efforts to evade responsibility for the plight of the homeless and their consequent encampments, Doug Ford set a trap. And like hungry mice eager for an ort from the table, 12 Ontario big-city mayors shamelessly took the bait.
It all began when Mr. Ford very publicly suggested he wanted
Ontario’s Big City Mayors, an association of 29 municipal leaders, to show “backbone” and support using the notwithstanding clause by putting it in writing “if they really want the homeless situation to improve.”
The whiff of cheese too strong,
the leaders of Barrie, Brampton, Brantford, Cambridge, Chatham-Kent, Clarington, Oakville, Oshawa, Pickering, St. Catharines, Sudbury and Windsor sent a letter to Ford on Thursday...
“We request that your government consider the (measures) … and where necessary use the notwithstanding clause to ensure these measures are implemented in a timely and effective way.”
Too their credit, cities like Toronto, Burlington and Hamilton refused to join in the request, apparently aware that the 'solution' on offer was misdirection of the vilest kind.
Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward, chair of the mayors’ group, wants to see “one point person, a specific minister or ministry, in charge of solving this” and a province-wide plan including more supports.
She said the “issue becomes, if you are using the notwithstanding clause to close down encampments, but people have nowhere to go, we’re no farther ahead.”
Others also saw the offer of the notwithstanding clause for the ruse it is.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who did not sign the letter, “believes the notwithstanding clause isn’t a real solution,” said her spokesperson Shirven Rezvany, urging the province to create more supportive housing, boost social assistance rates and reinstate rent controls, among other things.
“I would hope that the government would actually be working with municipalities to build the housing we really need.”
Ontario Green Party leader, Mike Schreiner, had this to say:
"To me, this is a complete failure of the Ford government to build deeply affordable, non-profit, co-op and supportive housing. If they are going to take the extreme measure of taking the constitutional rights away from people who are experiencing homelessness, where are those people going to go? There are no homes for them to go to."
As I said in my previous post, Doug Ford, like so many other 'leaders', has debased the nature of the political contract, reducing it to a transactional one. It is good to know that there are at least a few who still understand that the whiff of some pungent cheese is no guarantee of a feast for all.
