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Doug Ford has to rank as the worst premier Ontario voters have ever elected.
Here's why.
On more than one occasion, Ford and his cabinet ministers have failed the Ontario electorate or abused their power. Let’s take a look back at some examples.
COVID-19 caused the loss of life of more than 3,800 senior residents in Ontario long-term care homes. The government demonstrated an absence of urgency in responding to the COVID crisis. In addition, there was a lack of testing for COVID and the supply of personal protective equipment. Many of the deaths were preventable if the government had acted timely and responsibly.
Bill 124 capped the wages of nurses and personal support workers (PSWs) at one per cent for three years and took away their right to bargain. Under these conditions, nurses left the health-care industry in droves and sought employment elsewhere. A Superior Court Justice struck down Bill 124 recently. Ontario nurses were awarded average raises of 11 per cent over two years.
What did the Ford government do? They appealed the decision to strike down Bill 124. Good wages and better working conditions are the only way nurses will return to work in Ontario Hospitals. Even if nurses secure good wages and better working conditions, it will take years for the health crisis to improve and in the meantime, all of us have to expect delays in emergency care and surgeries.
Bill 28 imposed a contract on CUPE (education assistants, librarians and custodians) and banned all 55,000 members from striking. Only when most major Ontario unions joined in solidarity did the Ford government back down. Thankfully, this led to the repeal of Bill 28.
The Ontario Place redevelopment is shrouded in secrecy. The plan calls for a 65,000-square-metre, seven-storey indoor water park and spa. The Ford government refuses to reveal the content of the contract for the spa and water park and they have suggested they will use their legislative power to press forward with development plans even if the City of Toronto does not approve the application.
There are many questions that should be answered: what are the terms of the contract? What are the costs? Who benefits? What is the environmental impact? And how is the loss of public and green space explained? The list goes on.
Then there's the Greenbelt fiasco. The Auditor General of Ontario laid it out for all to see – Greenbelt lands owned by developers who support the Progressive Conservative Party were removed from the Greenbelt and the developers stand to benefit by more than $8 billion (that is not a typing error).
Don’t forget Ford publicly promised to not touch protected Greenbelt lands. That turned out to be a lie. Ford claims that land (7,400 acres) needed to be taken from the Greenbelt to meet the housing goals of the government.
The Auditor General made it very clear that there is already sufficient land set aside to meet the housing needs and there was no need to take land from the Greenbelt. No matter what damage control spin Ford and his minister of housing continue to spew, it is clear that corrupt actions took place by the government.
The fact that Ford and his housing minister state that they did not know about the land-swap deal is laughable. They should have been briefed on every step of the swap process and if they were not, they are incompetent and unfit for their roles.
We have to stop Ford and his agenda.
You can let Ford know you do not agree with the direction he is taking the province by writing to your MPP. If your MPP is a Progressive Conservative, write and tell him/her what you think of the performance of the government. You might want to include comments on the provincial appeal of the court's decision to overturn Bill 125, transparency over Ontario Place, and a reversal of the decision to remove lands from the Greenbelt.
Clearly, Ford and his abuse of power has to stop.
Ron Tadman
The Blue Mountains
