Doug Ford has worked hard to not show his true colours. But, in the midst of the pandemic, they're showing through. Martin Regg Cohn writes:
After two years in power, the premier who promised never to sever the people’s Greenbelt is laying the groundwork to carve it up — and serve it up to developers. That’s not listening to the people, nor protecting what is precious to them.
In mid-pandemic, under cover of COVID-19, the Tories are dividing and divvying up the Greenbelt by ministerial fiat. On Monday, Ford’s PCs used their majority muscle in the legislature to pass a sweeping new law that disembowels 36 local conversation authorities while emboldening countless local developers.
With his brazen attack on the governance of the Greenbelt, the premier has provoked a firestorm — not least among Progressive Conservatives for whom conservation is a core value. This is not about ideology but ecology.
The Bill Davis wing of the party is very unhappy:
An impassioned public appeal by former Toronto mayor David Crombie to his fellow Tories fell on deaf ears last month. Hence his dramatic public resignation as chair of the Greenbelt Council late on Saturday.
For Crombie, who once served as a PC cabinet minister in the pro-environment government of Brian Mulroney, it was a cri de coeur. And cry of betrayal.
“This is not policy and institutional reform,” he raged. “This is high-level bombing and needs to be resisted.”
When Progressive Conservative conservationists call for resistance, you know they are calling out something insidious. If not quite a Saturday Night Massacre, it is a Saturday Night Immolation.
The flames are spreading, for Crombie’s desperation manoeuvre sparked a mutinous catharsis among conservationists. Six other board members have also quit in disgust, Tories and developers among them, all making the point that the government will drain the lifeblood out of the Greenbelt if they trample on watersheds that flow into it.
The Fordians are flexing their muscles:
This week, they are also sowing division in an unrelated but equally contentious area quite apart from conservation — education:
On the same day that Ford betrayed his party’s conservationist roots, he also repaid a political IOU to the fringe social conservatives who helped him win power in 2018. Resorting to unsavoury legislative tactics, the premier forced through a grab bag of changes — buried in his fall budget bill — that not only gut the Greenbelt but also undermine higher education in this province.
Remember the bizarre saga of Canada Christian College, which the PC government wanted accredited to full university status? On Monday, the Tories voted to empower its notoriously homophobic and Islamophobic president, “Dr.” Charles McVety — he who doubts evolution — to award coveted bachelor of science and bachelor of arts degrees.
Mr. Ford can only keep up an act for a short period of time.
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10 comments:
I had not expected Ford to return to his true colours so quickly.
Ford is who he is, jrk.
His true colours have always been Tory blue. No more no less and always disguised with a hue of lies and deceit.Have we not been paying attention to the bullshit that has proceeded any Con government both Federal and Provincial. I for one remember being lulled by the Harris governments promise of the Greenbelt, The Oakridge Moraine, only to later learn of a provision in place that tied the hands of the later Liberal government allowing building on the top of the Ridge around the community of Oak Ridges.There are no changing of colours or promises. If it walks like a rat and smells like a rat... Colour me Cynical
I was initially impressed by Ford's response to COVID, zoombats. I gave him too much credit.
.. This is Doug Ford - below average Toronto city councilman
singing from the same Stephen Harper Memorial Hymnal
as that career carpetbagger Jason Kenney does currently in Alberta
Doug would sell off Crown Land in a heartbeat
and like Jason Kenney, just change the laws
re Ontario Conservation Authorities or delisting of Alberta Provincial Parks
Here's Jason below during a Pandemic that he's fumbled and bumbled
while simultaneously attacking Education and Healthcare
Infection at 10% positivity - teetering on 2,000 daily
Mortality in LTC totally out of control..
but one must service the lobbyists and political donors
lots of Directorships at stake & the old paper bags of laundered cash
Does that ever sound like Doug Ford..
and his 'Iron Ring' of LTC protection appears to be single ply toilet paper
From The Tyee https://t.co/fANOiSdiu1
and note - https://oldmanwatershed.ca/about-the-watershed
The watershed link is a sample of my supporting ‘foundation’ research
and I always look for such.. as not super familiar re the Foothills and prairie watersheds
This story connects into Montana as well.. again.. watershed and pollution, though lower scale
When we fly to Turks & Caicos.. I look down and know when we are over Kentucky.. by the flattened mountains and the distinctly orange lakes and massive tailings ponds. John Prine.. ‘Paradise’ - Muhlenberg County rings in my head
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY
Doug needs a wicked vicious headslap.. and repeat as needed
The carpetbagger from Etobicoke..
Ford and Kenney claim to be good friends, sal. It's easy to see why. I am somewhat familiar with West Virginia -- the same kind of country Prine was singing about. Both Ford and Kenney would have been allies of Mr. Peabody.
Ford's initial response to the pandemic was driven by the panic surrounding the explosion of cases in NYC. Neighbouring governors like Cuomo, Whitmer and DeWine, as well as QC's Legault, were all responding according to the public health advice being given. Business leaders expected the same from Ford and he appeared competent for once.
We later found out through the auditor general that Ford was not following the public health experts at all. He was following the advice of US-based McKinley & Company, which for a mere $1.6 million set up a Covid command structure that ensured politics would prevail. For double that amount again, McKinley provided Ford with a back-to-school plan, while Ontario's medical chief Dr. Williams acted as a cheerleader for business interests rather than public health.
Today, as each day brings a new record number of cases, Ford is again revealed as the incompetent leader we all know, fully in the pocket of developers, big business and Talibangelicals. The veneer of competence didn't last more than a couple of months.
Cap
"His true colours have always been Tory blue"
Ford does not know what Tory Blue is, the Ontario Tory party is one of convenience for his racist redneck views an anathema to thinking Tories. This and the McVety affair is a FU to the public and an expression of his own mind, unfortunately we have 51 others in the caucus who swear allegiance to him - God knows why, and thus we see intelligent MPPs falling into the shithole with Ford.
I am not sure what it takes to dislodge the bastard, we have an ineffective NDP opposition and an unknown Lib who believes in the divine rights of a party leader, pity he has no followers.
I hate to see what the next election looks like!
For a while, there was a bloom on Ford's rose, Cap. But the flower has wilted. He is who he always was.
We're not in a good place in Ontario, Ben. There will be a very rough road ahead.
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