It is classic conservative strategy. The Ontario government has been caught banking $20 billion that they claim is a reserve fund. What they are really doing is telling the public that they are going to spend the money on problems brought to their attention. And then they just put the money in the bank. When they do it, they are killing people who are desperate for assistance.
Almost a million people are recipients of the pathetic charity of the Ford government under programs such as the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works. Do you think, as a single person, you could live on less than $1200 per month? Those are the people that some of that $20 billion could help. They just are not conservative supporters.
And what makes this discrimination of the needy worse is that today it permeates the government funded services. I have watched as Ontario hospitals discriminate against those who cannot fight back. They will treat the homeless for example and quickly throw them back out on the street. Our hospitals have patient advocates who take all their instructions from hospital management. I actually talked to one of these patient advocates who laughingly told me he never talked to the patients. I had the experience of a hospital functionary with whom I raced to see who could get me out of that damn place, with its inadequate, overworked staff and awful food, faster.
I was very pleased to note that finally arbitration has allocated a decent increase for hospital workers (the patient facing people). For Ford and his Quislings to try to keep these workers at a one per cent wage increase each year was not only unrealistic but it was sure driving a lot of hospital workers into other lines of work.
What worries me though is that the federal conservative leader Poilievre is cheerfully telling people that he would do even more than Ford. Ford’s problem is that he is just a follow-along conservative. Poilievre is a hide-bound western libertarian who does not give a damn about what Canadians need or want. He wants to put them on a hard-times, libertarian diet—where everyone fends for themself.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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