No, premier Ford, the Greenbelt fiasco is not going away. Firing Ryan Amato was just the first of many steps back you need to take. Not that you hurt his feelings by saying he was fired. He was probably the recipient of some unexplained miscellaneous funds from the premier’s office, in addition to the legal severance pay. You also opened broad avenues of lucrative employment for Amato in the housing industry in Ontario.
It was premier Ford himself who blew it. He blotted his copybook the first time we heard through the news media that he was having meetings with developers about Greenbelt lands. He was like the deer in the headlights.
“Oh no,” Ford said. “I love the Greenbelt. I will protect the Greenbelt.”
Premier Doug Ford lied.
And the Ontario provincial police have kicked the can on this case down the road to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Did you think for a minute that our politicized OPP would want to take on that can of worms? Anybody who had seriously watched commissioner Thomas Carrique at the inquiry into the Ottawa convoy could guess the servile position he held for the Ford government.
The news media in Ontario are holding on to their demands for the resignation of Ford’s housing minister, Steve Clark. He is hardly the first cabinet minister in Ontario history that claimed to be unaware of what his chief of staff was doing. Proving Steve Clark’s hypocrisy is low hanging fruit when the real target should be Doug Ford.
There are 79 other conservatives in the Ontario legislature and they all appreciate their well-paying jobs. Many of them will freely admit that it was Doug Ford who won those jobs for them. And they will continue to support Doug Ford until there has to be an election. The likelihood at that election is that there will be a surprising number of early retirements.
Even conservatives can have a conscience. And voters can have long memories.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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