On returning to Rome after winning wars, Roman generals were customarily awarded a triumph. This was a parade through the streets showing off the slaves and other booty of war. In Ontario, this triumph takes the form of a ritual parade through the legislature to the chambers where the lieutenant governor tells us what the government hopes to bring into law in the coming legislative session.
There was something terribly appropriate about Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell reading about a so-called ‘government for the people.’ It was the past and future coming together in an horrendous scene of chaos. She was gamely reading words that had no meaning to an audience of sceptics. She was describing a past without a future, a future without hope.
There was the shallowness of a commission of inquiry into past government spending while making no clear promises of where the government is headed other than its assumed restraint. It is a government that rejects change. It disavows the need to protect our environment. It rejects updated sex education for children when it is adults who need the lessons. It says we can neither dither nor delay and does both.
The most serious delay in the speech is in decommissioning the Pickering Nuclear generating station. Against all the best scientific advice, the Ford government thinks it knows better.
This writer was delighted to hear that the government will be adding convenience and big box stores to those who can sell beer. There was no mention though of the ‘buck a beer’ promise that was made during the more desperate days of the campaign.
Like his hero Donald Trump, Doug Ford is more charged by large crowds than by the realities of public office.
Nor does Doug Ford seem particularly worried about the potential lawsuits over some of his less well-researched promises. It appears that there has been a limit imposed on the number of outlets for beer in Ontario. This is in an agreement with the Beer Store retail outlets owned by the brewers.
Maybe the Ontario premier will just ignore the real costs as he did when Hydro One CEO Schmidt retired rather than letting Ford fire him. Ford gleefully told the news media that this cost the taxpayers nothing. Premier Ford’s idea of nothing seems to be about $8 million.
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Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
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