Watching the first session of the new Ford government at Queen’s Park was a letdown. It was regressive, loud, uncivil, sexually repressed and barely disguised in its bigotry. The sea of white faces on the government side is barely broken by any ethnicity. Dougie does not do diversity.
And this is definitely not a government for the people. It is a government for the red-necked farmers of the Ontario Landowners. The association hates wind turbines, gun controls, carbon taxes and liberals.
It is also a government of the gated communities around the Greater Toronto Area. “I’ve got mine,” they will tell you. Go get your own!”
It is a government that resents the concerns and warnings of the concerned and the environmentalists. It scoffs at global warming. They only open the windows in their SUVs to throw out the used Tim’s cups.
It is a government that stages news for the gullible. It uses its underlings to smother the legitimate questions of the news media. It has foisted an incompetent leader on the public, to defeat a government worn by weariness of governance.
It is a government that panders to the sexually repressed of the religious right. “Don’t teach our kids about sex,” they snarl. “Let them learn about it with all the vulgarities of the streets like we did.”
Some in Ontario thought they were voting for the progressive conservatives of Premier Bill Davis’ era. They are learning the difference.
This is a government that will shut down safe injection sites, “Unproved,” they tell us. They are not in the business of saving those lives.
This is a government that saves money for tax cuts by cutting a proposed increase of 3 per cent to 1.5 per cent in the already inadequate funds for the Ontario disabled (ODSP).
This is a government that is suing the federal government for proposing a carbon tax in provinces that are without one. They do not believe in it.
This is a government led by a homophobe. Enough said.
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Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
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