When you throw a question such as that into the general chatter today, you can really stop people cold. Recently, I threw the question to a group of fellow poker players in Toronto with whom I have been playing for more than a quarter century. Back at our game in May, the group, whom you would think would be liberal voters, was split and four of the six at that game intended to vote conservative.
They evidenced a combination of anger, disappointment and frustration with the liberal government of the time. There was also some unstated homophobia directed at premier Wynne. This was a group adept at reading each other’s ‘tells.’
The worst happened to Ontario in June. We soon learned the hard way some of the unstated intentions of premier Doug Ford. Almost immediately, Ontario learned of his bitterness towards Toronto council. His own caucus at Queen’s Park were as surprised as the rest of us when he deliberately interfered with a municipal election already in process. It was assuaged for the conservative caucus by extra pay for an unusual summer sitting of the Ontario legislature.
His attention wandered from the spurious to the serious throughout our surprise summer. All attention was on Queen’s Park. If a spiteful Doug Ford could not have his way, he would attack our rights and freedoms.
Ford cruelly smashed the hopes of the lottery winners in the liberal government’s scattered test of minimum wage. His counterpoint was a foolish promise for a dollar a beer. His so-called reduction in the price of gasoline disappeared in the vagaries of American gasoline pricing. All Ontario knew was that the oil company cartels were paying their executives well.
We all learned that Ford was just an ignorant climate-change denier. He cancelled cap and trade measures to control pollution that had started working for us and joined the forces of the extreme right to try to block the federal government’s proposed carbon taxes.
How can anyone pretend to respect a liar and a poser and a cruel bastard who can so casually deny workers their rights to a living wage, to job protection when sick and to paid vacation? What Wynne’s liberals finally did for workers so greatly in need of help, Ford will so casually take away.
My question to my friends was serious. How could any decent person approve of Doug Ford’s actions as premier?
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Copyright 2018 © Peter Lowry
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