Ontario premier Doug Ford has yet to realize that he is not in a life-size game. There are repercussions and blowbacks and consequences for his whims at governing. Like the irresponsible Mike Harris, the premier of two decades ago, Ford has been busily downloading costs on the municipalities in hopes that his base would not know where the problems originated.
The problem is, his base might know, but does not care. His base is the person who casually throws the used Tim’s cup out the window of the SUV. There are lots of those people in the base. Most of them do not understand what he is doing. They are happy as long as their pal Dougie shakes up the establishment. That was what they wanted. The more we complain about Dougie’s cuts, the happier his base. It sounds to them like he is doing something.
Let me make it clear though that Dougie cannot commit all this mayhem without help. Look at the people who are gleefully joining in. Dougie has to have a conservative caucus behind him. Some of these people are even in his cabinet and get to join the fun. The cabinet is mostly trusted sycophants who are ill-equipped for their responsibilities or have their own agendas.
A couple of the favourites are the two Lisas, Lisa MacLeod is responsible for troubling parents with children with her hand throttling down services to communities and children. Lisa Thompson gets to spoil their childhoods with education. She is busy making sure we have fewer teachers and less classroom support in Ontario.
The entire caucus gets to stand and applaud when either of the Lisas stand to obfuscate a question in the legislature.
My favourite cabinet member is environment minister Rod Phillips. The sign over his door at the legislature should be “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” How an environment minister can be opposed to environmentalism, leaves me at a loss.
But do not get me going about the rest of the conservative caucus. These are a bunch of drones who have no excuse at all for using our fresh air.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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