It’s a bad combination. Ignorance in itself is bad enough but in a mix with an ideology as strident as conservatism, it is simply bad government. It is a colonic that the people of Ontario do not need.
It is hardly surprising that today you listen to the quiet admissions of the loudest and angriest voters in the last Ontario election. They told you bluntly to shut up last year when you tried to explain the dangers of a blow-hard fool of a leader and a get-even attitude.
Maybe it is not as dangerous as the situation in the United States. Donald Trump has no ideology and governs on ignorant whims. At least Doug Ford is not allowed to declare war. Mind you, it was similar that as soon as coming into office, he ripped into the Toronto politicians who disrespected him and his late brother. Premier Ford and his cadre of cronies were on a vindictive rampage.
And in the manner of tyrants everywhere, Ford claims the enemy is the budgetary shortfall and failings of the previous government. And here, in a time of high employment, he claims bad times have come and austerity the only answer. Rather than solving any problems, we have elected Ford to create problems.
Ford not only creates problems but he creates them as he ‘supposedly’ solves others. He fires the ‘six-million-dollar man’ and creates costs of many millions more. He reduces critical funding to cities and is forced to recant by the hue and cry of the citizens.
And even he can find out he is wrong. He tries to implement a ‘buck-a-beer’ promise and finds that Ontario alcohol taxes have driven the cost of a single beer far over a dollar.
Ford’s latest gambit is legislation to freeze the public service wages. This is a direct ideological attack on unions and it will likely end up before the courts. There is no economic rationale for such a freeze.
Ontario went through eight years of ideological stupidity with former conservative premier Mike Harris 16 years ago. This is far too soon for another economic enema.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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