So much for the straight-shooter - Keith Roulston editorial

It’s hard to believe, but his response to COVID-19 helped Doug Ford get re-elected as Ontario’s Premier in a landslide in the provincial election earlier this year. 
Now the real Doug Ford has apparently stood up.

 

I’m among those who was amazed, and pleased, with the Premier’s responsible leadership as the province fought the worst effects of the pandemic, and no doubt saved many lives because he backed the recommendations of the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health of the time, Dr. David Williams. Ontario was also prompt getting out vaccines to the people. As a  result, Ontario came through the health emergency much better than our American  neighbours, for instance. Also as a result, even people who had doubted Premier Ford based on his knucklehead activities as a Toronto councillor and his support for his drug-addict brother as the city’s mayor, ended up voting for him in this summer’s election.

 

But, back in office, the real Doug Ford has emerged. He refused to testify before the commission looking into the federal government’s imposition of the Emergencies Act, or allow any of his cabinet members to, either. This, although Ontario was arguably the biggest beneficiary of the action that helped rid Ottawa of a lengthy blockade by anti-mask protesters and, even more crucially, opened the border at Windsor, allowing Ontario factories to ship their products, including parts for auto factories, to the U.S.

 

Why not testify? The Premier’s defence that this is a federal commission into a federal order and, as a provincial premier, he is protecting provincial jurisdiction by not taking part, seems a little weak. One can’t help feeling he is more naturally comfortable with the anti-mask protesters, even though he didn’t support them at the time.

 

Certainly the doctor he chose to replace the retiring Dr. Williams, Dr. Kieran Moore, has been cautiously supporting the Premier’s current stand that there will be no provincial mandate to wear masks to prevent the spread of the flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and COVID-19. Although he has advised people to mask up, few Progressive Conservatives in the provincial legislature wear masks. With no mask mandate and no public example (even Dr. Moore was filmed recently not wearing a mask at a public event), few people are following this do-what-we-say, – not-what-we-do advice. Meanwhile hospital emergency wards are overwhelmed.

 

Then, there’s Ford’s foot-stamping demand that education workers obey his command and get back to work under his conditions. Initially, the Premier demanded that they must not go on strike and passed legislation to make them stay on the job. Just in case they challenged his right to do this in court, he invoked the Canadian constitution’s “notwithstanding clause” to prevent courts from intervening.

 

The school workers went on strike anyway, challenging the government. Eventually Premier Ford promised to rescind the bill (and the constitutional override) and negotiate with the school workers. In the long run, an agreement was reached, although workers are not happy to have been compensated so little as they have. Negotiations with teachers are ongoing. What action by the Premier can we expect?

 

This is also the third time this Premier has threatened to invoke the notwithstanding clause. No other Ontario premier has attempted to circumvent Ontarians’ constitutional rights, ever.

 

Most recently, Premier Ford has promised to take land out of the Greenbelt around Toronto to build more housing. Columnist Marcus Gee, writing in The Globe and Mail on the weekend, points out that as far back as before he became Premier in 2018, Ford promised: “I govern through the people, I don’t govern through government. The people have spoken – we won’t touch the Greenbelt.” 

 

Only a year ago, Gee says, Ford said he had promised “we weren’t going to touch the Greenbelt for developers” and “we’ve kept that promise.”  

 

Yet the Premier, Gee points out, recently changed his tune on protecting the Greenbelt, taking land out to allow housing developments while replacing it elsewhere.

 

Premier Ford likes to promote himself as a straight-shooter. “We are going to make sure we keep every single promise,” he said after winning re-election this year.

 

Voters who gave him their support because of such promises have seen a totally different Doug Ford since the election. The man who is now  Premier looks more like the man who was once a Toronto councillor – sure that he, and he alone, had the brilliance to lead the people. Is this really the Premier Ontarians want? It will be three years before we find out.