Media needs to stop labelling Ford, right-wing parties as populist, says reader
Re: “Ford’s right-wing populism: the gift that keeps on giving, for the rich,” (The Hill Times, June 20, p. 9). Why do you insist on labelling Ontario Premier Doug Ford as “populist”—a term the mainstream media continues to label right/centre parties to suggest that they would not have been elected if voters had been thinking […]
Opioid crisis symptom of society that’s sick
With Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatening to fulfill his campaign promise to close the province’s seven supervised injection sites despite the rising number of overdose deaths, it’s worth stepping back to consider where the endless stream of people willing to risk their lives comes from in the first place. It’s a key question that hasn’t […]
On policy durability
Doug Ford has been premier of Ontario for roughly a month, and already his legislative changes are creating a policy U-turn on many fronts. Cap and trade: cancelled. Green spending programs: gone. Some 758 renewable energy contracts: poof. What’s noteworthy in these changes is not that they’ve happened—Ford did campaign on doing as such—but in […]
Toronto mayor should leap at chance to set city to rights with smaller council
Re: “Ford’s Toronto city council shakeup is a vote-winner, at least for now” (The Hill Times, Aug. 1, p. 10). This shakeup is long overdue and should have been part and parcel of amalgamation in 1998, but, as Tim Powers puts it, referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s democratic reform initiative, “it was chucked in the […]
PC propaganda Ontario News Now is news no one can use
From a purely theoretical standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative messaging machine. It’s rare to find any political operative, at any level, who doesn’t use all the digital means at their disposal to communicate with their base. This includes in-house produced videos, social media posts, podcasts—you name it, someone is doing it. […]
Brampton mayor slams high-profile rivals Brown, Gosal, setting up for a heated fall municipal election
High-profile candidates in Brampton’s mayoral race are calling their rivals’ motivations, local achievements, and roots in the community into question, in what political observers are describing as one of the most-watched municipal races in the country. The Oct. 22 election will put former Conservative cabinet minister Bal Gosal, former Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown, and four […]
Toronto should have seen this coming
TORONTO—Well, this is gonzo. Agreeing with Doug Ford. Let me just check the frequencies on my tinfoil hat, which otherwise filters out political argy-bargy. Our neophyte premier hurled a grenade into municipal governance on July 27 by confirming what the Star’s Robert Benzie had exclusively broken the night before, triggering a frantic media scramble to […]
Ford’s decision to cut Toronto City Hall down to size has all earmarks of a revenge move
OTTAWA—Premier Doug Ford’s decision to cut Toronto City Hall down to size has all the earmarks of a revenge move. And those at city hall piling in behind him have their own grudge matches to settle. Toronto city councillor Jim Karygiannis wants to increase the size of local council seats to mirror federal jurisdictions. Not […]
‘Many of us feel that Ford’s unilateral move makes upcoming vote illegitimate,’ says Toronto reader
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s abrupt move to reduce the number of council seats from 47 to 25 at this late stage in our election period is literally gerrymandering, and calls into question our city’s capacity for self-determination. Toronto Mayor John Tory, when pressed on whether he knew beforehand that this was coming, admitted that he […]
Trudeau’s ace in the hole on climate change
The federal Liberals may be taking a pragmatic approach to their carbon tax plan by softening the blow to heavy emitters. We are, after all, living beside a U.S. president who once believed global warming was a plot hatched by the Chinese to hurt American business and is already wreaking economic havoc in some key […]
