Drummond on the new provincial government - How are they doing so far?

opinionred 100x100By Andrew Drummond

August 20th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Last Tuesday, the Doug Ford government’s first legislative session came to a close. It was clear from the outset of the session that Ford wanted to accomplish much and was willing to endure widespread public opposition to do it. However, it was also abundantly clear throughout the session that the government was being run top down from the Premier’s office and Ford’s ministers were frequently unprepared to discuss government policy until they had been briefed, even when it was regarding decisions within their own department.

Tory Education Minister Lisa Thomson

Education Minister Lisa Thomson: Old sex ed program to be used.

One of the areas that has been the source of the most confusion has been the Ministry of Education and Minister Lisa Thompson. One of the government’s first acts was to announce that they would be removing the current curriculum for Health and Phys Ed (colloquially known as Sex Ed) and replace it with the 1998 version from Mike Harris’ government. This decision was immediately met with near universal condemnation, as the 20-year-old curriculum does not cover topics such as cyberbullying, consent, sexting, or same-sex relationships.

The government’s reaction showed how unprepared they were for this decision. They have flip flopped four or five times, and eventually Minister Thompson ran from reporters rather than be forced to give further non-answers to what the government’s plans are. To this point, the government still has not communicated to school boards what the expectations are, and the Elementary Teacher’s Federation as well as many school boards have announced that they will continue teaching the existing curriculum.

The debate on what the curriculum should include notwithstanding, it is the chaos and lack of direction from the government that is most troubling. Minister Thompson seems to not have any idea why she is changing the curriculum, what she is changing it to, or how to implement such a change. Students in Halton are now going to be at risk of losing valuable lessons that have been recommended by police, health professionals, and social workers because the government is dysfunctional enough on this file to ensure no one knows what to do.

Another important area of education is school repair. During the election campaign, it was identified by the group Fix Our Schools that Ontario had $15.9 billion in overdue school repairs. Many Conservative MPPs signed a pledge to address this. The pledge specifically commits the MPP to “Support the provision of adequate, stable funding needed to ensure that by 2022 all Ontario schools meet this “State of Good Repair Standard”.” Burlington MPP Jane McKenna and Minister Thompson signed the pledge (it is worth noting that Effie Triantafilopoulos did not). One of the government’s early actions was to announce the cancellation of the Cap and Trade program, one part of which included $100 million in school repair funding annually. In response to the public uproar on this, Minister Thompson announced 3 days later the program would be reviewed before being cancelled, but has not commented further in the month since.

Following through on this pledge is critical for Halton, which on its own has hundreds of millions in needed repairs. But it is important from a different perspective as well. Citizens are cynical about politics. Many believe that politicians will say anything to get elected and then only act in their own best interest once in power. We need to all fight that assumption. But it starts with the ones who were elected on June 7th. They need to follow through on their word. If Jane McKenna signed a pledge, she needs to act on it. Even if she is not strong enough within the government benches to accomplish change, she needs to stand up and say she is trying. Or stand up and say anything. Silence makes you complicit in the deceit.

Tory buck a beer

Buck a Beer program gets announced – few craft brewers sign on.

Another of the flagship promises of the government was to lower the regulations on the minimum price of beer from $1.25 a bottle to $1. This was a very popular promise from Ford on the hustings, but another that was short-sighted in practice. The first point that the Conservatives failed to consider was that although the current mandated minimum price is $1.25 a bottle, no beer in Ontario was actually selling at that price. The lowest price for 24 bottles of beer is currently $35.50 at the Beer Store (or $1.48/bottle). If no beer company could afford to sell at $1.25 why would they at $1?

To avoid the PR problem that it would cause, Ford lined up a single brewery in Prince Edward County to commit to selling beer for $1 (despite their current cheapest beer selling for $2.95). He also offered the “Buck-a-Beer Challenge” to breweries where they would be given priority marketing spaces at the LCBO free of charge in exchange for lowering their beer price. To date, I am not aware of any other brewery taking him up on it. Buck-a-Beer by itself is a relatively minor issue, but it again showed a government not ready for governing and making poor decisions without forethought.

When Finance Minister Vic Fideli said on radio that the government needed to get Buck-a-Beer in place for the Labour Day long weekend so they could then focus on other priorities, it reinforced the image of a government that is out of touch with the things that people actually need. This was followed up with local opposition from nearly every craft brewery in Ontario. Burlington’s own Nickel Brook Brewery put out the following statement:

“Nickel Brook will not take part in the proposed “buck a beer” plan. We’ve always been about quality & don’t aim to change that now, or ever. We have no intention in joining a race to the bottom. We stand with our fellow craft brewers in opposing this gimmick by Ford.”

Tory Staffers applauding

Tory staffers paid to clap during media events to drown out questions from reporters.

All of these decisions have been hasty and ill conceived. There has also been a variety of “Trump-style” attempts to control or discredit the media. Throughout August, the Ford government sent paid government staffers to Ministerial press conferences to loudly applaud and drown out reporter’s questions. They have also used government money to construct “Ontario News Now” in order to produce their own news-type content. Possibly the worst example of this was Minister Lisa McLeod claiming that the Toronto Star was reporting “Fake News” when they pressed her on the Conservative pledge to see through the Basic Income Pilot. Minister McLeod has since apologized, but all of these actions show a dangerous disregard for the public and media as necessary in democratic government. It also will ring hollow any claims the Conservatives make regarding a lack of government funds. If staffers can be paid to stand around and clap, surely there is enough money to fund the programs we need? Actors were hired to be at a location to applaud when the Premier was giving a speech.

The Basic Income pledge again shows a troubling lack of influence and honesty from our local MPP. Jane McKenna stated clearly during the election campaign that she and her government would see the Basic Income Pilot through to completion. However, her government announced within a month of taking office that it was cancelling the program. Again, there are many, many reasons to want to see this program through to completion. The data collected would be invaluable to anti-poverty strategies for a generation. But, Minister McLeod cancelled the program for ideological reasons. “It really is a disincentive to get people back on track,” she said of the cancellation.

McKenna

Burlington MPP Jane McKenna in campaign mode.

Which means that the government is making an ideological decision that our MPP disagrees with (unless she was being disingenuous during the campaign, which would be worse) and she is unwilling or lacking the strength to say anything about it. Twice in the first month of this government, Ford has taken actions that directly contradict Jane McKenna’s public promises. Twice, Ms. McKenna has said nothing to defend herself or residents of Burlington.

The Ford government was elected to bring a certain kind of change to Ontario. And Jane McKenna was elected to fulfill her promises to the people of Burlington. Two months since their election and their actions do not live up to this obligation. So far, all Burlington has seen is a government that will accept crumbling schools when students return in September. Burlington has seen a government that is hurting the most vulnerable in our society because they have ideological problems with helping them. Burlington has seen a government rush to get cheap beer out in time for a holiday and say they will focus on other issues later. Burlington did not deserve this kind of change.

Andrew Drummond HeadshotAndrew Drummond was the NDP candidate for Burlington in the last provincial election.

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5 comments to Drummond on the new provincial government – How are they doing so far?

  • George

    Dear Andrew Drummond, D. Duck and Alide Camilleri,
    You three have me confused. Are you talking about Justin Trudeau and Kathleen Wynne because they both exhibit more socialist traits than the Ford government does?

  • D.Duck

    Ford had NO platform but was elected with a significant mandate while the Liberals became a NON-party. That tells you something………the constituents would rather vote for the unknown than have another 4years of a wasteful, corrupt liberal gov’t. The HOPE was for common-sense and a fresh start but what we got was another self-righteous and probably corrupt PC gov’t.

    Things needed tweaking not dismantling:

    – they tweaked the OHIP+
    – dismantled ‘Cap & Trade’
    – dismantled ‘Sex education’
    – dismantled TO ‘city council’
    – tweaked and dismantled some environmental protection & reimbursement (Tesla cars)
    – a buck-a-beer………WTF???
    – etc

    Where is the gov’t by the people, for the people? Why must dishonest, pretentious, narcissistic pompous bullies rule? How did Ford beat Christine Elliott for the nomination?? How can Christine Elliott stand to look at herself in the mirror when she spouts rhetorical PC platitudes.

    I guess power does corrupts, and the minions who ride the coat-tails are no better than the air-head who envisions their own utopia instead of that for the masses.

    We see this within our own city council. I again, can only HOPE and vote.

  • If voters had done their due diligence before they rushed to ensure a win for the Ford government, they most likely might have voted very differently. Mr. Ford offered no real programs that confirmed he is the people’s candidate. Now we know he is anything but, and offers as a balm a buck a beer at a time when prices are rising because of high tariffs from south of the border among others. It’s a sad state of affairs when people vote not for good reasons but because they want change for change’s sake without substance. Andrew Drummond makes some excellent points. Too bad that the people who need to read his piece are the very people who won’t bother to read and be informed.

  • Philip Waggett

    No surprises here! Andrew started out with a conclusion and bent his viewpoints to fit. Of course, as a good socialist, Andrew would not be comfortable with anything other than “spend, spend, spend, borrow, borrow, borrow, and tax, tax, tax.”

    • D Walker

      Phil, I would love to hear your spin on the issues stated above.

      Forget Andrew’s political affiliation, and try to justify the actions of this government. There are too many smoke and mirrors already and it’s not even been 6 months. Their priorities are out of whack, and they seem more focused on undoing things immediately rather than thoughtfully replacing them. But I’m not surprised, coming from the party that didn’t have a solid platform going into this election.