By Pepper Parr
March 2nd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The language politicians use matters.
For Doug Ford the left is being described as “radical.
Doug Ford recently said:The ‘radical left’ at Toronto city hall overestimates the cost of replacing speed cameras.
Ford has always opposed the speed cameras that many municipalities wanted to be able to use.
They were certainly revenue source but they were also a way to cut down speeding traffic.
That is all part of the push and pull of politics in the province.
But when that push and pull results in language that is divisive, it turns political conversations into slang and we know where that leads.
Look south for an example.
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That’s disappointing and divisive rhetoric coming from Ford. I thought he was really making an effort not to be.
So the “radical left” brought in speed cameras simply as a tax grab and nothing but. Seems like “nothing but” also cut down speeding and prevented accidents with vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.
Our Premier may think he is Captain Canada on the big stage, but he is our very own Trump in Ontario, running the province on his whims and deflecting important issues like affordable housing, a health care crisis and education underfunding with costly “show-off” ideas like destroying and replacing the Science Centre, highways though environmentally sensitive lands and imagining a tunnel under the 401.
And he’s untouchable for a number of years into the future. Our dilemma.