Community News

ONTARIO IS 'OPEN FOR BUSINESS' BUT IS IT FOR THE PEOPLE?

BRAESIDE

During the last election only 43 per cent of Ontarians voted. Perhaps that's because people are becoming discouraged by politicians and no longer want to bother showing up at the polls. But the result of this is that democratic, just and thoughtful government is slipping away from us under Doug Ford. He is making dangerous changes to legislation and is setting threatening precedents.

In 2019 Ford attempted to pass Bill 124, which would have limited salary increases for nurses and other hospital employees to 1 per cent over three years even though it was well known how desperately these workers needed to be supported. The bill was deemed to be unconstitutional by the Ontario courts.

More recently, he was at it again. With Bill 28 he used the "notwithstanding" clause to limit salary increases for our low paid educational workers to try and prevent them from getting a decent pay raise. This failed because the workers threatened a province wide strike.

Developers (who would build on our Greenbelt land) would be exempted from having to pay any development fees to municipalities. This was Bill 23. The power of self government for municipalities is already seriously threatened by Ministerial Zoning Orders which have been routinely used by this government to bypass their right to make their own decisions when it comes to future development. The Conservation Authorities have also had their powers decimated. This action has not yet been stopped.

He halved Toronto's city council and is giving selected mayors unprecedented powers. He wanted to choose his friend Ron Taverner as chief of police even though the man was not remotely qualified for the job. Due to public outcry this did not happen.

In his latest manoeuvre Ford is planning to take full control of the selection of the next chief justice of the Ontario Court of Justice. He would like them to reflect his own personal values, it seems.

So our premier would like to have control over worker's wages, our conservation and green spaces, mayoral powers, municipalities, the police and judges to name a few. This is an alarming state of affairs. It is time for this province to wake up and stop this seizure of rights and powers by the premier.

A premier who is "Open for Business" but closed to the people is no good and will do our province longterm damage.

JENNIFER TROTT

OPINION

en-ca

2023-03-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://communitynews.pressreader.com/article/281539410203369

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