Today, I saw a pickup with the flag with an interesting quote decal on the back window. It read "I support pipelines. My truck runs on gas, not unicorns or pixie dust. F*CK TRUDEAU !" I looked at the truck and the redneck inside it: it was all I could do to stop myself from walking over and challenging him. My wife, normally the most placid person in the world, shook her head in disgust at this foulmouthed expression of the man's right to free speech. We shrugged and went on our way, but the knot in my stomach still remains.
Why am I telling you this true story ?
Because Doug Ford won a second term as premier by a landslide, that's why. Let me explain.
Ford stumbled his way like a clown at a circus through most of his 4 year term. He badly mishandled the funding for families of autistic children in the early days of his regime. He cut nursing staff and educational staff. He tried to get us to switch to Tory-blue license plates that nobody could read at night. He wants to build a highway through the green belt. He took the federal government to the Supreme Court, challenging the feds' right to implement carbon pricing, against all reasonable legal advice, and LOST, costing us around 50 million dollars in the process. He forced gas stations to put stickers on gas pumps decrying the carbon price, regardless of the gas station owner's opinion on the matter. He refused to deliver the most recent budget by the required time, knowing that the undoubted deficit could conceivably cost him the election. And he went to a Conservative convention in the US declaring that he was a "big Republican" and expressed his admiration for the abominable Donald Trump, although Ford later walked that back when Trump hit us with certain punitive tariffs.
And then there's the pandemic. Remember the "ring of iron" he was going to build around Long Term Care homes ? Where is it? Remember the awkward roll-out of the vaccination process ? Ford blamed the federal government for this, despite the fact that were plenty of doses of vaccine to go around once Pfizer got their manufacturing glitch together. Remember the first and second re-openings, granted against the advice of all reasonable doctors ? Remember firing the first Chief Medical Officer when he subtly criticized Ford's moves, only to be replaced by a Tory hack, Dr. Kieran Moore ? Remember Moore having to give the press conferences explaining the need to go back to some restrictions, while Ford disappeared ? Remember Ford spending time at the family cottage in the early going, despite the "advice" given by Ford himself to stay at home and not go to the cottage, spreading the virus ?
Despite this sorry litany of woe, Ford won a landslide this past week. It boggles the mind, but some careful thought can explain why this buffoon is still the Premier of Ontario.
It's because the other parties are equal buffoons. They offered up no real alternative to the Tories. Their campaigns were weak, mealy-mouthed, pathetic efforts to get noticed. Andrea Horwath, despite her earnest and hard-working personality, is branded as a 3-time loser, and the NDP have no discernable policies. And Steven Del Duca has the charisma and excitement of paste. The Liberals offered up a clumsy government at the last election four years ago and have learned nothing from that humbling experience. They even chose a cabinet minister from the much unloved Kathleen Wynne government, Del Duca himself, as their "new" leader. And, for whatever craven reason, the media mostly chose to ignore them, and didn't bother to give them an opportunity to explain whatever policies they had. Couple this with the absolute silence from Ford and other Tory candidates when approached by the media, and we had a campaign straight out of the TV series "Seinfeld" ... a show about nothing.
We deserve better. But this sorry series of events inspired only 48 % of us to get off our lazy asses and vote. Ford got an impressive 83 seats .... with about 41 % of the votes cast. That means that 49 % of us who bothered to vote didn't vote for the clown-car government that Ford offered us. But that's what you get with "first past the post" .... and that's a discussion for another day.
Clearly something needs to be done. In a recent edition of SOPS Quarterly, I wrote an article entitled "De-Cleft The Left" , a phrase borrowed from a good guy I know who happens to be a former federal MP. I argued that it's high time for the Liberals, NDP and even the Greens to put aside their petty jealousies, rivalries and prejudices, swallow their pride, lick their wounds and get on with the process of MERGING their parties into one party that represents most of us in Ontario. Such a merger would give those of us in the majority, who don't buy into the Tories'
pablum and crap, a chance to keep them out of power.
And, for god's sake, pick a leader with some fire in the belly, some passion, and some willingness to take on the obese, badly-educated and possibly criminal premier we have to suffer under for the next four years.
And for any conservatives who actually bother to read this and are offended by my words .... well, there's irony for you. Figure it out.
