Ford's Government. The good and the bad.
I felt the need to write an article about what I see as good things and bad things in the Ford government here in Ontario right now.
As I've said in the past, I can't really take people seriously if they can't see past party affiliation. Which must mean that I'm able to see some good in Doug Ford. And, I can. In a sense. Though he REALLY does make it hard.
So, let's start with the good. He is doing or attempting a lot of what he said in his campaign. As quickly as possible. As literally as he campaigned on it as possible. If you voted for Doug Ford because of his platform, you can hardly fault him on this. There is very little trickery or stretching the truth in terms of the platform items they are executing on. It can be hard to accept, but this is actually a decent quality for a politician to have. It doesn't mean I think favorably of him in general.
But, he said he would do certain things if we won. He won. And he is doing those certain things. In many ways, this is democracy at work.
Another interesting quality is his occasional willingness to accept mistakes. He definitely isn't great at this. But, he is showing his government to be more open than previous ones I can remember. He stands rather firm on some things despite backlash, like slashing Toronto's governance down. But, on other areas like education and green energy rebate programs and basic income, his government hasn't abandoned what they said they would do, but have adjusted to some degree based on public response.
Again, this in an of itself isn't enough to change my opinion of the man on the whole. But, it is VERY hard to remember a politician in recent memory who has adjusted their plans once they have gone public. And that is definitely a worthwhile thing.
And in terms of what I'm familiar with about Ford, that is where the positives end.
A lot of his policy and platform is smoke and mirrors. A lot of it will hurt people in the long run. And, an insane amount of it is just crazy.
A recent announcement was that Ford wasn't going to scrap a power plant he had campaigned on scrapping because it turned out that it would cost tax payers way too much money. On the one hand, this sounds exactly like the second positive trait I associated with Ford. But, the problem is this... if Ford had done his due diligence on his campaign promises, we wouldn't have to back track on this. It isn't as though we don't have experience on how expensive pulling out of these deals can be. In fact the Wynne government inherited a canceled power plant project for the government they succeeded and it was about the same cost.
In short, Ford knew, or should have known, LONG before this point. Any time and effort spent at the tax payers expense is already wasted money. He should either go ahead with the plan if it really is meaningful to go ahead with it. Or, he never should have made the promise in the first place.
Their attack on Hydro One. Should never have happened. Again, SURE he did as he promised. But, governments should NOT be interfering directly with privately run businesses. That should scare the pants off of everyone.
I've already made my points clear on how they are handling Toronto. This is a targeted attack. As such it is nothing more than meddling. The Premier of Ontario should not be picking fights with individual municipalities. If you really are interested in governing the province as a whole, he should be making decisions based on sound research and applying those provincially. He would open himself up to far less litigation and might actually be seen as the premier of Ontario rather than the would-be mayor of Toronto.
In this particular case, I think the odds are in favor of the Ford government defeating the lawsuits. But, I don't think it will be a clear or easy victory. And the Premier's office should NOT be making decisions which will clearly lead to lawsuits which will gather support against the government and which they may actually lose.
In fact, avoiding being sued by the people you represent SHOULD be a fairly critical goal of any government. Especially government claiming to be "for the people". After all, who do you think is paying the legal fees?
Which brings up 2 more cases. The education reform and scrapping the basic income pilot. Again, both campaign promises and both well within the powers of the government. But also, once again, moves which could have been made in ways which won't end up hurting tax payers in court.
Ford's problem is simple. In the sex education scandal, Ford is replacing a program that was researched and consulted upon with one which wasn't. From what I've read, even the proponents of the current (or perhaps now former) curriculum agreed it wasn't great or perfect. But, they did at least agree it was better than the old one.
The new plan can probably be proven to address some of the concerns identified in the research which brought it about. Which means, those being forced to teach can probably prove that reverting back to the old curriculum will result in damages. Again, I don't know whether the Ford government will win or not. But, they likely won't be able to have the courts dismiss it, and based on their public blustering, I predict it will end up similar to the Tesla lawsuit.
The Basic Income pilot suffers from the same sorts of lack of research and consultation. But, this time they are cancelling a research project. It is a bigger waste of money to cancel the pilot than to let it continue. By canceling it, it will have run for over a year and cost tax payers a decent amount but won't have run long enough to draw any insights from. At least if it finished, we'd have at least some worthwhile data upon which to proclaim it failed.
The only upside I see on this one is that, while I think the decision to kill it is wrong. And the handling, like many other things under this government was sloppy. I do think the government has shown some concessions. Publicly, they haven't said anything particularly damaging to their case. And thus I also think, generally, their intents line up with their public stance on the matter. Combine all of that with this being within their power and I think the chance of a lawsuit winning here is substantially lower than in other cases.
Blaming everything on Wynne is nonsense. Going back on your promise to scrap that powerplant is all Ford's fault. He should have known at least a rough cost before making the promise. It isn't Wynne's fault he has pull out, it is his fault for making the promise.
There are a lot more points I could make against Ford. But, I wanted to keep this post centered, not around what I agree with or disagree with in his platform, but rather why regardless of his goals, I see certain aspects as either good or bad.
The points above are pretty much all things he campaigned on. And he won based on that campaign. Complaining that he is implementing them is pointless.
What I feel it is fine to complain about is HOW.
As I've said in the past, I can't really take people seriously if they can't see past party affiliation. Which must mean that I'm able to see some good in Doug Ford. And, I can. In a sense. Though he REALLY does make it hard.
So, let's start with the good. He is doing or attempting a lot of what he said in his campaign. As quickly as possible. As literally as he campaigned on it as possible. If you voted for Doug Ford because of his platform, you can hardly fault him on this. There is very little trickery or stretching the truth in terms of the platform items they are executing on. It can be hard to accept, but this is actually a decent quality for a politician to have. It doesn't mean I think favorably of him in general.
But, he said he would do certain things if we won. He won. And he is doing those certain things. In many ways, this is democracy at work.
Another interesting quality is his occasional willingness to accept mistakes. He definitely isn't great at this. But, he is showing his government to be more open than previous ones I can remember. He stands rather firm on some things despite backlash, like slashing Toronto's governance down. But, on other areas like education and green energy rebate programs and basic income, his government hasn't abandoned what they said they would do, but have adjusted to some degree based on public response.
Again, this in an of itself isn't enough to change my opinion of the man on the whole. But, it is VERY hard to remember a politician in recent memory who has adjusted their plans once they have gone public. And that is definitely a worthwhile thing.
And in terms of what I'm familiar with about Ford, that is where the positives end.
A lot of his policy and platform is smoke and mirrors. A lot of it will hurt people in the long run. And, an insane amount of it is just crazy.
A recent announcement was that Ford wasn't going to scrap a power plant he had campaigned on scrapping because it turned out that it would cost tax payers way too much money. On the one hand, this sounds exactly like the second positive trait I associated with Ford. But, the problem is this... if Ford had done his due diligence on his campaign promises, we wouldn't have to back track on this. It isn't as though we don't have experience on how expensive pulling out of these deals can be. In fact the Wynne government inherited a canceled power plant project for the government they succeeded and it was about the same cost.
In short, Ford knew, or should have known, LONG before this point. Any time and effort spent at the tax payers expense is already wasted money. He should either go ahead with the plan if it really is meaningful to go ahead with it. Or, he never should have made the promise in the first place.
Their attack on Hydro One. Should never have happened. Again, SURE he did as he promised. But, governments should NOT be interfering directly with privately run businesses. That should scare the pants off of everyone.
I've already made my points clear on how they are handling Toronto. This is a targeted attack. As such it is nothing more than meddling. The Premier of Ontario should not be picking fights with individual municipalities. If you really are interested in governing the province as a whole, he should be making decisions based on sound research and applying those provincially. He would open himself up to far less litigation and might actually be seen as the premier of Ontario rather than the would-be mayor of Toronto.
In this particular case, I think the odds are in favor of the Ford government defeating the lawsuits. But, I don't think it will be a clear or easy victory. And the Premier's office should NOT be making decisions which will clearly lead to lawsuits which will gather support against the government and which they may actually lose.
In fact, avoiding being sued by the people you represent SHOULD be a fairly critical goal of any government. Especially government claiming to be "for the people". After all, who do you think is paying the legal fees?
Which brings up 2 more cases. The education reform and scrapping the basic income pilot. Again, both campaign promises and both well within the powers of the government. But also, once again, moves which could have been made in ways which won't end up hurting tax payers in court.
Ford's problem is simple. In the sex education scandal, Ford is replacing a program that was researched and consulted upon with one which wasn't. From what I've read, even the proponents of the current (or perhaps now former) curriculum agreed it wasn't great or perfect. But, they did at least agree it was better than the old one.
The new plan can probably be proven to address some of the concerns identified in the research which brought it about. Which means, those being forced to teach can probably prove that reverting back to the old curriculum will result in damages. Again, I don't know whether the Ford government will win or not. But, they likely won't be able to have the courts dismiss it, and based on their public blustering, I predict it will end up similar to the Tesla lawsuit.
The Basic Income pilot suffers from the same sorts of lack of research and consultation. But, this time they are cancelling a research project. It is a bigger waste of money to cancel the pilot than to let it continue. By canceling it, it will have run for over a year and cost tax payers a decent amount but won't have run long enough to draw any insights from. At least if it finished, we'd have at least some worthwhile data upon which to proclaim it failed.
The only upside I see on this one is that, while I think the decision to kill it is wrong. And the handling, like many other things under this government was sloppy. I do think the government has shown some concessions. Publicly, they haven't said anything particularly damaging to their case. And thus I also think, generally, their intents line up with their public stance on the matter. Combine all of that with this being within their power and I think the chance of a lawsuit winning here is substantially lower than in other cases.
Blaming everything on Wynne is nonsense. Going back on your promise to scrap that powerplant is all Ford's fault. He should have known at least a rough cost before making the promise. It isn't Wynne's fault he has pull out, it is his fault for making the promise.
There are a lot more points I could make against Ford. But, I wanted to keep this post centered, not around what I agree with or disagree with in his platform, but rather why regardless of his goals, I see certain aspects as either good or bad.
The points above are pretty much all things he campaigned on. And he won based on that campaign. Complaining that he is implementing them is pointless.
What I feel it is fine to complain about is HOW.
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