Let’s get an update on the score of the game “Doug Ford vs the People of Toronto”.
On one side we have the citizens, whose goal is to have a liveable, beautiful city that they can get around in.
On the other side is the Premiere of Ontario, whose goal is to sell off every bit of public wealth to his friends/donors, or use it to buy votes from low-information voters.
First, let’s look at previous rounds. Doug solidly won the “science centre” round, neatly destroying the beloved architectural jewel by falsely inflating an engineering report, and promising a temu replacement. Citizens responded by offering to fund repairs, but it was too late.
Doug also won the “Ontario Place” round, destroying yet another beloved and unique architectural jewel. He was aided in this by years of previous Provincial neglect. He managed to lock in a 99-year lease with a private spa company before his opponents were able to discover the backroom dealings and how the spa company had completely lied to get the deal.
However, Doug faltered on the “Green Belt” round, where he attempted to slice that up with a highway designed to inflate property values for his friends/donors who owned the land. In this round the backroom dealing were exposed early enough to reduce his impact.
Similarly, Doug is in a stalemate in the “safe bike infrastructure” round, where he attempted to remove bike lanes by falsely claiming that they caused traffic congestion in order to get votes from angry drivers who don’t understand how traffic works. This however was blocked in the courts when citizens were able to show that the only effects of removal would be more traffic and more deaths and injuries to bicyclists.
But there is exciting news in the latest “Island Airport” round, where Doug attempted to ruin Toronto’s waterfront, reduce affordable housing, and cause much ecological damage, for the benefit of American company JP Morgan and Porter airlines. It looked like Doug might win when he removed the City from the tripartite agreement and took it for himself, but he has been (for the moment) soundly defeated by citizen-powered protests that convinced the Federal government to cancel it.
Keep fighting, citizens!
#ONpoli #DougFord
