Ontario

Wednesday October 19, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 19, 2021

With election looming, Doug Ford’s PCs pitch themselves as a party on the side of workers

With Ontario’s provincial election looming next spring, Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are presenting themselves as a party that is on the side of workers. 

September 5, 2020

It’s a political makeover that will likely to be a tough sell for Ford and his PCs. 

Ford came to power in 2018 on a crusade to make Ontario “open for business.” One of his government’s first bills froze the minimum wage, scrapped a requirement that employers give all staff at least two paid sick days and ended measures that made it easier for some workers to join a union. 

But now Ford is clearly making a fresh pitch to win favour with workers. 

“We’ve always been for the front-line hard-working union people,” Ford told a news conference in Windsor on Monday. “I will break a brick wall down to support them.”

April 23, 2021

Ford’s Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development, Monte McNaughton, also aimed for a pro-worker tone in a recent speech to the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella group of unions representing plumbers, electricians, bricklayers and other skilled tradespeople.  

“We’re on your side,” McNaughton told the gathering of about 300 union officials in Toronto last Thursday. “There’s no bigger champion out there for tradespeople than Premier Ford.” 

McNaughton went on to voice concern for “workers in Ontario being taken advantage of by some bad actors and bad corporations.” He talked of the plight of workers “making well below the minimum wage without pay stubs or transparency on how their work is assigned.”

August 20, 2012

Conservative governments “got it wrong” for decades with their approach to the labour movement, he said in the speech. 

“We’re taking a different path,” McNaughton said. “Not every conservative agrees with me, but we’re not going to slow down.” 

The idea of Ford’s party standing up for workers against big business is being met with skepticism by the PCs’ political opponents.

“They can kiss up to the unions if they want, but it’s their actions that make a difference,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told reporters on Monday at Queen’s Park. 

February 4, 2020

“Actions speak louder than words, and we’ve seen this government have a very anti-worker agenda all the way along.” 

Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca similarly questioned whether the Conservatives will back up what they say with meaningful action. 

Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, which represents more than one million unionized workers, dismisses what the PCs are saying as empty platitudes. 

“It’s election time,” said Coates in an interview, adding that Ford is “rebranding himself as a friend of labour, and he believes that people will forget.” (CBC)  

 

Tuesday October 19, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 19, 2021

Steven Del Duca is promising Ontario a better way to vote

Fresh from the last federal election, months away from the next provincial campaign, Steven Del Duca wants to talk about how people vote.

September 3, 2021

And why they don’t.

The question is whether Del Duca, the leader of Ontario’s Liberals, can do anything to reverse the steady decline in voter turnout — and turn around the electoral fortunes of his own party after hitting bottom in 2018.

After all, his party did its bit to boost democracy in the last election, even if inadvertently. Whenever people are angry enough to “throw the bums out,” as they were with Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government, voters come out in force and the turnout goes back up — but it’s a blip.

Unfortunately, the lopsided results from those massive swings can sometimes prove even more vexing for voters: Premier Doug Ford won 40.2 per cent of the vote in the 2018 provincial election fair and square. Yet that percentage handed his Tories a disproportionate 76 of the 124 seats at Queen’s Park, giving him a rock solid 61.3 per cent majority in any legislative vote.

December 2, 2016

Ford’s boasts of winning a landslide were built on shaky ground. The vast majority of the electorate — who supported NDP, Liberal or Green alternatives — were sidelined in opposition, shut out of government.

It doesn’t add up. Yet nothing seems to change — and likely never will if we don’t rethink things.

Now, Del Duca is trying to reframe the reform question by recasting the way voters cast their ballots. He may be a voice in the wilderness, but given the wild gyrations in our electoral system, his idea deserves a hearing from voters even if his political rivals refuse to listen.

For too long, Canadians have boxed themselves in with a false choice between two rigid alternatives — proportional representation (PR) that reflects the popular vote, versus our current winner-take-all system (dubbed first past the post) that generates disproportionate majorities out of whack with voter sentiment.

September 11, 2007

The problem with PR is that it’s a poor fit for a vast territory like Canada or Ontario with strong geographical and historical allegiances to the constituency system. There’s a compromise solution to that problem, but it’s a hard sell — and voters weren’t buying it when they had the chance in a 2007 referendum that flopped spectacularly in Ontario.

Speaking to his party’s annual general meeting, Del Duca proposed a better fit for Ontario: The ranked ballot. (Continued: The KW Record) 

 

Friday October 15, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 15, 2021

Ford should rethink outdated minimum wage stand

Doug Ford’s minimum-wage policy is the product of minimal thought.

April 29, 2021

Since becoming Ontario’s premier more than three years ago, Ford has rejected any meaningful increase in the baseline wages that employers must by law pay to their workers. After freezing minimum wages during his first 27 months in office, the premier consented to a 25-cent-an-hour increase one year ago then followed up with a paltry 10-cent-an-hour hike on Oct. 1. That brought the current hourly minimum wage to $14.35.

For many of the province’s 500,000 minimum-wage earners, this month’s change felt like a slap in the face instead of a helpful hand up. Those extra 80 cents they have in their pockets after an eight-hour-day’s efforts wouldn’t even cover the cost of their bus ticket to work. Yet Ford stubbornly insists any significant minimum wage increases would shutter businesses and drive higher unemployment.

The problem with this defence is that real-life evidence and real-live economists prove it’s wrong. And if Ford needs an expert second opinion on the matter from a fellow Ontarian, he should consult David Card, the Berkeley university professor who just won the Nobel Prize in economics. The native of Guelph and graduate of Queen’s University, Card was awarded the prestigious honour this week largely for his groundbreaking work into the economic and human impacts that followed minimum-wage increases.

February 1, 2014

Before his research, many economists would have agreed with Ford that boosting wages for some people can make life worse for more by forcing business closures and job losses. If the cost of labour grows too high, the demand for it would drop as many businesses scramble to adapt and some even go bust. Or so went the reasoning — supported for a time by many studies.

But in 1993, Card and the late Alan Krueger challenged conventional theory by looking at what happened to jobs at several New Jersey fast-food restaurants after the state raised its hourly minimum wage from $4.25 (U.S.) to $5.05 (U.S.). After comparing the situation in New Jersey to what was going on at similar fast-food restaurants in neighbouring east Pennsylvania, they concluded the rise in the minimum wage had no effect on the number of people being employed.

In response to skeptical colleagues, Card launched another study in 2000 using new information. His findings were the same. And over time, he won over most of the doubters to his viewpoint. There are still vigorous debates over how governments should manage minimum-wage legislation. But the prevailing opinion of economists is that moderate and gradually introduced wage increments benefit low-wage employees, do not cost jobs and help reduce poverty.

October 18, 2006

In fact, Premier Ford should already know this. After the previous Liberal government raised the hourly minimum wage from $11.60 to $14 in 2018, he railed against what he called “a failed Liberal policy that is driving jobs and investment out of Ontario. It’s equal to the carbon tax when it comes to job killing.” The Ontario Chamber of Commerce was of the same mind and issued dire warnings of economic devastation to come.

Six months after the Liberal minimum-wage hike, however, Ontario’s unemployment rate had dropped to 5.4 per cent, the lowest it had been since 2000. Meanwhile, business profits in the province had risen while its annual inflation rate was running at a modest 2.2 per cent.

Let’s hope the worldwide publicity surrounding Prof. Card’s Nobel Prize will push Ford and the Progressive Conservatives to rethink a minimum wage policy that has so widely been discredited. In its place should be a minimum wage that rises annually and matches wage growth across the provincial workforce. It’s time for a minimum wage based on maximum wisdom. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Friday September 24, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 24, 2021

Shocking anti-vaccine protests that plagued Canada’s election spawned resurgent far-right movement

While vaccines and mask policies are viewed favorably by most Canadians, the vocal minority who oppose them are a growing threat — not only to public health, but to public safety and even democracy itself.

September 15, 2021

Leading up to the election, anti-vaccine protests drew angry, unruly crowds outside hospitals and other health care facilities across Canada, blocking patients and employees trying to access the buildings, and in at least one instance, forcing cancer patients to get out of cars and walk through the unmasked mob. Protesters have reportedly verbally and physically assaulted health care workers, while others have used social media to issue threats of violence against doctors and nurses.

Last month, anti-vaccine protesters showed up at the home of an Ontario education minister and, upon learning that he wasn’t there, decided to harass his neighbours instead. On the campaign trail, Trudeau has been tracked by angry crowds of anti-vaxxers shouting profanities and making Nazi references. Less than two weeks after security concerns forced him to cancel a rally in Ontario, Trudeau was hit with gravel thrown by an anti-vaccine protester at one of his campaign events.

July 3, 2021

As election day neared, Canada’s anti-vaccine movement became more active — and more angry — than ever, and some extremism experts are worried about what will happen when the protesters no longer have an election to direct their outrage towards.

“They’re going to be trouble for some time,” Kurt Phillips, board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and founder of Anti-Racist Canada, told Canada’s National Observer. “The rage that exists in the movement — I don’t know where that goes [after the election]. It could explode.”

Nonetheless, possibly the first time ever in Canada, and certainly the first time in recent history, vaccination had taken the centre stage as a major campaign issue in the federal election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the pandemic when he announced the election in August, saying voters deserve to have a say in who leads the country during its recovery from COVID-19. While mask requirements, vaccine mandates, and other restrictions are already in place, Trudeau promised to pursue an aggressive strategy to combat COVID if the Liberal government remains in power, and criticized his opponent, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, for opposing vaccine mandates. In August, Trudeau pledged a billion dollars to help provinces create their own vaccine passport systems — a move that has widespread public support.

February 26, 2021

Similar to in the U.S., the anti-vaccine movement in Canada is driven by a multitude of factors, including distrust of the government and other institutions, animosity towards experts and authorities, cultural grievances, rejection of mainstream science, and the creeping influence of extremism in mainstream discourse on the right. Much of the anger and opposition to vaccination is propelled by misinformation and conspiracy theories alleging that vaccines are unsafe, harmful, or part of some sort of plot aimed at establishing a biometric surveillance system or other form of government control.

The anti-vaccine movement has close ties to extremist groups, Christian nationalists, QAnon conspiracy theorists, run of the mill grifters and scam artists, and other right-wing causes like the Yellow Vest movement, which now airs its grievances under the banner of anti-vaccine activism.

“Every single prominent Yellow Vester that I’m aware of is now an anti-vaxxer,” Phillips said.

May 7, 2019

Like the Yellow Vest movement — which saw oil and gas pipeline protest being used as cover for right-wing extremist activity — the anti-vaccine movement has become entangled with far-right extremism as white nationalists and other extremists use the guise of vaccine skepticism to push increasingly extreme conspiracy theories targeting Jews, immigrants, health care workers, and others.

European populist parties like Italy’s Five Star Movement have grown their coalition by raising baseless concerns about vaccine safety and campaigning against vaccine mandates, resulting in decreased childhood vaccination rates and resurgences of diseases like measles. From the start of the pandemic, far-right extremists in Italy have flooded social media with articles blaming migrants for the deadly pandemic, while in Austria and Germany, far-right politicians have used the pandemic to spread conspiracy theories about vaccines and call for crackdowns on immigration. Anti-Semitic vaccine conspiracy theories have also been linked to a rise in hate crimes targeting synagogues and Jewish schools in Switzerland.

Federal Election 2021

The link between populism and anti-vaccine sentiment is apparent in Canada, too. Throughout 2020 and 2021, the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) has capitalized on the grievance-based energy of the anti-vaccine movement to mobilize supporters and draw in new voters. PPC leader Maxime Bernier is a founding member of the “End the Lockdown Caucus” and has made opposition to public health measures such as mask mandates, vaccine passports, and lockdowns — which he calls “tyrannical” and “Orwellian” — a centerpiece of his campaign. (Continued: National Observer) 

 

Tuesday September 21, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 21, 2021

How much does Ontario really matter to the federal election?

September 26, 2019

In September of last year, Ford said he wouldn’t campaign for O’Toole and the Tories in the next federal election, preferring instead, he said, to focus on provincial business. Ford was absent from the federal campaign trail in 2019, too, when then-leader Andrew Scheer was up against Trudeau. The Tories welcomed, and perhaps engineered, that. 

The unpopular Ford has kept his word — perhaps to the pleasure and to the advantage of the federal Conservatives. As the Globe and Mail reports, he’s even instructed his ministers not to campaign; if they do help out fellow conservatives, they’re meant to keep a low profile. As Laura Stone and Marieke Walsh write, “Mr. Ford’s cabinet members are being told that if they attend a community event at the same time as any of Mr. O’Toole’s candidates, they are not to post any photographs or digital evidence to social media, according to one of the sources.” 

Young Doug Ford: The Series

Pollster Éric Grenier notes, that this time around, there’s no guarantee Ford would hurt the CPC’s chances. But, given the looming uncertainty surrounding the pandemic in the weeks to come and the possible emergence of vaccine passports as a Liberal wedge issue, he says, “I’m not sure what role he plays. If he just stays out of it, maybe that’s better for everybody — because I’m not sure if he helps the Conservatives if he gets involved, but I’m also not sure he hurts them. So it might just be safer for the Conservatives not to open up that potential Pandora’s box.” Indeed. And it seems the party won’t. (TVO)