Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 24, 2023
Peeling the Layers: Ford’s Political Shake-up in Peel Region
August 21, 2019
Peel Region undergoes significant political development as Premier Doug Ford’s government pursues the separation of Mississauga and Brampton from the regional municipality. This parallels Toronto’s amalgamation reversal in 1998. The implications are substantial, especially with approaching elections and high stakes for Ford and other key players.
Toronto’s amalgamation brought coherence but failed to deliver promised savings. Similarly, dissolving Peel Region is challenging, yet many argue it’s the right course. Brampton and Mississauga’s rapid growth strains their relationship as Canada’s sixth-largest cities. Their populations hold significant political weight and ignoring their concerns could be perilous.
The roots of this separation trace back to Peel Region’s formation 50 years ago. Premier Bill Davis oversaw its creation against opposition from Hazel McCallion, later Mississauga’s mayor. Interestingly, Ford’s legislation to divide Peel bears McCallion’s name, a reminder of the rivalry between the cities. Opposition began under McCallion but succeeded under Mayor Bonnie Crombie, who campaigned for independence, emphasizing Mississauga’s economic prowess.
July 13, 2022
Mayor Patrick Brown demands over $1 billion compensation for shared infrastructure in Mississauga, while Crombie argues her taxpayers already bear a disproportionate burden. The financial considerations must be reconciled, despite the rivals’ tensions. The political landscape is intricate, with key figures and parties involved. Brown reinvented himself as Brampton’s mayor, while Crombie eyes Ontario Liberal leadership. Ford may face a formidable opponent in Crombie during the 2026 campaign.
With an early 2025 deadline, time is essential. Ford aims to make everyone “whole” and secure peace for Peel’s 1.5 million residents. Establishing standalone governance paves the way for “strong mayor” powers, sparking controversy. Mississauga and Brampton have no reservations, and Crombie could gain for Liberals within this Tory stronghold. The resolution will require attention to policing and financial accountability, with implications for the 2026 election.
The true impact of these political maneuvers will be understood when the ballots are counted. (AI)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 18, 2023
Ford’s Fumbled Vision for Ontario Place
Young Doug Ford: The Series
Premier Doug Ford’s recent announcements about Ontario Place and the Ontario Science Centre have left many scratching their heads. Ford, known more for his political blunders than his youthful exploits as a rebel without a cause, seems to be haphazardly scribbling plans for these iconic attractions on the back of a napkin, as NDP Leader Marit Stiles aptly pointed out in the legislature.
Ford’s bewildering plan to uproot the Science Centre from its historic location and hand over public lands to a private European developer to build a luxury spa and parking lot on Ontario Place’s West Island has raised more than a few eyebrows. The lack of transparency and accountability in Ford’s decision-making process is as clear as mud, and critics are rightly concerned about the environmental impact of cutting down over 800 trees for a proposed spa, as revealed in a recent City of Toronto planning staff report.
Mayoral candidates Josh Matlow and Olivia Chow have called for preserving Ontario Place as a public park without a private spa, while Ford’s former adviser, Mark Saunders, seems to view it as a “tourism opportunity” for the city. However, Ford remains resolute in his plans, claiming that the idea to relocate the Science Centre came up a year ago and that he personally thinks it’s a brilliant idea. Perhaps his rose-tinted nostalgia for the good old days is clouding his judgment as he makes decisions about these provincial treasures.
As the June 26 mayoral byelection looms, Ford’s puzzling vision for Ontario Place and the Science Centre has become a contentious issue. Many are clamoring for more transparency and accountability in Ford’s decision-making process, and urging him to put aside his impulsive napkin-scrawled plans and approach these beloved attractions with a modicum of strategic foresight. It’s high time for Ford to heed the concerns of the public and consider the long-term implications of his ill-conceived plans for Ontario Place and the Ontario Science Centre, instead of making rash decisions that seem more fitting of his political misadventures than his youthful escapades. (AI)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 15, 2023
Avril Lavigne confronts topless protestor at Junos
Young Doug Ford: The Series
A wildly unpredictable Juno Awards unfolded on Monday as a topless protester charged the stage, leading to some feisty words from Avril Lavigne, while an absent the Weeknd emerged as the top winner this year.
With a few twists and turns, Canada’s biggest celebration of music did away with its typically tame proceedings shortly after the broadcast got under way. Lavigne was interrupted by a topless woman who leapt on the stage wearing pasties with paint on her that read “land back” and “save the green belt,” a reference to Ontario’s decision last fall to open a protected area of land for housing.
The pop-punk princess appeared blindsided by the crasher and proceeded to swear at her, demanding she get off the stage. The person was quickly escorted away by security.
Unfazed, Lavigne moved on to introduce a performance by Punjabi-Canadian singer and rapper AP Dhillon.
She returned later to accept this year’s fan choice award with a few choice words and another expletive.
The unexpected moment set the tone for an energetic Junos that saw the Weeknd’s smash hit Dawn FM earn him album of the year, adding to four wins he scored at a Saturday industry event, including artist and single of the year for Sacrifice. (The Globe and Mail)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 23, 2023
Doug Ford and the $150 stag and doe
Young Doug Ford: The Series
You never have to worry much about subtlety when it comes to Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Nuance isn’t in the family genes. When Ford’s brother Rob was Toronto’s mayor, their shared plan for the city’s portlands — a huge waterfront area just east of downtown that’s just yearning for smart development — included a giant shopping mall and the world’s biggest Ferris wheel, for which they were much mocked by the higher orders of city sophisticates.
July 28, 2018
It didn’t faze Ford, who’s never wasted much time worrying about sophisticates in any case. His lack of artifice was evident when he became premier and made one of his first acts a surprise move to whack Toronto’s city council down to size, chopping it by almost half and thus — by his reckoning — freeing taxpayers of a lot of expensive timewasters. When it came to name a new head to the provincial police force, Ford plumped for a family pal, who later withdrew over the ensuing uproar. When he sought to prevent a confrontation with teachers over a new contract he threatened to invoke the notwithstanding clause, thereby provoking an even bigger confrontation than he’d been trying to avoid.
May 29, 2020
It’s a trait that doesn’t always work to his disfavour. The obvious sincerity of his performance during the COVID pandemic did much to counter the poor impression he’d made and helped him to easily win a second mandate. Since then he’s reverted to form, publicly urging John Tory to hang on as mayor after he’d admitted to an extramarital affair, loudly warning the city would be “toast” if voters replaced Tory with “a lefty.”
That’s Ford being Ford. Torontonians may have come to recognize that fact; it remains to be seen how far they’re willing to go in accepting it.
At the moment the premier is caught in a very Ford-like situation he utterly fails to understand. Prior to the wedding of one of his four daughters last summer a stag and doe party was organized to help pay the bills, with tickets priced at $150. Questions arose when it became known that a number of developers had attended, given that a few months later the province announced it was freeing up several chunks of land for development in a protected greenbelt around the city, some of which had been purchased by builders after Ford came to power in 2018. At least one of those developers, according to the Toronto Star, was at the wedding fundraiser.
The premier sees questions about the issue entirely as an unwarranted attack on his family.
February 16, 2023
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. About a $150 stag? You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groused during one heated round of reporter questioning.
“This is the first time in Canadian history you go after any premier’s family, which there used to be an unwritten rule (that) you don’t do that, go after any mayor’s family, any prime minister, but, I guess, when it comes to us there’s different rules.”
It’s highly doubtful this is really the first time journalistic questioning has strayed into a politician’s family life, but you can see Ford’s point. Why are people picking on his daughter over a matter she has nothing to do with?
“No one can influence the Fords,” he’s insisted repeatedly, noting the family’s practise of opening their doors to large throngs of people on a regular basis, with everyone welcome.
March 22, 2019
Money raised at the stag and doe, he says, was handled by “the boys.” That apparently refers to the friends of the groom, a police officer. Ford is big on the cops. “There’s no secret I absolutely love our police officers,” Ford said earlier in his years as premier when he was criticized for naming a Toronto cop to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. “I’m proud to say that three out of my four daughters are with police officers, so there’s my bias right there as well,” he said at the time.
His remarks happened to coincide with the announcement of $20.5 million to fight gang violence in a suburban Toronto community. The fact that the appointee was an open fan of the premier and hadn’t applied for the post, and came at a time the commission was looking into a case involving the Toronto police, would have struck him as immaterial. The guy was “top notch.” What’s anything else got to do with it?
Ford sent the matter of the stag and doe to Ontario’s integrity commissioner and was cleared. The premier had no knowledge of any gifts the couple received and “there was no discussion of government business” at the event, the commissioner ruled. Yes, there were developers invited, but they were family friends.
March 8, 2019
Combining the personal with the political is a Ford trait. It’s part of his appeal to the people who are happy to vote for him. It works both ways, though: If your personal friends are heavy with cops and developers, people are going to ask questions if cops and developers seem to be doing particularly well from your government.
There are legitimate questions being asked about how a few companies came to buy specific pockets of property that were removed from Greenbelt protection. Answering those questions would help preclude the sort of suspicion that leads to intrusive questions about who attended a stag and doe. (The National Post)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 28, 2023
Developers who bought Ontario Greenbelt land linked to Ford government
YDF Merch
Since Ontario Premier Doug Ford was first elected four years ago, developers have paid tens of millions of dollars for a number of properties that include protected lands the province is now proposing to carve out of the Greenbelt.
Among those properties is a substantial piece of land lying largely in the Greenbelt that sold for $80-million in September, just weeks before the government revealed its new plan.
During the 2018 election campaign, Mr. Ford promised not to touch the Greenbelt – a vast arc of farmland, forests and wetlands across Southern Ontario. The pledge followed public uproar over a video that showed him saying he would allow housing development on a “big chunk” of the protected area. Again, in late 2020, he made a similar promise.
May 3, 2018
The Ford government reversed itself in November, announcing plans to remove 7,400 acres from the Greenbelt for the construction of at least 50,000 new homes. At the same time, land elsewhere would be added to the Greenbelt that, the government says, would result in a net increase of 2,000 acres.
The proposal to open up the Greenbelt to development has sparked protest from environmentalists, agriculture advocates and land-use experts, who argue that swapping one piece for another may be ineffective, because land has different environmental values, and that this also paves the way for other developers to push for their properties to be removed from the Greenbelt.
The proposed carve-outs of 15 areas of land include at least nine properties that were bought by developers for $10-million or more – transactions that topped $300-million in total – since the Progressive Conservatives took office in 2018, property records show.
November 23, 2022
At least four developers who bought the properties the government is now proposing to remove from the Greenbelt have either donated to the PC Party, hired conservative lobbyists, or both.
The government defended the decision to open up parcels of Greenbelt land to development but did not address questions related to the developers.
Among the sales in the Greenbelt parcels up for potential development, the most recent occurred in mid-September, about six weeks before the government’s announcement.
On Sept. 15, a company controlled by developer Michael Rice bought the 280-hectare property in the Township of King for $80-million. The real estate agent who sold the property promoted it as a “prime land-banking opportunity,” referring to the practice of holding undeveloped land for future opportunities.
The property had previously traded hands in 2000 – before the Greenbelt protections were put in place – for about $9.3-million.
October 27, 2011
Mr. Rice’s development company, Rice Group, hired Frank Klees, a former Ontario PC cabinet minister, between 2019-20 to lobby the government “on the economic development opportunities represented by a number of the client’s emerging projects,” the lobbyist registry says. The contract predated Mr. Rice’s purchase of the land in King Township. Mr. Klees did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
In addition, provincial records also show that a person with the name Michael Rice has donated more than $10,500 to the PC Party since 2018. This individual also donated money to the Liberals in 2018. As well, three donors with the same names as Rice Group executives have given the PC Party thousands of dollars since 2018.
Mr. Rice did not respond to e-mails requesting comment. (The Globe and Mail)
From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …
