There were moments during the pandemic when there was much temptation to get one of those flags pairing our Prime Minister’s name with a favourite profane word. Like many, I had developed an internal anger about the state of things that grew to be a consuming emotion that, at times, clouded the ability to think beyond the most simple of thought processes.
Anger towards Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not a new creation of the pandemic. He has been loathed by some since his arrival on the political scene a decade ago, yet it intensified in recent years. It intensified alongside a meteoric rise in distrust of public institutions and an eroded belief that government can be a force for good. Much of that anger is rooted in personal trauma and is valid, yet blind anger is fraying the rope used in the tug-of-war of Canadian politics between the left and the right. A process that while not perfect, created a country that is still among the best in the world to live in. The Canadian political spectrum was less stretched than some others and every national program or policy of note seemed to end up somewhere in the middle.
Somewhere along the way we lost the secret sauce of Canadian policy development. Whether it is universal health care, education, or something as mundane as waste management, things worked here because of the mostly gentle sways from left to right. Daniel Addison, the protagonist in Terry Fallis’ Leacock Award-winning comedic novel, The Best Laid Plans, explains that Canadian politics is based on the balance between cynical political operatives and idealists. When the Liberals have been in power too long their cynical political operatives get so cynical that the idealists over on the Conservative side win Canadians over with new ideas. After a few years of that, the operatives get too cynical on the Conservative side, we flip back to being excited by Liberal ideas and so on. This notion, while simplistic, is the root of what makes things tick over time here. Gradual swings, left to right, right to left, left to right.
The nature of a pendulum requires the ability to freely swing from side to side and in the case of Canadian policy development, each side has a responsibility to ensure they are always thinking about how to build a better clock while they are in control of the tools. Unfortunately, we are seeing the results of when each side does not respect the magnitude of responsibility that they carry when they happen to be in charge.
The right has abandoned the idea that people can be motivated by ideas, instead choosing to take the lazy approach of triggering anger instead of making people think. The left, seeing policy development abandoned by the right, now feel that they have a monopoly on policy, leading to poor policy outcomes and bureaucratic overreach.
Here in Ontario, Bill 23 is an excellent example of the dangers of electing people who do not understand the formation of precedents and the importance of policy. The bill, entitled ‘Build More Homes Faster’ strips local control on a number of development-related fronts, including a municipality’s ability to decide on appropriate development charges. All of the changes within the bill are supposed to lead to 1.5 million houses being built in 10 years, however North Perth’s own CAO Kriss Snell told Midwestern Newspapers’ Cory Bilyea and Melissa Dunphy in a recent interview that despite the loss of local control, Bill 23 was unlikely to have the intended effect. “(The bill) doesn’t guarantee any of the new housing projects will be affordable or attainable,” shared Snell.
Premier Doug Ford has shown throughout 2022 that he does not respect the responsibility that accompanies occupation of the Premier’s office. It is becoming quite clear that he is a vindictive man intent on settling scores from the exhaustingly long list of civic defeats experienced by he and his late brother, Rob, during their time at the City of Toronto. It is but one more example of a leader who cannot, either through lack of ability or wilful ignorance, take their own earthly needs and put them on the backburner for the good of serving the larger society.
For the people living in the communities that make up Perth, Huron, Bruce, and Grey counties, Bill 23 is a double whammy that usurps local control from our duly-elected municipal governments while hitting every single household with permanent massive property tax increases. The timing of this was especially cynical with Ford waiting until the period of municipal government transition so that smaller municipalities like North Perth didn’t have the time to completely analyze the costs to their residents.
That said, nearby Region of Waterloo has already shared that Bill 23 will lead to a $530 million shortfall over the next 10 years. In a region that has fewer than 150,000 households that own their own dwelling, over half a billion dollars will have to be raised through increased property taxes. That means every hardworking family, already under pressure from rising interest rates, higher food costs, and expensive energy, is going to be forced to cough up more than $3,000 a year just to cover the shortfall.
If this were 1923 and not 2022, we could count on our local representatives to ensure our needs are being accounted for. If Premier George Ferguson tried to hamhand through legislation that took hard-earned money out of the pockets of Perth North (the name of our riding from 1867 to 1934) citizens, you can bet that Joseph Monteith would not have stood idly by. Bills like this never saw the light of day at that point in our political history because we still had local representation that advocated for their constituents’ needs BEFORE bills were introduced to the house. Mr. Monteith, unlike his modern-day counterpart, was a Perth North representative at Queen’s Park, not a Conservator Party representative in Perth North, which sadly is our norm today.
Matt Rae, like his local counterpart, Lisa Thompson, is nothing more than a government bugle reading off the script they’ve been handed by the Premier’s Office. How else can you justify their silence on a bill that will yield unprecedented tax increases for every household while delivering no new services or infrastructure?
Between a flurry of destabilizing policies – invoking the once rarely-used notwithstanding clause to stomp on worker rights, decapitating democratic process by empowering minority rule to govern at the municipal level – and a general contempt for public services that sees the Red Cross needed to offer basic medical services to Ontarians, Premier Ford has shown he simply does not have the aptitude to lead a government for the people. His government has become what some feared from the beginning – a disgruntled mass with no long-term vision intent on settling scores without a care for what is lost for the future through collateral damage.
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Stewart Skinner is a local business owner, former political candidate, and has worked at Queen’s Park as a Policy Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. He can be reached at stuskinner@gmail.com or on Twitter: @modernfarmer.
