Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Zaune »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-09-21 03:48pmIf the courts are powerless to stop him, then what are the options? Suck it up for four years and hope we can beat him next time? Or call for mass public demonstrations/strikes to shut down the province until the fucker resigns?
Is Option #2 likely to actually work? Ford seems like the kind of guy to deal with that kind of thing by just sort of tuning it out until the protestors get fed up and either give up and go home or turn on each other.

And has anyone at the federal level expressed any opinion on this, by the way? You'd think they'd raise at least a token objection, if only on the grounds that implementing reigns of terror are not a devolved matter.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by The Romulan Republic »

2 would only work if enough of the public cared enough to make it work. But that's true of any solution.

Maybe I'm just too focused on the US news, but I haven't heard much federally on this. It is surprising if so, and disappointing.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Tribble »

Zaune wrote:
And has anyone at the federal level expressed any opinion on this, by the way? You'd think they'd raise at least a token objection, if only on the grounds that implementing reigns of terror are not a devolved matter.
Federally, Trudeau has said he was disappointed, the NDP oppose it while the Conservatives (surprise) were enthusiastically in favour. A lot of Conservatives are now calling out Harper (the previous PM) for being too soft as he didn't use it when he had the chance. And if you know anything about the Harper years, being "soft" on liberals was not something he was known for. So ya.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by The Romulan Republic »

So can we take it then that the Canadian Conservatives have decided to follow the US Right and whole-heartedly embrace authoritarianism, bigotry, corruption, and Alt. Reich "populism"?

If so... interesting times ahead. As I said, I think Canada is actually more vulnerable to this sort of thing than America, structurally, and I don't think most Canadians are nearly aware enough of the danger- you'd think what's happening in the US would be a wake-up call, but in my experience, a lot of Canadians look down on Americans as stupider and more backwards than Canadians, which encourages complacency. I think there's definitely an "it could never happen here" effect going on, and by the time people figure it out, it might be too late to do much to prevent disaster.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Tribble »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-09-21 04:57pm So can we take it then that the Canadian Conservatives have decided to follow the US Right and whole-heartedly embrace authoritarianism, bigotry, corruption, and Alt. Reich "populism"?

If so... interesting times ahead. As I said, I think Canada is actually more vulnerable to this sort of thing than America, structurally, and I don't think most Canadians are nearly aware enough of the danger- you'd think what's happening in the US would be a wake-up call, but in my experience, a lot of Canadians look down on Americans as stupider and more backwards than Canadians, which encourages complacency. I think there's definitely an "it could never happen here" effect going on, and by the time people figure it out, it might be too late to do much to prevent disaster.
Yes, I absolutely think that many (though not all) Canadian Conservatives have for one reason or another decided that neo-facism is the way to go. Or are at least are heading in that direction when they compare it to the alternatives. The never ending shift to the right has been going on for a long time though - Doug Ford is more a symptom than a cause.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-09-21 04:57pm So can we take it then that the Canadian Conservatives have decided to follow the US Right and whole-heartedly embrace authoritarianism, bigotry, corruption, and Alt. Reich "populism"?
I hate to break it to ya, but they went that way over 15 years ago when they merged with the Reform Party and adopted their hardline leadership. If you think this is new you're slow as fuck. This is just the Conservatives living up to their Reform Party hardliners, and if you want to put it bluntl, the current Conservative Party is essentially the old Reform Party. By the way, Shitbag Harper was one of the key influencers and behind the scenes guys for the Reform Party when it was founded.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Tribble »

aerius wrote: 2018-09-21 06:33pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-09-21 04:57pm So can we take it then that the Canadian Conservatives have decided to follow the US Right and whole-heartedly embrace authoritarianism, bigotry, corruption, and Alt. Reich "populism"?
I hate to break it to ya, but they went that way over 15 years ago when they merged with the Reform Party and adopted their hardline leadership. If you think this is new you're slow as fuck. This is just the Conservatives living up to their Reform Party hardliners, and if you want to put it bluntl, the current Conservative Party is essentially the old Reform Party. By the way, Shitbag Harper was one of the key influencers and behind the scenes guys for the Reform Party when it was founded.
Ya, and it's kinda scary that they now view him as a moderate (at best) when compared to their ideals.

IMO this may have to be the "Dump Ford" general thread given all the other antics hes already up to, which I will post in a bit.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Solauren »

He's already announced plans to evaluate all the other municipalities and city councils in the province for more merges/reductions.

While in some cases, I think that will be a good idea (i.e Durham Region is already moving towards that anyway, with the merger of things like the transit systems, police forces and the like), in others, since these people are not provincial employees, I don't see the point.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Tribble »

Solauren wrote: 2018-09-22 09:27am He's already announced plans to evaluate all the other municipalities and city councils in the province for more merges/reductions.

While in some cases, I think that will be a good idea (i.e Durham Region is already moving towards that anyway, with the merger of things like the transit systems, police forces and the like), in others, since these people are not provincial employees, I don't see the point.
Well, I hope the PC Party doesn't try to merge other municipalities / regions the way they did with Toronto; we all know how that turned out.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Tribble »

So, apart from downsizing Toronto city council against the will of the majority of its residents, scrapping elections to prevent poltical opponents from running in York and Peel and and eliminating gays from sex-ed, what else has Ford "accomplished" so far?

1. Eliminate the Cap and Trade Program
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4819250

Lawsuits on this already since companies paid billions into it.

2 . Repeal the Green Energy Act

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-g ... -1.4102549

I particularly love the bit where he said he repealed it to "respect municipal rights" given the way he's treated Toronto so far.

3. Cut financial aid program for low-income people and those with disabilities:

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/0 ... ome-people

Funny, he didn't mention doing this during campaign. But no one should be surprised as kicking people while they are down is a favourite conservative pastime.

4. Announced plans to "redevelop Ontario Place" aka screw Toronto:

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/ ... asino.html

Basically instead of the park downtown residents wanted they can look forward to condos, malls and potentially a casino. Hurray!

5. Pushes forward plan to take over Toronto's subway network aka screw Toronto:
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/3 ... _23513938/

Everyone knows this will lead to privatisation and/or service cutbacks.

6. Mulls cancelling Finch West LRT (already under construction) and service cutbacks on GO (primarily downtown) aka screw Toronto:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/0 ... lines.html

7. Prioritises building subways to Markham (population 325,000) and Pickering (population 91,000) over Toronto (population ~2.8 million)... Because screw Toronto:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ ... -1.4715880

8.Laid the media groundwork for the major cutbacks:
https://www.thestar.com/politics/politi ... euvre.html

No doubt he'll dump as much of this as possible on Toronto as well as any other city which didn't vote for him failed to find efficiencies.


This is just the 3 month mark people. It's gonna be a fun ride.
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Re: Doug Ford is going to use the Notwithstanding Clause... to screw with Toronto

Post by Solauren »

Ah, the old 'make the local governments pay for it, so they piss the people off, not the province' trick.

Thankfully, I'm no longer employed by the provincal government, and employed by one of the few federal divisions the Auditor General consistently says needs more staff. (Usually, the Auditor General says divisions are overstaffed)
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