Have you ever wondered how the cost of living got so bad and seems to be getting worse? The answers can be found in an upcoming new book, Against the People: How Ford Nation is Dismantling Ontario.
Brilliantly written in accessible language and backed up by impeccably researched facts and figures. The authors set out in detail and document how Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s policies that were supposed to make things better, are actually making affordability and life in Ontario much worse.
The book questions Ford’s campaign statements of, “for the people” and “get it done.” Just what is getting done and for which people? Against the People answers that question thoroughly. The book takes a big step towards informing the public of what Ford, his ministers, loyalists and corporate supporters have done to enrich themselves at our expense.
It tells the damning story with all the jaw dropping facts of deliberate underfunding of Ontario’s democratic institutions and setting them up for privatization. Ford is abandoning the public good, to create more profit-making opportunities for private corporations. Ford’s quest for authoritarian power is shown by his concentration of power in the Premier’s office and his ministers by aggressively, “smashing several constitutional and legislative norms weakening the capacity of the legislature to hold the government accountable,” the book reads.
Ford did this with a severe reduction of parliamentary scrutiny with omnibus legislation, time allocation, invoking closure allowing the government to conclude debate and force a vote on any matter.
In the same vein, also clearly documenting the deliberate dismantling of democracy in Ontario. Eliminating and changing laws and regulations to the benefit of corporate Ontario.
Three examples in healthcare legislation. Omnibus bill Bill 74, or The People’s Healthcare Act, then Bill 175, the Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act; and finally, Bill 60, Your Health Act. These bills set up the architecture and gave the minister wide ranging powers to privatize healthcare in Ontario. It was the same for reducing tenants’ rights with Bill 184 the Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act. Opponents called it “The eviction bill” because it allowed landlords to aggressively evict tenants in order to charge higher rents.
The authors show how corporate Ontario and Doug Ford are dismantling Ontario even more zealously and recklessly than former premier Mike Harris did. Ford is building on his predecessor’s record of enabling and empowering the wealthy elite to make even more profits.
The authors give many accounts of how the Auditor General, the Financial Accountability Office and the judges in the multiple court cases Ford has had brought against him, have criticized him heavily for his policies and actions.
In every public policy area, “the voices of the public, civil society organizations, local governments and the provincial public service Ford has aggressively marginalized as red tape,” a passage in the book reads.
In every area, Ford has eliminated public involvement, scrutiny and transparency.
The book details how Ford’s misinformation and gaslighting of the public with claims of record spending in healthcare and education are false. The only records Ford is breaking is former premier Mike Harris’ records of transferring wealth to the wealthy. From childcare, to home care, to long-term care, to healthcare, to education. From schools to universities, public lands and assets, and the arts, Ford is deliberately underfunding and trying to privatize them all. Health and safety legislation under Ford has been greatly diminished.
Ford has installed loyalists in every government agency and tribunal. Through Ford’s legislation, these loyalists are given the power to make final decisions affecting everyday people in Ontario.
Ford appeals every legal decision made against him even if it is obvious he will lose the appeal and repeatedly uses the notwithstanding clause, all to forward his partisan interests.
Ford’s most egregious actions are his aggressive drive to privatize healthcare. Despite promises to end hallway medicine and wait times in emergency rooms, healthcare legislation, like Bill 124 which limited salaries for public sector workers like hospital nurses, has deliberately made healthcare much worse. Hospitals have been stretched to the limit because of massive staffing shortages of doctors and nurses.
The weakening and removal of environmental laws and regulations that benefit the wealthy are clearly shown in this book. Well documented is Ford’s plan to develop the Ring of Fire, a resource rich area of northern Ontari, and Ford’s willingness to ride roughshod over Indigenous people and ignoring their rights to do it; all the while completely disregarding whatever environmental damage it does.
Ford claims he will jump on a bulldozer himself to clear the forest for a road for mineral extraction. This is the last and largest boreal forest in the world. A massive area of carbon storage of forest wetlands and peatlands, that First Nations showing their critically important knowledge of the environment they call, “the breathing lands because they act as the world’s lungs.”
Consistently, Ford is following the Conservative strategy of “creating a crisis” and then corporatizing and privatizing the solution, transferring wealth to the wealthy and keeping wages low.
The detailed research in this book is tailor made with concrete facts and figures needed for an opposition party looking to defeat Ford’s policies that have damaged Ontario so badly.
Ford must be stopped. Like all other authoritarians, the only thing Ford responds to is power. It is possible to back Ford off. The example being the heroic education support workers’ strike.
“Defying Ford, facing fines of $4,000 a day, 55,000 education workers went on strike, quickly backed up on the picket lines by, “parents, teachers and other unions,” an excerpt from the book reads. In response, Ford folded.
Like the proverbial frog in boiling water, Ontario is slowly becoming an authoritarian oligarchy. If Ford is elected again, he will continue to damage the many things that made Ontario a good place to live.
According to the book, the wealthy’s control of Ford and the Conservatives, “must be challenged in a meaningful and effective way again, returning democratic power to the people.” The authors say all the people opposing Ford must coordinate and organize their efforts.
The authors of Against the People also warn that things are about to get even uglier for the working class under the possible election of Conservative Party of Canada Pierre Poilievre as prime minister. He believes his policies of cutting red tape and tax cuts and free market ideology that he calls “common sense,” will bring prosperity. If every voter read this book the only votes Ford would get would be from his wealthy friends.
We’ve already had 30 years of “common sense” that showed how false the promise was “that a rising tide lifts all boats.” Only the luxury liners rose and we all sank in their wake.
Against the People: How Ford Nation is Dismantling Ontario will be released in February of 2025
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
