The session bells were ringing Monday afternoon at Queen’s Park, calling Members of the Provincial Parliament into the chamber. The halls outside buzzed with MPPs and their minions. Suddenly, the Premier emerged. He’d seen reporters with cameras. A reporter asked if Opposition debate would delay passage of Bill 307, the one that used the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to reintroduce parts of a law overruled by a judge last week.
“No,” Doug Ford said defiantly from behind his COVID mask. “We’re fighting for democracy.”
For the record, last Tuesday (June 8) Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan reached the conclusion that it was unconstitutional for the Ontario government to double the restricted pre-election spending period for third-party advertisements to 12 months before an election call.
The Ontario Tories have argued that by extending the restriction, they are protecting elections from outside influence. But the way Justice Morgan saw it, several sections of the Election Finances Act (tabled by the Ford government) infringe on rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Let me repeat: An Ontario Superior Court justice says the Progressive Conservatives’ bill infringes on Ontarians’ rights in the Canadian Constitution. Which begs the question: Who’s fighting for democracy?
Remember last spring, when the World Health Organization announced that the Canada and the world faced a global pandemic? Premier Ford and Christine Elliott, the minister of health, both said they were pulling together SWAT teams from hospitals and public health units to immunize long-term-care homes from infection. “We will fortify with an iron ring of protection around our long-term-care residents,” they said.
And wasn’t part of that iron ring basic air conditioning for those besieged long-term-care residents? Just a few months later, in July 2020, during a heat wave – that added discomfort to infection – the Premier said his government would rapidly mandate air conditioning in all those homes, including residents’ rooms – as a democratic right for the residents!
A year later, on May 27, 2021, when questioned about installation of air conditioning in those homes, Donna Duncan, the CEO of the Ontario Long Term Care Association, said she could not say what percentage of homes have A/C throughout their facilities. Meantime, long-term-care advocate Vivian Stamatopoulos told CP24 last month there are still 289 homes (of 627 in Ontario) that do not have any A/C in residents’ rooms.
And yet on Monday at Queen’s Park, Premier Ford said, “I’ll work all day, all night to protect the people.”
A year and a month into the pandemic, on April 30 of this year, Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commissioners submitted their final report to the minister of long-term care. In their 322-page report, Hon. Frank N. Marrocco, Angela Coke and Dr. Jack Kitts charged the provincial government with not having a plan to address the pandemic or to protect residents in long-term-care facilities.
As of June 14 government stats show that there were 22,444 COVID cases in those homes, and that 3,794 residents have died of COVID.
Yet on May 14, when Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario’s minister of long-term care was asked when she learned about reported deaths by neglect, she said, “We’re actively working right now … understanding where that information came from.” When pressed further on the report, she walked out of the room.
And the premier said on Monday, “We’re fighting for the people.”
And the list of anti-democratic actions the Ford government has taken in the last year alone grows – its July 2020 omnibus Bill 195 to potentially override collective agreements; in April 2021 its order to give police the power to “increase public compliance,” a.k.a. potentially increase racial profiling; during the third wave, its failure (until purshed) to shut down industrial hotspots of COVID infection and help compensate affected workers with paid sick leave; its failure to offer vaccination to front-line teachers and staff at the province’s schools to help keep our kids in class. The list goes on and on …
Let me go back to Premier Ford’s moment in the halls of the Ontario Legislature last Monday afternoon, just before he used – for the first time in Ontario’s history – the notwithstanding clause to override a Superior Court Justice’s ruling and undermine Canada’s Constitution, mind you – when he seemed miffed that the Ontario Opposition was filibustering to stall his unprecedented vote.
“They’re filibustering,” he said. “We’re fighting for democracy.”
A short time later he used his majority in the Legislature to pass Bill 307 by a vote of 63 to 47, as he described it “fighting for the democracy of the people,” while disregarding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982.
I think he’s fighting for his job, and in his mind, that trumps just about everything else, up to and including democracy.