I think it was during the NHL hockey playoffs last spring that they first appeared. The PC television ads. They start with a peek inside somebody’s house, into his den. Then, we hear the voiceover of Ontario’s premier.
“Well, it’s the people,” Doug Ford says as he buttons his shirt and knots his tie. And he continues chatting on his cellphone, saying “Really busy, busy … for the people.” And he’s on his phone going out the front door, climbing into his car, going into businesses and on and on.
Did you ever stop to ask yourself who those people are he’s talking to? I’ve wondered that a great deal over the summer, especially as media leaks begin to suggest the Ford government will call an early election ahead of the end of its mandate in June 2026. When he says he’s on the phone “for the people,” I wonder which people he means.
It can’t be patients out our way in small-town Ontario, where, for example, residents cannot find a family doctor. Just this week, a friend of mine told me a horror story of a medical emergency she faced in Beaverton. Her daughter was returning a grocery buggy to a covered storage area where she collided with the metal roofing.
Suddenly, the girl was bleeding across her forehead from ear to ear. Knowing there wasn’t a single available doctor in Beaverton (population approximately 3,000) she called 911. Paramedics told her the nearest ambulance was half an hour away. She knew she could drive – breaking the speed limit – to Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital in 20 minutes.
“But you were speeding,” the family admonished her.
“Don’t care,” she said defiantly. “It was an emergency.”
I don’t imagine the premier has had that small-town resident, or other desperate Ontarians trying to find a family doctor or emergency services nearby, on his phone.
As of today, Sept. 5, the Ford government’s rush to get more booze into corner stores advances one more step. Now Ontarians, who can’t seem to find the time or way to an LCBO store, can buy beer, wine and ready-to-drink cocktails in many grocery and confectionary stores.
The Tories are expanding alcohol sales to another 8,500 stores (up from 2,935 outlets). Now I’m not a prude or temperance campaigner, but haven’t the Ford Conservatives read the stats on increased alcohol consumption? Do they really think this increased availability will make for more responsible drinking or driving? I don’t imagine one of those people on the premier’s phone has been Dr. Daniel Myran, a public health and preventive medicine physician at the University of Ottawa.
“Harm will increase in Ontario” said Myran, who’s analyzed previous changes to alcohol sales via grocery stores in Ontario. He calls the likely damage to public health pretty “straightforward.”
And speaking of consumption, I don’t imagine the premier has been on his cellphone with any of the operators or clients of the 10 supervised drug injection sites he’s decided to close this winter. The Conservatives want to shut down those locations situated within 200 metres of daycares or schools.
If I can find the premier’s cell number, I think I’ll suggest that he have a chat with Zoë Dodd, who’s one of the organizers with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society. Ford’s closing the Leslieville safe-injection centre; and she’d probably tell him what she told the media last week, “We cannot remove these lifelines. These cuts will kill.”
No. I don’t imagine Ms. Dodd was among those on the premier’s speed-dial cellphone list. Nor are the 234,000 homeless Ontarians (Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services figure) seeking affordable housing. Nor are the 38,000 people (Ontario Health Coalition figure) waiting for long-term care homes in Ontario.
I remember back in 2014, I was moderating a mayoral debate at the Progress campus of Centennial College, in Toronto. I was backstage going over my notes for the candidates’ debate and the then candidate Rob Ford (the premier’s brother) was continuously on his phone right up to the moment we walked out onto the stage to begin the debate. It must be a thing that the Ford family of politicians does – be seen working the phones.
“You can’t always get it right,” Premier Ford said in that ad last spring on his cell, “and when I don’t, I hear from the people.”
You know, maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t be banning cellphones from students’ hands in classrooms this fall semester. Maybe we should be banning politicians from making phoney claims of always listening to the people on their phones.
If we did, perhaps the premier would listen to what real Ontarians need.