Posts with the Doug Ford tag

Barris Beat

Bad judgment must be called out

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Playing on a tree on the other side of the fence was so inviting, but, it turned out, against the rules.

It happened when I was about nine. The public-school playground got a little boring, so a bunch of us found a maple tree just across the back fence of the schoolyard to climb, sit in and hang from. Word got around to the principal, Mr. Palmer Kilpatrick. If for no other reason than fear of liability, he announced that the tree was off limits.

That didn’t stop us. Next day, we headed back over the fence and scrambled back up the tree. Suddenly, it got quiet. All my fellow tree-climbers disappeared. I was alone. I looked down and there was Mr. Kilpatrick standing at the foot of the tree.

“Ted, come down,” he said sternly. “You know you’re not supposed to be up there.”

“Yes sir,” and I came down. Everybody else who’d climbed the tree with me that day had taken off. And I could have too. But something inside me said, “Fess up and face the consequences.” (more…)

Barris Beat

What Bethlenfalvy’s 100 don’t see

Written by Ted Barris on . 3 Comments
Peter Bethlenfalvy speaks to his 100 about building not being accountable. YouTube photo.

He preferred to present the government’s first-quarter fiscal results, focus on Ontario’s deficit projection for 2023-24. But reporters preferred a response from Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy to the Greenbelt controversy in his riding.

“The 100 people I talked to say ‘build,’” he answered. “That’s what I hear and that’s why we’re going to continue on our build.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Hands off our Greenbelt!

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Where development and Greenbelt collide. #ONGreenbelt

On a recent nighttime flight home from a trip out West, I looked out the passenger jet window. Our landing approach toward Pearson took the flight across terrain northeast of the GTA. In the darkness, I spotted a cluster of lights I knew to be Uxbridge. A calmness came over me. The darkness around that cluster of lights reassured me that our Greenbelt looked safe. Untouched. Protected.

Then this week, I heard the municipal affairs minister at Queen’s Park describe a land swap to reporters.

“It’s a bold action to ensure that we meet our housing target,” Steve Clark said.

Bold indeed. But in my view not in a positive way. (more…)

Barris Beat

Line in the sand

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Carolyn Dunn felt the pressure of convoy demonstrators’ threats.

Until last weekend, I’d become kind of blasé to the words of protest and counter-protest. Every day, I’d read the latest on the demonstrations at Parliament Hill and the border crossings and winced at the deadlock and rhetoric. And, as I pointed out last week, I feared for wider freedom being trampled.

But a TV news story the other night stopped me in my tracks. Carolyn Dunn, CBC’s Alberta reporter, stood adjacent to flashing police cruiser lights, and parked semi-trailer trucks near Coutts, Alta., reporting but also looking over her shoulder anxiously.

Some Freedom Convoy truckers at Coutts, Alta., putting limits on freedom with their taunts.

“Things remain tense for citizens and the media,” Dunn said in her report. She went on to say that some of the demonstrators had directed abusive language at her and other reporters. In other words, in a weirdly Trumpian way, media not just mandates, had become the enemy. And Dunn said she felt uncomfortable having to hide who she was from strangers. “We’ve been told to be careful.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Thinking in herds

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Gatherings such as the Jan. 6, 2021,  insurrection on U.S. Capitol building illustrated all that’s wrong with herd thinking.

It’s human science. We are a species that gathers. We must gather, connect communicate and socialize. It’s quite simply in our DNA. And to our detriment, it’s our gathering in these two years of the pandemic that has been our undoing. And now it’s the fifth wave, the Omicron wave. The number of COVID-19 patients in Canadian hospitals rose 67 per cent last week over the week before, and Ontario is leading the way in high case numbers. So, once again, the Ontario government has decided to lock everything down to prevent us from gathering.

“We face a tsunami of new cases in the coming days and weeks,” Premier Doug Ford told reporters at a news conference on Monday. “The math isn’t on our side.”

But there are, I think, much more dangerous aspects to our species’ gatherings these days than just pandemic viruses. (more…)

Barris Beat

Competence and reward? Not here!

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Promoting cafe staff, like everything else, by merit and experience. thebalancesmb.com

It was the end of our shift. The boss, the owner of the restaurant, called a staff meeting. There were waiters, waitresses, cooks and the busboy staff – about a dozen of us. For several weeks we’d known that the head busboy was leaving the diner. So, we were looking to the boss for some kind of announcement about who would become the next head busboy. His decision was not unexpected. He gave the job to Denny.

“Denny’s been with us the longest,” the boss said. “He has the most experience. He has the trust of everybody on staff and all our customers. He’s the right choice for the position.”

Nobody, not a single person on our staff, disagreed. Everybody could see that the promotion had gone to exactly the right person. Denny met all criteria. So, he got the job. That’s the way it was done at a restaurant staff meeting I attended in the summer of 1966. (more…)

Barris Beat

Notwithstanding democracy

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Justice Edward Morgan ruled restriction of third-party ads by Ont. Gov’t  unconstitutional.

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. (more…)

Barris Beat

How to pay for paid sick days

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Premier Doug Ford isolating away from the Legislature at Etobicoke home. CPAC photo

It’s been seven days since the premier apologized to Ontarians. It’s been 13 days since he did what he apologized for – unnecessarily closing outdoor recreation facilities and giving police the power to randomly stop citizens during the stay-at-home order. And it’s been nine days since Doug Ford went into self-isolation at his mother’s home in Etobicoke, after a member of his staff tested positive for COVID-19. In other words, the premier has not physically served in his office, nor at the Ontario Legislature since a week ago Tuesday.

In other words, technically, Doug Ford has not been at work.

He continues, of course, to be paid… which means Premier Doug Ford is getting paid for sick days!

That means the premier has received nine days of his annual salary – about $5,148 of his $208,974 annual income – all against the stated policy of his own administration. (more…)

Barris Beat

Music that fills the distance

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Frank Zappa’s “Hot Rats” album and memories of meeting him, help fill the COVID gap.

Until about a year ago, it sat there, unused. It was just a piece of furniture filling a corner of my office, covered in dust and unopened. Its knobs, glass dials and chrome corners pretty much untouched for years. Then, shortly after Trudeau and Ford locked things down, the result of the pandemic, I unlocked its lid, turned the dial to “phono,” and got reacquainted with an old friend – my record player.

I should say friends. In the opposite – and equally dusty – corner of my office, I pulled out some of my favourite vinyl. And I got lost in the leisure of pulling discs from their cardboard jackets and paper sleeves, sliding them onto my turntable, dropping the stylus in the groove and turning up the volume. (more…)

Barris Beat

Where feathers lie

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment

They stood there, almost as if frozen. The look on their faces was the best appearance of innocence they could muster. Most kids are pretty good at trying to look innocent. And though the evidence of a massive pillow fight between the two sisters was everywhere, when we suddenly caught them at it, well, you probably know what we got.

“OK, who’s responsible?” we asked.

“Nope,” said one, and she quickly turned to her sister.

“Not me,” said the other.

I experienced a similar feeling of disbelief, on the weekend, when I read a quotation in the Toronto Star from MPP Steve Clark. The minister of municipal affairs was responding to criticism from David Crombie, the outgoing chair of the province’s Greenbelt Council. Crombie announced on Sunday he was resigning because of the Conservative government’s intends to limit the ability of conservation authorities to assess environmental impact of developments.

“(I’ve) been steadfast in my commitment to protect the Greenbelt for future generations,” said Clark in the Star story. (more…)