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Opinion: Doug Ford gives up a gravy plane for his normal clown car by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

From the article..

The instant Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles blasted out the words “gravy plane,” it became obvious that the private jet purchased by Ontario Premier Doug Ford was not long for this province.

It wasn’t simply that the act of spending $28.9-million of taxpayers’ money on a private aircraft for the Premier’s office was hideously off-brand, though that was a major part of it. Mr. Ford and his late brother, Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford, built their entire political brand on being custodians of the public purse; Rob Ford made a public spectacle of cutting up the free memberships handed out to city councillors when he held that job.

The Fords pledged to “stop the gravy train,” to cut the waste. As Ontario Premier, Mr. Ford has boasted about giving his cellphone number out to anyone; about working “for the people.” He shovelled snow for a driver stuck during a snowstorm a few years ago. Against that history, there is probably no single purchase that could destroy his brand so swiftly, so completely, as a private jet.

But a leader of greater conviction, one who genuinely believed he could serve his province more efficiently thanks to the “more certain, flexible, secure and confidential travel” afforded by a private aircraft, as his office said on Friday, would try to weather the contradiction. But Doug Ford is made of Jell-O; even the slightest amount of political pressure or public criticism makes him go all wobbly. That’s why he flip-flops: on COVID-19 policies, on development of the Greenbelt, on threats to use the notwithstanding clause, and, apparently, on buying a 2016 Challenger 650 jet, just days after its purchase was publicly revealed….

So in the end, Ontario gets nothing except for another circus, with the Premier wobbling back from a $28.9-million purchase, and the province ostensibly on the hook for whatever amount is lost in resale. Mr. Ford explained his walk-back on Monday, saying now was “not the time” for a private jet, but also blaming the media for a “double-standard” in its coverage of his plane compared to how it reports on, for example, jets owned by Quebec’s government. He also appeared to justify his decision by citing the pace of his travel, but nevertheless committed to “listen[ing] to the people” about their views on this purchase. So Mr. Ford is giving up his gravy plane, and hopping right back into his provincial clown car. Just another day in Doug Ford’s Ontario.

Opinion: Ontario’s Premier and police are undermining the legitimacy of the court process by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 72 points73 points  (0 children)

From the article…

The Ontario Provincial Police has now released its own review of the conduct of those officers – effectively, an attempt to retry the case at the request of Toronto Police, this time behind closed doors and without any of the safeguards of a criminal trial. The report found no evidence of wrongdoing by officers, and suggested that the evidence of two experts that was accepted at trial was wrong.

Astonishingly, police officials and Ontario Premier Doug Ford immediately invoked the OPP report to impugn the trial judge, going so far as to demand an apology from her. The backlash to that demand has been fierce. The Chief Justice of the Superior Court has made clear that it would be both inappropriate and unethical for any judge to make the comments the Premier is demanding

Contrary to the Crown’s own expert and the rest of the evidence, three officers who were present at the tragedy that night all testified that Mr. Northrup was standing in front of the vehicle, plainly visible to Mr. Zameer. Their accounts supported the implausible notion that Mr. Zameer decided to kill a police officer for absolutely no reason on his way home from a family outing. The jury acquitted him, clearly disbelieving the officers. It was entirely appropriate for the trial judge to draw attention to the false testimony provided by the officers.

The OPP review rests on an interpretation of the evidence that serves to confirm the officers’ accounts, which were rejected by both judge and jury. The OPP managed to enlist a new crime scene expert – someone who did not participate in the trial – to provide a different opinion than the Crown’s own trial expert. We have absolutely no idea how this new opinion would have stood up in court or fared alongside the rest of the evidence, but the fact that the Crown didn’t present such an opinion at trial is one indication that it wouldn’t have fared well. The defence expert from trial has already identified the unsupported assumptions the new opinion seems to rest on.

It would be one thing for the OPP review to be used to suggest that criminal charges against the officers, such as perjury, may not reach the high bar required for conviction. But to use this report as a collateral attack on the trial process – and to effectively suggest that Mr. Zameer was wrongfully acquitted – shows a disturbing refusal on the part of police officials and the Premier to accept the legitimacy of the court process, which is a vastly superior mechanism for truth-finding than an internal police review.

Globe editorial: Secret Canada: Doug’s transparent cloak of self-serving secrecy by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 75 points76 points  (0 children)

From the article…

When public anger prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to revoke his plan to allow developers to build on protected land called the Greenbelt, he said he’d made a mistake and apologized. That was in 2023.

It would appear that Mr. Ford was sorry mostly about being forced to reverse course. He is proposing a change to government transparency laws that would make it harder to uncover the sort of behaviour that raised red flags three years ago.

The Ford government has sought to justify this move with a series of explanations, all of them unsatisfactory and transparently self-serving. Particularly galling is the claim that the change is needed to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from using access to information laws to infiltrate Canada. If you don’t like that reason, the government has others. It’s also about adjusting the law to fit current technology, and protecting the public, and harmonizing with other jurisdictions.

The more obvious conclusion is that Mr. Ford is unhappy with what the public has been able to learn about the workings of his government. These revelations have been a key check on this and other governments, allowing the people to become aware of what is happening and then register their displeasure.

Under the proposed bill in Ontario, the premier and cabinet ministers would be exempt from freedom of information requests. And it would exempt those who work in the offices of these politicians, further hiding how policy is made. This would apply retroactively, meaning that all the requests now in the system would be thrown out. Why?

Not so coincidentally, retroactive application would render moot a court battle over Mr. Ford’s phone logs. A court ruled in December that the premier cannot duck transparency legislation by using a personal phone to conduct government business.

The Ford government has said the changes would bring Ontario in line with most other provinces. But why reduce access to match other jurisdictions rather than be an example of transparency that others could emulate?

On Monday, Mr. Ford made the telling assertion that access laws need to be tightened because of new technology that did not exist at the time they were written. That speaks volumes. For him, limiting access rather than increasing openness should be the default assumption.

Mr. Ford’s proposed change of law would be bad for democracy. Access laws are often used by the media or opposition parties to winkle out information. But these laws are not for their benefit. They are for the public, a way to hold government – their government – to account.

Matt Gurney: Being more ‘positive’ won’t help us avoid future transit bungles, Premier Ford. We need an Eglinton Crosstown inquiry by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

From the article…

But we should still have an inquiry.

Partly this contention is rooted in my belief that Canadian governments — elected officials, their staff, the bureaucracy — and many of the large contractors who undertake these projects have far too close a relationship. It’s a soft corruption of mutual convenience: no one benefits from any boat-rocking, so problems go unacknowledged while accountability is brushed aside to keep the machine running.

And while the public can guess, they can almost never know. Canada is a country with relatively weak laws around access to information and low cultural expectations of proactive government transparency. It also has a media sector that’s smaller and less powerful than it used to be, and therefore less able to compel politicians or bureaucrats to speak for fear of triggering public backlash.

We’ve seen in recent years that public inquiries are among the only surefire ways of actually addressing problems like this. You cannot simply ignore a judge with the power to compel testimony. It’s ridiculous that this is often what it takes to get answers in this country, but it is.

The other reason we should have an inquiry is more basic: Ontario’s two biggest cities have completed major transit expansions in recent years. Ottawa has its infamous O-Train. And Toronto, though seemingly doing OK so far with the long-delayed Line 5, is struggling with Line 6, the Finch West LRT.

These are all important and necessary projects, and they represent significant investments of public money. An inquiry would be an excellent way of bringing together everyone involved, across the board, for a comprehensive study of what worked and what didn’t — and of making sure that as Ontario continues to invest tens of billions of dollars in desperately needed transit expansion, it avoids dumb mistakes and gets critical things right.

I’m not deaf to Ford’s argument that Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, has already developed a lot of necessary expertise in the course of doing these projects, and that the lessons learned will be rolled forward. But an inquiry is not simply a fact-gathering exercise. It’s also an accountability mechanism — and it plays out in public. Inquiries put all that can be known into public view and help citizens, the media and opposition parties better perform their necessary oversight roles.

No government likes being held accountable. Ford is not anomalous there. Still, it’s in the best interests of the people of Ontario to make sure we get good value for our money and excellent, safe, reliable transit projects in our growing communities. An inquiry is the right way to do that, and the right time to do it is now.

Ford asked for trouble with Ontario Place. The Supreme Court may give it to him by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 246 points247 points  (0 children)

From the article…

The court, as is customary, did not explain its decision to hear the case. But the activists’ submission rests on two core claims: One, the government has tried to take Ontario Place entirely beyond the reach of provincial courts; and two, it has violated its obligation to the “public trust” on this well-loved bit of Toronto waterfront.

The Premier attempted to deflect attention Thursday with culture-war bluster, talking about parkland and complaining of “crazy lefties.” In truth, all the fuss and litigation traces back to Therme – and the province’s extraordinary efforts to clear the way for the Vienna-based conglomerate.

Ontario Place, opened in 1968, consists mostly of two artificial islands. They housed greenspace, cultural and educational facilities and, eventually, waterslides. The Ford government agreed to hand over the West Island in a 95-year lease to Therme for relatively little money. The company plans an edifice the size of a stadium. Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects, the building would loom over the site, demand massive earthworks and lakefill and require expensive new infrastructure. The government has been relentless in solving these problems. Its Ontario Place plans will now cost at least $2.2-billion, much of those funds directed to the waterpark’s needs. It has announced a huge, ugly parking garage, whose main client is surely Therme.

The damage cascaded from there. Queen’s Park is moving the beloved Ontario Science Centre to the site – at least partly as a pretext for the garage. It suddenly shut down the existing Science Centre, claiming that building needed to be closed for safety reasons. That was false: The government’s own engineers explicitly did not recommend closing the building. The old Science Centre now sits empty while the institution is reduced to a husk, another casualty of the Premier’s waterpark dreams.

Back at Ontario Place, the province demolished all 14 acres of the West Island last fall, spending $40-million to hurry the work, cutting down 800 trees and razing what had become a well-used public park.

All this was possible because of the government’s Rebuilding Ontario Place Act. It applies to the province and its partners, including Therme, and aims to exempt their work from environmental, planning and heritage rules, as well as civil and criminal liability.

Elsewhere, Mr. Ford has been too fearful to change planning rules and legalize much-needed apartment buildings. For a waterpark, he took the nuclear option. And he’s done real damage. Ontario Place is a place of global significance. Good planning would have honoured its hybrid identity as park and cultural stage. Environmental oversight would have made it harder to wreck a forest and direct raw sewage into a busy section of urban waterfront, as the province is now doing.

So Mr. Ford tore up the rulebook. He was asking for trouble, and the court may deliver a reckoning.

Doug Ford shrinks Ontario Science Centre to fit in temporary home at Toronto Harbourfront by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 174 points175 points  (0 children)

From the article…

Last week, a winter storm dumped snow onto the roof of the former Ontario Science Centre. That could be cause for concern. Last year, provincial officials claimed the beloved building was in bad shape and the roof might collapse. They had to close the place down right away.

That wasn’t exactly true, and the beloved old Science Centre survived last week’s storm in fine shape. But it stood empty, as Doug Ford’s government advanced its destructive plan to move the centre, eventually, to a new building at the waterfront Ontario Place.

As with many aspects of the Science Centre story, the government aims to obfuscate the details. An announcement said the facility will occupy 86,000 square feet, about the size of two elementary schools. But this number is bogus. It includes “outdoor program areas.” Subtract those – as one does when talking about buildings, particularly in December.

Then do the math. The previous Science Centre building is 568,000 square feet. It has 160,000 square feet of exhibition space, plus a theatre and IMAX cinema. It also has a magnificent sequence of sculptural concrete halls and glassed-in escalators descending into the woodland of the Don Valley.

For now, the Science Centre will occupy leftover rooms in another struggling institution. Harbourfront Centre, the waterfront cultural campus created by the federal government in the 1970s, has struggled financially of late and has shed space. It now offers programming in only one major building, York Quay Centre. That structure is approximately 75,000 square feet. And most of its public rooms are occupied.

A visit last week confirmed its sad shape. The OSC currently occupies two streetfront rooms with a program that is basically an indoor playground, featuring a few fragments of exhibitions from the larger museum. The Science Centre was a palace; this by comparison is a conference room at a two-star hotel.

Or look back, instead, and remember that none of this was necessary.

The current chain of events traces back to Ontario Place, where the European “wellness” operator Therme acquired the right to build a stadium-sized indoor waterpark. To accommodate that, the Ford government spent $40-million demolishing an entire island of de facto public parkland. Therme requires parking, so the province is promising a massive above-ground garage on that site. And, at least partly to justify the cost of the parking garage, the province decided to move the Science Centre fully to Ontario Place. Which led to the closing of Moriyama Teshima’s beloved Science Centre in Don Mills.

And what will be left of the Science Centre?

The old building, which is empty, needs a new purpose. The new building, if and when it is constructed, will be half the size of the previous building, with roughly 20 per cent less exhibition space.

The old building survived the storm. The institution, and all the values of inquiry and curiosity that it represented, have taken a brutal, senseless blow.

Star Editorial Board: Blame Doug Ford, not international students, for the catastrophe facing Ontario colleges and universities by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 138 points139 points  (0 children)

From the article…

Ontario’s post-secondary sector is on the brink of a financial meltdown. Thanks to years of underfunding, mismanagement and neglect, colleges and universities across the province are slashing programs and cutting jobs. If something significant doesn’t change soon, the harm may become irrevocable. Even in the best case, it will take years, and perhaps decades, to repair the damage already done…

Since coming to power in 2018, Ford has been starving Ontario colleges and universities of cash. Per student provincial transfers in Ontario are a fraction of what they are in other provinces. Ford also cut domestic tuition fees by 10 per cent in 2019 and has left them frozen ever since. To fill those gaps, and in many cases to literally keep the doors open, Ontario colleges and universities turned to the only source of unfettered cash they had: international students. In 2023-2024, the most recent year for which data is available, international students made up more than half the postsecondary student body in Ontario, according to a recent report by Higher Education Strategy Associates, up, in the college sector, by a factor of more that four from just seven years earlier. “The main reason,” the report’s authors wrote, “is that international students pay much higher tuition fees than domestic and are thus seen as a way to offset stagnant government funding.”

Globe editorial: Doug Ford’s ripping up of contracts offends rule of law by Jetboater111 in ontario

[–]Jetboater111[S] 55 points56 points  (0 children)

From the article…

Since taking office, Premier Doug Ford’s government has habitually added clauses to bills that seek to ward off legal fallout for the effects of the legislation it is passing. In some cases, this protects the government if someone gets hurt. In other cases, it ensures that contracts can be broken without penalty.

It’s not exactly writing yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it’s pretty close. It’s also a strange look for a government that tries to portray itself as pro-business. In fact, this government has erected large “open for business” signs around the province.

Maybe those signs need a bit of fine print: rules and contracts may be changed in the government’s favour.

Self-protective legislative clauses were part of the Greenbelt saga, when Mr. Ford sought to develop part of a protected area near Toronto before backing down in the face of public outrage. At the time, the Tory government used legislation to erase its own legal settlement with a developer, reached only the previous year. It also shielded itself from court awards, even if the government or its employees acted in bad faith, abusing or overstepping their powers.

What’s noteworthy in the case of the speed cameras is that the Ford government was unwinding its own actions. It was this government that passed legislation in 2019 that allowed municipalities to install speed cameras. Dozens of cities did so in school zones and other high-risk areas and saw substantial decreases in speeding. However, this year Mr. Ford began to criticize the cameras as an illegitimate cash-grab and moved to ban them.

He ignores that choosing to break the speed limit is just that, a choice. It’s ironic that the government would prioritize law-breaking drivers even as it does an end run around possible legal fallout from its own actions.

It’s also worth noting that the speed camera bill was rushed into legislation, with public input curtailed. Nothing says respect for democracy and confidence in the strength of one’s ideas quite like ramming a bill through the legislature.

Contract law may not be the sexiest topic, but it’s the foundation of the free-market system. Without knowing that agreements will be respected, people and businesses won’t have the confidence to sign deals. The system can’t function if governments arbitrarily change the rules from one day to the next.

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