Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

[steveintoronto]

There must be tons of good stuff if the Fords felt that compelled to put Taverner in the spot.
AoD

Even dyed in the wool Cons should be asking questions....but alas...

And then one must wonder on Taverner himself: Hey, out of those reading this, who, in his position, wouldn't "step down for the sake of civility and good governance"?

Questions will now be asked about Taverner that weren't before. And rightly so...And none will be looking closer than the OPP themselves now, with channels open to both the Mounties and TO Police Services, plus others.

Edit to Add: Watch the leaks start appearing in the press....

 

[adma]

It'll be interesting if the provincial PCs wind up having three leaders in the space of a calendar year--even with an election won in the middle of it all...

 

[W. K. Lis]

I'm sure the investigative reporters are already busy digging through the stories and rumours concerning the Ford family and friends. Except for the Toronto Sun, of course.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I just finished reading a fascinating book about the Weimar Republic called "The Death of Democracy":

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/books/review/benjamin-carter-hett-death-of-democracy.html

The major point was of course that business executives and the conservative establishment aided and abetted the Nazis, with a mind to "control" them. We are far away from that situation (no Stormtroopers anyway), but the resemblance is disturbing all the same. We were all told how Ford would be "controlled" by all those establishment types like Elliott and Mulroney. He wouldn't be so bad, and certainly better than the socialist hordes or Wynne. Or so the thinking went. To anyone with any sense, it was obvious that Ford was and is a volatile asshole who has no regard for institutional norms, basic truth, or doing well by the "people". He's just an asshole. Fortunately he's also a terrible speaker and the more spontaneous his speaking, the worse it is.

I visited the Nazi museum in Nüremberg and they cover this topic well, from the small beginnings to the creep forward to the hollocaust.

https://museums.nuernberg.de/documentation-center/

Such a sad visit that I had to go to the Nüremberg toy museum afterwards

 

[lenaitch]

Tim Hudak campaigned on this in 2014.

Previous governments have tried this in various forms in the past with limited success. The goal here is likely to cut the workforce, but without cutting the work, all you end up with is a further disheartened civil service and pissed off public. These edits trickle down from on high. Of course, the staffers 'on high' don't cut themselves because (a) the work they do is just oh, so important and (b) they're not stupid. So it trickles down to the folks who are doing whatever front line work the ministry is trying to deliver and who are most often physically separate from the Queen's Park Precinct and therefore have limited voice and power. I recall a previous large-scale cutback that closed field offices, cut services and other direct public impacts, but the halls of the government offices around the great circle still hummed with people. At the last office I worked in (about 1000 people) a couple of us did a mental exercise one day that easily eliminated about 200 (without really thinking that hard) whose sole roles were to support multiple levels of accountability, meaningless reporting and non-business related program delivery, all demanded by Queen's Park.

We will see impacts like fewer labour standards inspectors, provincial park staff, MTO enforcement officers, 911 operators, probation officers, and on and on.

Imagine a day when each minister's staff was cut in half. Then we can talk.

 

[Videodrome]

Hudak lost a very winnable election because of it.

It'll be interesting if the provincial PCs wind up having three leaders in the space of a calendar year--even with an election won in the middle of it all...

A snap election? I figure they just turf Doug and put Christine in charge.

 

[steveintoronto]

Hudak lost a very winnable election because of it.



A snap election? I figure they just turf Doug and put Christine in charge.

Let's flip that over. If they have a snap election, Duggie won't be top doggie. He'll be lucky to have a dog-house, but he might have a penitentiary to pee in, and overseen by guards decimated by cutbacks. "Kickbacks" will take on a whole (hole?) new meaning. Ahhh,,,poor Duggie...

 

[adma]

A snap election? I figure they just turf Doug and put Christine in charge.

By "an election won in the middle of it all", I was reflecting to the election that already happened, not a pending snap election. But yeah; Patrick, Doug, and then presumably Christine. (If only Ontario operated like Australia in caucus leader-deposition powers.)

 

[narduch]

You are dreaming if you think Ford will get turfed by his own party.

 

[animatronic]

You are dreaming if you think Ford will get turfed by his own party.

Yeah. At best a caucus revolt will turf Premier French.

 

[narduch]

They are loving governing and they are loving sticking it to the Left.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Brad Blair. Could there be a relationship to Bill Blair, MP?

At least someone did the work of trying to find out:
Colleague defends interim OPP commissioner following Doug Ford’s comments

Blair, who is from Essex, Ont graduated from the University of Windsor with a degree in sociology. He is not related to Bill Blair, the former Toronto chief of police and current federal minister of border security and organized crime reduction.

Putting one's neck on the line for what is right instead of what is expedient is the epitome of public service; riding coat tails, feeding from the trough and putting one's own buddies/fixers in the policing system is anything but. People's government and all that, what a crock.

AoD

 

[WislaHD]

By "an election won in the middle of it all", I was reflecting to the election that already happened, not a pending snap election. But yeah; Patrick, Doug, and then presumably Christine. (If only Ontario operated like Australia in caucus leader-deposition powers.)

You are dreaming if you think Ford will get turfed by his own party.

I have to agree. Nobody in the PC party has any spine, except for Simard.

We are stuck with Ford for awhile, and the blame is entirely with the PC party establishment. First for ousting Patrick Brown (which has to be considered the biggest political backfire/miscalculation of recent Canadian political history), and now for being spineless cowards to stand up to the mess that they helped create.

The party of Bill Davis is effectively dead, and the province that the PC's helped build will be unrecognizeable by the end of Thug's term.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I have to agree. Nobody in the PC party has any spine, except for Simard.

We are stuck with Ford for awhile, and the blame is entirely with the PC party establishment. First for ousting Patrick Brown (which has to be considered the biggest political backfire/miscalculation of recent Canadian political history), and now for being spineless cowards to stand up to the mess that they helped create.

The party of Bill Davis is effectively dead, and the province that the PC's helped build will be unrecognizeable by the end of Thug's term.

Some of them may have spines - but I guess they maybe playing the long game and don't want to stick their neck out (which is almost as bad). Also is it the party that is effectively dead - or that principled conservatism has more or less died within their demographic after years of jingoism. The party is a reflection of its' membership.

AoD

 

[Videodrome]

By "an election won in the middle of it all", I was reflecting to the election that already happened, not a pending snap election. But yeah; Patrick, Doug, and then presumably Christine. (If only Ontario operated like Australia in caucus leader-deposition powers.)

A PC "spill" of sorts.