Bleed, bleed, poor country!Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,For goodness dare not check thee. – Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3 H/t Patrick Corrigan The above quote from Macbeth, along with Patrick Corrigan’s editorial cartoon, serve as pungent reminders of the carnage taking place in Ontario under the ‘leadership’ of
Continue readingTag: Ontario politics
Politics and its Discontents: How Supple Are They?
I hope, for the sake of their well-being, that each loyal soldier in the Doug Ford regime has a gym membership they regularly use. Otherwise, I fear they will sustain myriad and grievous injuries to their joints and sinews. Twisting oneself out of shape while proclaiming black is white and
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Tory is the best Grit
Here’s a poll that will rock Toronto and Ontario politics. And it is not a bad idea. At all. Full story here. It could take a Tory to topple the Tories and lead the Liberals back to power, a new poll suggests. Toronto Mayor John Tory, a former Progressive Conservative
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Unkindest Cut Of All
Devolution. Debasement. Depraved Indifference. Apply whatever term you like, but the cuts coming furiously from the Ford government in Ontario surely bespeak a state that no ruling body, and by extension, its citizens, should promote or countenance. While I hesitate to speculate on what pathology drives Doug Ford to dismantle
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Well, Well, Well
For someone who is ‘for the people,” Doug Ford has a strange way of showing his fealty to them. Buried in last week’s budget bill is a nugget that will further disenfranchise a large number of people. Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are moving to make it harder to sue
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Henhouse Alert
Welcome to Ontario, A Place To Grow and Open For Business. Depending upon whether you are a private driver or a commercial operator, you will soon be sporting one of the two new mottoes on your licence plates. A small thing, you might conclude, if you are willing to overlook
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More About Bread And Circuses
I expressed concerns in yesterday’s post about the cheap, diversionary tactics being employed by Doug Ford to distract the masses as he goes about systematically gutting the programs that make life livable and functional in Ontario. I see I am not the only one with such concerns. In today’s Star,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Toga Party, Anyone?
The Romans were well-known for their embrace of bread and circuses. Indeed, an excerpt from Wikipedia sums it all up rather nicely: In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Roadmap To Ruin
Heading up Toronto’s Bay Street yesterday en route to the massive gathering at Queen’s Park to protest the savage surgery the Ford regime is conducting on public education was something of a revelation. Within a half-mile radius of the GO Station, I encountered six people in their sleeping bags, clearly
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Christine Elliott’s Debasement
There was a time I had a measure of respect for Christine Elliott. She seemed to me to be someone largely above the toxic politics that now ensnares public discourse and office. However, after her leadership loss to Doug Ford, she changed. Now she is just one of the many
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Judged And Found Wanting
If the true measure of a society is to be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members, Ontario, under the Doug Ford regime, and all those who voted for it, must be found wanting. Perhaps it is a function of age, but the older I get as I
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Very Pungent Odour
H/t Theo Moudakis The source of that pervasive and rank smell bedeviling Ontario has been found. It is coming from an array of spineless politicians in the Ford government who, upon their election, checked any semblance of integrity they might have had at the doors of the legislature. Today’s Star
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is Resistance Always Futile?
If I ever had the chance to sit down and chat with Randy Hillier, I doubt I would have much to say to the libertarian Progressive Conservative MPP recently permanently ousted from his party’s caucus for reasons that appear contrived. He is alleged to have said “yada yada yada” (the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Your Wednesday (Rueful) Smile
If you have been following Ontario politics lately, you will probably appreciate the latest from Theo Moudakis: Meanwhile, Brad Blair, the OPP whistle blower, calls his firing a reprisal by Doug Ford: “It is patently clear to me that this is reprisal and an attempt to muzzle me,” Brad Blair,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth the Ford
In almost biblical fashion, Premier Doug Ford has smote his enemy, aided and abetted by the OPP union. Brad Blair, the OPP whistleblower who complained loudly and very publicly about the sweetheart deal engineered by Doug Ford to install his longtime pal, Ron Taverner, as the head of the police
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Cowardly Silence
Human nature is a strange, wondrous, and sometimes shameful thing. For every Nelson Mandela who takes a stand against arbitrary authority, there are countless millions who will simply go along to get along. If an edict, no matter how obviously wrong or unethical, is issued in the name of authority,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Far Less Than Meets The Eye
The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. -Hubert Humphrey By the above
Continue readingPolitical Potshots: The Death Of My Electoral Reform Idealism
Perhaps one of the most over-analyzed and oft-criticized campaign promises the Liberals broke from the 2015 campaign was the one on electoral reform – that the 2015 vote would be Canada’s last under first-past-the-post. I knew it was an empty promise from the moment it was spoken, and I would
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Doug Ford backs down on attacking Greenbelt protections.
It appears that there was a lot of blowback to this plan over the Christmas holidays to Conservative MPP’s. Good – it was a terrible idea: The Ford government is scrapping a controversial plan that would have allowed municipalities to opt out of some provincial planning rules to attract new
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