More Strong Mayors, One Weak Premier
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has expanded the misguided ‘strong mayor’ policy from just Ottawa and Toronto to a raft of other municipalities including Kingston.
Fortunately, Ottawa and Toronto have refused to use the power, though ex-Toronto mayor John Tory was willing before his willingness expanded to other areas so he resigned from his job.
No doubt some civic dumb-bell somewhere will use it by arguing that despite the fact the law is undemocratic and flies in the face of our cultural and political history, he will put it into motion because … (add stupid excuse here).
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But maybe there is reason in Ford’s decision. Perhaps he realizes that Queen’s Park has such a god-awful weak premier that good governance demands strong mayors to fill the gap.
Unlikely, but we can hope.
Ken Gray
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I probably shouldn’t go here, but if you read up on a definition of fascist, it is disturbing to see how many boxes Ford ticks off on that definition.
Perhaps Ford sees himself and his cronies being re-elected at the next provincial election. How far a stretch is it to think he will then run a mayoral candidate who is to his liking in each of those strong-mayor communities? With another majority at Queens Park and enough “strong mayors” in his pocket, he and his developer buddies could drastically change this province and not for the better. Those changes would be entrenched in such a way that they couldn’t be reversed.
He won’t get another majority? Unless the voters of this province wake up pretty quickly, why wouldn’t he turn his back-to-back majorities into a three-peat? It’s not like his political opponents are in a position to stop him. That could change but they best get on with it. They’ll need to turn around a ship, the SS Ontario, that’s moving full-steam in the wrong direction.