With municipal elections well under way, Doug Ford\u2019s move to take revenge on his political enemies by interfering in races across the province is petty and mean-spirited, says Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath \u2014 who led Monday\u2019s question period with a sharp indictment of the move.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDoug Ford cooked up his backroom plot to steal power from the people, and kept it hidden from 14 million Ontarians for an entire election campaign,\u201d said Horwath.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd that means, today, there\u2019s absolutely no legitimate mandate for Ford to cancel regional elections and rip up Toronto\u2019s wards.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ford\u2019s changes to Toronto ward boundaries, and his cancellation of democratic regional elections, targets former political opponents at Toronto City Hall, where he was ostracized and rejected, as well as regional elections in Peel, Muskoka, York and Niagara, where other political enemies were running.<\/p>\n
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\u201cInterfering in the middle of local elections to steal power away from the voters is not an act of leadership \u2013 it\u2019s an abuse of power,\u201d said Horwath.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTaking revenge on political opponents does not show strength \u2013 it is a deeply chilling sign of weakness and insecurity. And hiding one\u2019s secret plans during an entire election campaign does not show respect for voters \u2013 it demonstrates utter contempt for the people of Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Horwath\u2019s questions were followed by a slew of Toronto area, Peel and Niagara region NDP MPPs, one after another, who asked about the cost of lawsuits certain to follow, the complete lack of consultation, the secrecy, and other glaring problems with Ford\u2019s shocking decree that he will force elections already underway to be halted.<\/p>\n
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On behalf of the people of Ontario, Horwath asked:<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhy is he acting like a dictator, instead of a premier?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With municipal elections well under way, Doug Ford\u2019s move to take revenge on his political enemies by interfering in races across the province is petty and mean-spirited, says Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath \u2014 who led Monday\u2019s question period with a sharp indictment of the move. \u201cDoug Ford cooked up his backroom plot to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[1611],"class_list":["post-14469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials","tag-elections"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 03:19:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14470,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14469\/revisions\/14470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}