As I write this week\u2019s column, sitting here in my Queen\u2019s Park office, it\u2019s the day after the Conservatives declared the summer recess of the Ontario Legislature.\u00a0 For only the second time in my career, I found myself in the House during the summer months.\u00a0 However, I do not regret this in any way.\u00a0 There is no doubt that the extended sitting was far more than just essential. \u00a0It was urgent.<\/p>\n
Some readers can relate to the feeling you get when you are looking forward to the end of the day just before you expect to go on vacation, but you are told by the boss that you need to postpone your holiday.\u00a0 Or for younger readers, when you are expecting your school day to end and the teacher makes you stay for some extra work.\u00a0 Well, let me tell you, that is not at all how my NDP colleagues and I felt this week.\u00a0 We know there is work to be done and this was a great opportunity for Ontario to bring in much needed change to many issues including long-term-care, health care, employment and education among others.\u00a0 The onset of the epidemic, as horrendous as it was, also brought with it potential, incredible opportunity.<\/p>\n
This morning I listened to Andrea Horwath in a press conference summing up her thoughts on the session we just concluded.\u00a0 She spoke for all new Democrats when she expressed her sincere disappointment at what a missed opportunity Ontario just experienced.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t help but think of the great actor Marlon Brando\u2019s line in the American classic film, On the Waterfront<\/em>, \u201cI could\u2019a been a contender.\u201d\u00a0 Our last session \u2013 could\u2019a been a contender<\/em> too.<\/p>\n Now, I share the exact same deep desire as most politicians.\u00a0 The thing I want most in my career is to make a difference. I don\u2019t think we brought about enough positive change this time around. \u00a0We had so many opportunities to help people make it through the COVID-19 epidemic.\u00a0 The government had weeks to get the job done but they missed the target.<\/p>\n For example, look at Doug Ford\u2019s determination to ram three bills through before the recess.\u00a0 To do so he ran roughshod over standards of democracy such as public consultation and debate in the Legislature.\u00a0 No matter what title Ford gave the bills, his main objective was to grab and extend his special emergency powers and reward well connected insiders at the expense of everyday people.<\/p>\n With Bill 195<\/strong>, the \u201cReopening Ontario Act\u201d<\/em>, Ford handed himself unprecedented and undemocratic powers to make rules in secret behind closed doors.\u00a0 Even Ford\u2019s own PC MPP Belinda Karahalios (Cambridge) voted against Bill 195, calling it \u2018an unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy\u2019.\u00a0 New Democrats and like minded people congratulate Ms. Karahalios on her principled stand \u2013 a stand for which Doug Ford punished her by kicking her out of his caucus.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear that Ford is still on a mission to attack anyone who disagrees with him.\u00a0 This is not democracy at its finest.<\/p>\n COVID-19 has brought about terrible hardship for thousands of Ontario families because many found themselves out of work and having to decide to either feed the kids or pay the rent.\u00a0 So how does Doug Ford help them out?\u00a0 He rams through Bill 184, the Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 This act does the exact opposite<\/em><\/strong> of protecting tenants. \u00a0Under the current law, all landlord\/tenant disputes must be heard by the Landlord and Tenant Board. This law now makes it easier for landlords to evict tenants, which is the last thing<\/em><\/strong> Ontarians need as the pandemic continues and we face a potential second wave of the virus.<\/p>\n Then we have Ford\u2019s sweeping legislation, Bill 197, the COVID-19 Recovery Act<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/em>This omnibus bill that the Ford Conservatives introduced does nothing at all to help families, devastated long-term care homes, small businesses, schools, day cares, First Nations, or municipalities to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/em><\/p>\n This all encompassing bill doesn\u2019t include a single change to safeguard long-term care residents, improve the quality of care, or increase the staff wages.\u00a0 This bill does not include a single dime for small and medium-sized businesses that are still struggling.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t add even one more child care space, or increase the number of classrooms, teachers or education workers so all students can return to school safely.\u00a0 Bill 197 doesn\u2019t include a single cent for municipalities, which are facing billions of dollars in deficits and cuts.\u00a0 Nor does it include anything at all to support First Nations communities, which are still struggling to keep the virus at bay and don\u2019t even have clean water, let alone equitable access to health care.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t provide the much-needed paid sick days all workers need.<\/p>\n What Bill 197 does do<\/em><\/strong> is drastically roll back environmental protections, allows school boards to appoint directors of education who have no teaching qualifications whatsoever and it lines the pockets of Ford\u2019s big developer friends.<\/p>\n What I\u2019d like to know is, who is the COVID-19 Recovery Act<\/em> meant to help recover, because it sure isn\u2019t the average Ontarian.<\/p>\n Like I said above, I really believe the one thing I want most in my career is to make a difference; and this is true of MPPs on both sides of the House.\u00a0 Then again, I can honestly say my favourite hockey team (that shares the same jersey colour as the Conservatives) has dreamed of winning the Stanley Cup since the 1967 season but annually finish the season in the early spring.\u00a0 I hear my team uttering the same quote as Marlon Brando.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure Doug Ford walked away from this session with the same movie line on his lips.<\/p>\n As always, please feel free to contact my office about these issues, or any other provincial matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I write this week\u2019s column, sitting here in my Queen\u2019s Park office, it\u2019s the day after the Conservatives declared the summer recess of the Ontario Legislature.\u00a0 For only the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":4519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-politics"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 04:59:19","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\/34736","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34737,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34736\/revisions\/34737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}