Roundup: Ford’s eagerness to please

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The Star had a very interesting, if very infuriating, longread out yesterday, which charted the ways in which Conservative-affiliated lobbyists impacted on the decisions that Doug Ford made over the course of the pandemic – the laundry list of exemptions that kept growing by the day, the fact that the long-term care industry has insulated itself from any and all accountability and is getting their licenses renewed as if the deaths of thousands of seniors aren’t on their hands, the illogical restrictions for small retail but not box store, right up to the illogical closure of playgrounds.

The piece was illuminating not because of the look at lobbying – all of which is legal, above-board, and not the same as we’d understand from an American context of the cartoonish Hollywood portrayals – but rather because of what it shows us about Ford himself. He’s someone out of his depth – his sole experience was a single term as a junior city councillor while he brother was mayor – who was not only struggling to understand his job, but who also has a pathological need to be liked, and to be seen to be doing favours for people he knows. People like these former Conservative staffers and operatives who are now in lobbying firms. It less that these lobbyists are cozy with the provincial Progressive Conservatives – it’s that Ford wants to please them and do them favours because he knows them. That’s why the pandemic in this province turned into such a clusterfuck – because Ford needed to please the people he felt close to.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1415672572574715909

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau spent the day promoting $440 million in investments in Quebec’s aerospace industry.
  • Following a meeting with premiers, Trudeau says that fully vaccinated US citizens could be allowed into the country by mid-August.
  • After some prevarication, Trudeau has also condemned the violent crackdown on protesters in Cuba, saying that they deserve democracy.
  • With vaccine supply now starting to outstrip demand, the procurement is going to start to become more nuanced to support provinces and divert to needy countries.
  • Omar Alghabra says that Transport Canada will start allowing cruise ships back into Canadian ports by November 1st, thanks to faster vaccinations.
  • Marco Mendicino says the plan to bring over Afghan interpreters and their families is being finalised as quickly as possible.
  • Former Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance has been charged with obstruction of justice, and it sounds like attempted witness tampering.
  • The first woman commandant of the Royal Military College says she’s not looking to make radical changes to the institution just yet (but that may be necessary).
  • For the first time, a Federal Court judge has granted CSIS authorization to conduct specific operations on foreign soil using new powers.
  • Here is a discussion about how Statistics Canada captures visible minorities in the census, and how it can render some of those minorities invisible again.
  • More information on the findings at the former Kamloops Residential School site were made public, as well as some considerations about next steps.
  • Jagmeet Singh has brushed off the PBO’s suggestions for a one-time ultra-rich wealth tax, and wants an ongoing tax on the “ultra-rich” (of whom there are few).
  • Moments after Manitoba’s new Indigenous relations minister was appointed, he was called out for saying that the architects of residential schools had good intentions.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Ford’s eagerness to please”

  1. “Justin Trudeau spent the day promoting $440 million in investments in Quebec’s aerospace industry.

    Just to be clear, subsidies are *not* “investments.”

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