Ford and Moe are similar in alarming ways

Since Doug Ford took power, it’s been difficult to keep track of the constant stream of alarming news from Canada’s largest province — featuring knee-jerk political announcements at every turn, typically followed in short order by stark consequences.

Yet this week’s dizzying turn of events surrounding Toronto’s municipal elections was remarkable even by Ford’s standards. A court decision finding that Ford’s government unconstitutionally trampled on the rights of candidates and voters was followed by the nearly immediate — and utterly rash — announcement that Ford would override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to reimpose his will on the people who dared to not elect him mayor.

That announcement called ample attention to the use of the notwithstanding clause more generally. But it came as a surprise to some that the previous action by a government to discard fundamental rights and freedoms as an intolerable inconvenience happened all too recently — and that it represents one of a string of worrisome similarities between Ford and his Saskatchewan counterpart.

In November 2017, after earlier musing about using the notwithstanding clause to attack labour rights, the Saskatchewan Party decided to respond to a loss in court on another charter issue by becoming the first government in decades to nullify fundamental rights, rather than allowing appellate courts to rule on the validity of a challenged government action first. And it was after Scott Moe took power that the resulting bill was pushed through the legislature.

So as commentators now rightly criticize Ford for legitimizing the reflexive use of a dangerous mechanism to override our basic rights and freedoms, the sad fact is that our provincial government was the one to set the precedent. And a cavalier disregard for our rights is far from the only alarming theme in common between Moe and Ford.

Since Ford’s election, Moe has embraced him as the lone fellow premier who is determined to obstruct meaningful climate policy at all levels of government — including by spending public money subsidizing environmental degradation while undermining existing climate plans.

Moe and his government have also signed on to Ford’s messaging aimed at dehumanizing refugees and fomenting distrust in immigration generally.

And Moe and Ford also share in a commonly destructive economic ideology. Ford may be making a turn for the even more cringeworthy with an actual “open for business” sign, but the Saskatchewan Party has long adopted the same line to excuse tax slashing and giveaways of our public resources. And in both cases, the spin has done little to distract from poor economic performance, as efforts to cater to the corporate class once again do nothing but harm a province in general.

Comparing our government to Ontario’s, we’re thus facing the same contempt for human rights and willingness to open the door to their systematic nullification; the same disregard for our planet and most of the people who inhabit it; and the same use of cultural division to distract from regressive economic policies which fail miserably even on their own terms.

About the only difference is that, rather than matching Ford’s boorishness, Moe addresses his province with a comparable amount of smugness. But so far, that’s only meant that the same problems have attracted far less public attention for lack of entertainment value.

Ontario is facing the effects of a concentrated dose of conservative pseudo-populism. But we’re no better off for having been exposed to the same toxic politics over a longer period of time.

And we’d be well served to treat Ford’s wanton destruction of his province as a harbinger of things to come if we don’t change course.

And Moe and Ford also share in a commonly destructive economic ideology.