Tempers flare as Ford, Horwath clash on police oversight
‘Unparliamentary language’ in the Legislature as rare summer session continues
TORONTO — The cut and thrust of parliamentary debate more resembled the swaggering and name-calling of pro wrestling in the Legislature as MPPs traded barbs in the rare summer session.
While Tuesday marked only the second daily question period of this July sitting of the house, tempers inside were running as hot as the temperatures outside.
Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford lashed out at New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath for questioning him about a decision to stall new police oversight legislation.
“We support our police, unlike the leader of the opposition and unlike their party that are police-haters, military-haters, veteran-haters, poppy-haters and ...,” said Ford before being cut off by Speaker Ted Arnott.
As Arnott warned the premier to withdraw his comment, which he did, NDP MPP Gilles Bisson, a pilot and flight sergeant in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, shouted: “I served. Just so you know.”
Ford’s outburst came after Horwath lashed out at him for “quietly” stopping the implementation of the Special Investigations Unit Act, which is designed to increase scrutiny on police.
“That has people across Ontario very worried. Is this premier getting ready to open the door wide open to carding and discriminatory police checks in our province again?” the NDP leader asked.
The premier countered by reminding Horwath of the actions of MPP Gurratan Singh at a 2006 protest.
“We didn’t have any MPP, unlike the member from Brampton East, who walked around, running up and down the streets, with a sign that says ‘F the police.’ That is disgusting, absolutely disgusting,” said Ford.
Outside the house, Horwath said she was “shocked and appalled by the behaviour of our premier.”
“Mr. Ford behaves very, very badly. I am not going to be bullied by this bully. Of course our party respects police,” she said.
“We should be talking about public policy, not screaming insults and telling lies, frankly, the way he did on the campaign trail.”
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser expressed surprise at the tone of debate.
“It was nasty and there was some unparliamentary language that went unchecked,” said Fraser.
“That’s not what the people expect from us. You have to treat people with a certain amount of respect.”
Green Leader Mike Schreiner said “it lowers the level of debate” when politicians descend into name-calling.
“One of the things I campaigned on was doing politics differently and we certainly did not see that today,” said Schreiner.
“Voters want us to move past this toxic political culture that we have.”