An Ontario Constitution offers new hope for Ford
In just over one year as Ontario Premier Doug Ford has already left a trail of cuts that would make Edward Scissorhands proud.
He slashed spending in health care and education, cancelled the basic income pilot program, chopped Toronto City Council in half, and the carbon tax will be gone if he wins his day in court.
This small sampling in a long list of cuts leaves no doubt about what Ford is against. But what is he for? No one seems to know, perhaps not even Ford.
With polls showing declining support for the premier and his party, Ford must do something big to turn the page on his massive cuts, to awaken his party from its summer slumber, and to rally Ontarians behind a bold new idea.
He can start by finding a way to translate his successful 2018 election campaign slogan “government for the people” into workable public policies. He has gestured down this path, pledging to invoke the notwithstanding clause to increase the power of the people’s elected representatives. But he must go further if he wants to make good on his campaign promise.
Ford should propose to create a written constitution for Ontario. It would reinvigorate his party, strengthen the federalist foundations of the country, and it would give Ontarians a memorable and meaningful experience in participatory democracy.
Like all other provinces and territories, Ontario has a constitution, but it is not written down into a single document. Our constitution is instead an uncodified body of federal and provincial rules, political practices, unwritten norms, and judicial rulings.
Codifying a constitution for Ontario would have minimal legal effect, but it would have immense political returns. In our federation, Ontario’s constitution could not trump Canada’s, nor could it indefinitely disapply any part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet inviting Ontarians to give themselves their own constitution would allow Ford to launch an extraordinary exercise of popular mobilization that would signal to the people that he values their voice and that he wants to involve them directly in setting the course for the future of our province.
The process would involve debate and deliberation across the province in townhalls, public meetings and roving committee sessions. The people would come together to discuss what Ontario means to them, what our values are, and how these views should be expressed in our new constitution. The key feature of our new constitution would be its preamble, often where the most fundamental principles of self-definition and selfgovernment are highlighted for all to celebrate.
Ford would make Ontario a trailblazer in Canada — the first province with its own codified constitution. It might also encourage Alberta, Quebec and others to follow suit, as a way of expressing the province’s distinct values within a larger, stronger, and united Canada.
Engaging Ontarians in a large-scale constitution-making project would be difficult and complex but it would give Ford three crucial victories where he needs them most: in public policy, in the political arena, and in popular perception.
First, it would give Ford a good survey of what the people want from their government as he enters the second half of his first term.
In the political arena, this historic moment for the province would overshadow much of the mostly bad news about the new government generated so far by Ford himself. The Premier could instead bask in the glow of media coverage of his innovative, exciting, and forwardlooking plan for collective action.
And finally, in light of his innumerable cuts across the board, Ford risks becoming frozen in the public imagination as “Doug the Destroyer” criss-crossing the province to tear down what others before him have built. Better to build something with a high purpose and be seen as doing it in furtherance of our shared values as Ontarians.
“Doug the Democrat” and “Father of Ontario’s Constitution” both have a nice ring.
The premier says he wants to empower the people on main street, not the elites on Bay Street. Here is his opportunity to do that.