Ford must decide between democracy, hypocrisy
Bad enough that Doug Ford has become so addicted to emergency powers under cover of COVID-19. Now our all-powerful premier brooks no criticism from within.
This is double dictatorial jeopardy.
Ford’s rapid-fire firing of PC backbencher Belinda Karahalios, who dared to vote against her own party this week, does more than deprive a majority government of internal feedback. It also sends a chilling public signal to his cowed caucus that they’d best think twice before holding any impure thoughts.
The true test of democracy is dissent — how it’s heard, how it’s handled. Here’s why Ford’s view of democracy reeks of hypocrisy.
Campaigning for the Progressive Conservative leadership in early 2018, Ford made a virtue of being vapid with his vow to allow free votes. He had no policy to speak of, so he cast himself as the great listener — respectful of grassroots input, mindful of party democracy.
He promised to run “Ontario’s First Government For the People.” A populist premier, not a power monger.
In his own words, way back then: “I believe everyone has the right to vote the way they believe. The only vote I’m going to require our team to vote on is the budget, to make sure we vote together on the budget.”
Ford’s leadership rivals aped this empty promise, the better to camouflage their own empty policies. It is the fashion among Tories to cast themselves as fearless free thinkers when they run for power, only to run away from the promise once they win government.
Promise made, promise forgotten.
We live in unusual times, governed by a pandemic parliament at Queen’s Park. In the rush to rise for the summer — MPPs won’t be back until September — Ford’s government packed a wallop and whipped the vote, demanding caucus compliance.
“This is one piece of legislation that is absolutely critical,” Ford said this week, explaining why no MPP could be critical of it.
With these words, he attempted to justify going against his word — forcing MPPs to vote against their conscience.
The new law enables his majority government — a majority that gives this premier the run of the House — to impose emergency orders such as closing public places or restricting large gatherings without having to declare a formal state of emergency.
It perpetuates emergency laws without a lawful emergency.
It empowers the Tories to issue emergency orders to close public places, restrict large gatherings and prohibit personal-care workers from being employed in multiple nursing homes — and could be on the books for years.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association calls it a power grab because the government is “trying to extend emergency powers while leaving the label of an emergency behind.”
The opposition parties, echoed by some ex-PC MPPs also reject it — along with some Tories now too fearful to speak out.
The legislation “essentially silences every single Ontario MPP on the most important issue facing our legislature today,” Karahalios argued.
Ford countered that he’s “just not into big government, I’m just not — but we have to do it.”
Whether this is an anti-democratic overreach or merely a housekeeping matter is debatable. But isn’t that why we have democratic debates and legislative votes?
The risk of revolt by caucus members — rebels with a cause — can give a party pause. In this case, Ford was miffed as much by what Karahalios had to say as her mysterious way of doing it.
The Tories only learned of her vote after reading a tweet by my Toronto Star colleague Robert Benzie. They were in the dark because MPPs — mindful of social distancing in mid-pandemic — now vote by filing in to either the government or opposition lobbies, rather than rising in the main chamber for all to see.
That’s not to say Karahalios is necessarily a model of pluralism worthy of political martyrdom. She was a political unknown until stepping in to replace her husband Jim Karahalios at the last minute, after the provincial party disqualified him from running under its banner in the 2018 election; the federal Conservatives ousted him from the 2020 leadership race after he suggested a rival candidate’s campaign chair backed sharia law.
None of that stopped the premier from appearing alongside her earlier this month, lavishing praise upon the Cambridge MPP as an “all-star” backbencher. Now she has been defenestrated for disloyalty.
She’s not the only one. This brings to four the number of MPPs who, having won election as PCs, were either kicked out or quit.
But it is the 72 Tories who remain behind as backbenchers that are the true target of this public decapitation. With his commanding majority in the 124-seat house, the premier wants to maintain unchallenged command and control.
It’s worth noting that when the votes were counted, the controversial legislation passed by a massive margin of 60 to 28. That Ford still insisted on a vow of silence and show of loyalty for such a debatable emergency law — brooking no debate from party dissidents — speaks volumes about his fidelity to democracy.
It also serves as a timely reminder of his ability to forget his public promises over time.