to govern the Province. I find that comforting. A few references during the campaign gave me
serious pause. He disclosed his ignorance that Canadian Legion matters were federal jurisdiction under Veteran Affairs. He said, as Premier, he would protect Legions from municipal property taxes.
He was ill-advised.
On the eve of the election, he announced a hiring freeze, except for police and fire-fighters.The
other parties were demanding he disclose where he intended to cut spending. He excepted police and firefighting from the hiring freeze but both are municipal services. I'm not aware of any share of either funding or authority from or with the Province.
Since Education Boards funding has been transferred to the Province, local decision-making shrunk accordingly. Major decisions are all made at Ministry level. School boards are redundant.
We may assume since health services delivered in hospital corridors on stretchers ....and cut- backs in
educational programming are already under provincial control ...we should not look for improvement
in those areas. At least not until he's been properly briefed .
That's where the weirdness emanates. Doug Ford has long been involved in municipal politics alongside his brother. Was Rob the informed one....and Doug the follower? Maybe.
Well....Rob was the successful candidate for Mayor. Doug showed no interest. When Rob became terminally ill, he made Doug promise to take up the challenge. Doug was always a loyal defender of Rob, no matter what. Now the question is....will Doug continue to follow advice from people who know better. It would not be a bad thing.
There's nothing smooth or sophisticated about Doug Ford. That's not the reason he won the leadership. We will watch this story unfold.
Like we did the last one.
Within days of taking over, Kathleen Wynn disclosed her woeful lack of familiarity with how the system
worked. A dispute between the former liberal MPP Cabinet minister, then Mayor Watson of Ottawa about a Casino deal equal to Toronto's led to the exit of Paul Godfrey as Chair of LCBO , Lotteries and
Casinos . The Premier clearly had no understanding such matters were at arm's length distance
from politics and why. She never lost confidence her Master's Degree in Education gave her everything she needed to know to run the Province.
She worked hard.
She never learned.
We have just watched the end of her story.
Haven't heard from you in such a long time. Miss reading your blog. Would love to hear any of your thought in this municipal election. :)
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