The plot to change Ontario’s licence plates from the longstanding slogan of “Yours to Discover” to the creepy-grin-from-a-used-car-salesman-inspired “Open for Business,” has taken a new twist, after a batch of 10,000 license plates were printed late last night with a brutally honest assessment of the current government’s legacy: “Yours to Never Recover.”

“Yeah, I have no idea who loaded that into the licence-plate printer,” said a tired, but grimly defiant looking worker at the newly-created Ministry for Pushing Back. “But I can tell you they are immediately the most accurate licence plate in Canada – and I’m including Nova Scotia’s, which really is an ocean playground.”

The plates began emerging off the press shortly after midnight, just a few hours after the news leaked that the Ford government intends to double down on its approach of poorly considered program cuts, spackled over with deeply stupid sloganeering.

“Open for business?” asks another worker at the plate plant. “Talk is cheap. Printing shit like that on a licence plate while at the same time defunding the schools that are presumably meant to educate the future workers of these ‘open’ businesses, is the equivalent of declaring ‘We Love Trees’ while firing up your chainsaw. Or, more to the point, saying you are ‘For The People,’ while concurrently screwing those selfsame ‘folks’ forty ways to Sunday.”

Early reactions to the renegade new plates appear to consist mostly of bone-deep bitterness.

“Why not just write ‘Ontario: Our Kids Weren’t Worth It, But Your Opportunistic Enterprise Sure Is,'” suggested a woman at a Toronto-area No Frills. “Is it too long?”

“Well I think it’s tragically indicative of where our province has gone over the last few decades,” said Sudbury resident, Hal Johnson. “We went from ‘Keep it Beautiful,’ to ‘Yours to Discover,’ to ‘Open for Business.’ Presumably next will be: ‘Liquidation Sale On Now.’ No, I would recommend that Mr. Ford consider the licence plate of Quebec before he goes any further with either his willfully poor policy-making, or this plan to redesign our plates. I believe I speak for most Ontarians when I say ‘Je Me Souviens.’ And, might I add, ‘Pour Toujours.’ Perhaps Doug can get a translator to explain that to him.”