What’s going on at Queen’s Park? Is Premier Doug Ford, supported by his political staff, in total control?

At the PC Leadership Convention in March, Christine Elliott won the popular vote by 3.4 per cent and also won the majority of ridings. Ford, however, won the “electoral” vote by 1.2 points. So much for the party’s “modernized” preferential ballot system.

Since then it seems, every week, if not every day, a new legislative, regulatory or discretionary Ford edict emerges.

Here are just some of the most troublesome:

Bill 66, tabled on Dec. 10, permits the destruction of construction industry collective agreements with municipalities and institutions, like hospitals and universities, contrary to clear Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. It also substantially weakens both child care — putting kids at increased risk due to inadequate supervision — and environmental protection — permitting municipalities to exempt developers from building in historically restricted areas like the Greenbelt, as well as weakening the rules that protect the Great Lakes and other sources of drinking water.

Bill 47 revokes many of the Liberal government’s Bill 148 labour and employment law updates and-substantially reduces staged increases to the minimum wage. As well, it effectively destroys the College of Trades, without explanatory justification or any prior consultation with the college administration or the key, established trades or their representatives.

Bill 4 cancels the 2016 Cap-and-Trade legislation, eliminating incentives for companies to reduce carbon emissions and make greener investments, without compensation for those companies that purchased prospective permits for future use, at a cost of over $2 billion.

A mandatory hiring freeze across the public service, with limited exceptions, and with no undertaking on its duration. To that has recently been added a voluntary severance package for the 8,000-odd “managers” in the service, with predictable but uncontrolled governmental service reductions.

In response to the GM Oshawa closure announcement, the premier rejected any government involvement in plant closures, regardless of job-loss consequences, contrary to decades of successfully negotiated provincial/federal/municipal job-saving assistance projects.

The withdrawal of funding for three university satellite campuses — Ryerson/Sheridan College; Wilfrid Laurier/Conestoga College; York University/Seneca College.

The removal of rent controls for tenants moving into new buildings, despite our affordable housing crisis, and Ford’s rent-control campaign promise to “maintain the status quo.”

The elimination of three key provincial watchdog positions, child and youth commissioner, environmental commissioner and French language commissioner — the latter to be relocated as an officer within the ombudsman’s office.

The cancellation of the proposed French language university.

The revocation of the planned surtax on higher-earning Ontarians, even though the proposed average tax increase would have been $200 annually per person, affecting only 17 per cent of earners.

For the first time in Ontario, vowing to invoke the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause to avoid human rights obligations and legitimize legislation eliminating one-half of Toronto’s City Council membership during the city’s midelection process.

By intervening in Hydro One’s governance, causing the predicted cancellation of hydro’s acquisition of the energy production and distribution company, Avista, with an estimated cancellation penalty of $103 million, plus miscellaneous commission and fee charges.

Cancellation of the Green Ontario Fund (helping people retrofit homes and businesses with green technologies) and the School Repairs Fund (despite enormous repair backlogs, $4 billion in Toronto alone).

Substantial reductions to other funds: the Indigenous Culture Fund ($2 million); the Ontario Arts Council Fund ($5 million); the College of Midwives Fund ($800,000); the Education Program Fund ($25 million, with potential reduced assistance to at-risk youth).

The Legislative session has recently concluded, but not without at least three additional problems emerging.

First, the seemingly credible accusation, made to the Ombudsman (now referred to the Divisional Court as well as the Ethics Commissioner) by the interim commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, that Ford’s personal intervention was critical in the selection committee’s decision to choose a Ford friend as the permanent OPP Commissioner.

Second, the sudden withdrawal (and subsequent apparently conditional return) from final and binding arbitration — chaired by one of Ontario’s best arbitrators — between the government and the Ontario Medical Association to finalize all unresolved disputes after four years of direct negotiations.

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Third, in light of the results of the spring election and the Liberal Party’s failure, by one seat, to win the eight seats necessary to qualify as an official opposition party — with committee membership entitlement and modest financial operational assistance — the Ford government increased the minimum seat requirement from 8 to 12 — contended by some to prevent potential Liberal qualification through a future single byelection victory.

Some supporters attempt to validate the Ford approach on the basis of an existing global tendency toward less government and broader, citizen-based “populism.” But these retrogressive and in some cases legally indefensible initiatives elude justifiable political definition of any kind.

As they rapidly accumulate under the premier’s apparent sole authoritarian prerogative, they are in my view seriously endangering our democratic, social and economic system.

Tim Armstrong is a former deputy minister in the Davis, Peterson and Rae governments.

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