EDITORIAL: Ford’s tightrope walk to fairness and balance

Ontario Premier Doug Ford arrives to speak in Toronto on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn) Frank Gunn / THE CANADIAN PRESS

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Government can be like a dangerous high-wire act.


The Progressive Conservative government of Doug Ford has a delicate task ahead as it seeks to return moderation and sanity to shortsighted polices that, under previous Liberal governments, had driven this province into the ground.



It’s a difficult and convoluted process for any landlord to evict a tenant who won’t pay his or her rent. Horror stories abound of landlords who’ve been ripped off by scofflaw tenants who refuse to pay, who damage property — or even rip them off for major appliances.


This change won’t solve the crisis in rental housing supply, but it’s a small part to restoring balance in a city where successive, failed experiments have led to a critical shortage.

In a study last year, the Toronto Region Board of Trade reported 42% of young professionals consider leaving this city because of a lack of affordable housing. Losing young talent will have a long-term impact on the region’s economic growth.


Until now, three quarters of children diagnosed with that disorder were getting no services. One quarter, often those better able to navigate the system, got it all.


Parents protest outside MPP Lisa MacLeod’s constituency office in Barrhaven claiming that the recent funding announcement for autistic children is not nearly enough on Feb. 8, 2019. (Wayne Cuddington/ Postmedia)

MacLeod’s solution isn’t perfect; not everyone’s happy. But at least it provides a little something for everyone as opposed to the previous system which provided everything for a minority of parents and nothing for everyone else.


Think how much cash would have been available for autistic kids had previous Liberal governments not racked up a whopping $350 billion debt. This province pays around $12 billion annually in interest on that staggering black hole. That’s enough to provide every child with autism their own specialized teacher and a chauffeur to drive them to class.

Think how much treatment the $1 billion the Liberals spent to scrap two gas-fired generating plants could have bought. Or the hundreds of millions wasted on Ornge air ambulance. To say the Liberals spent like drunken sailors is an insult to the navy and drunken sailors everywhere.

The tightrope Ford is walking is this: How can he restore fiscal sanity as well as fairness and balance to a province that entrenched inequities and wallowed in debt?

It won’t be easy. Just don’t look down now, premier.