{"id":21263,"date":"2018-08-01T17:10:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T21:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21263"},"modified":"2018-08-01T17:10:21","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T21:10:21","slug":"ford-blowing-up-traditional-norms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ford-blowing-up-traditional-norms\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford \u201cblowing up traditional norms\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Re: Brock\u2019s Banter, July 26)
\n<\/em>
\nRemember when conservatives wanted to \u201cconserve\u201d things? And some of them were actually \u201cprogressive\u201d? No more!
\nWithin 24 hours of Brock Weir\u2019s publication of his thoughtful meditation on decency, civility and resilience, Doug Ford dropped several bombs on good faith and good governance.
\nDestructive, anti-democratic impulses are driving decision making from the American White House to Ontario\u2019s Pink Palace. Donald Trump and Doug Ford delight in \u201cblowing up\u201d traditional norms, venerable institutions, practical policies and fair procedures that actually serve the public good.
\nSupported by just 40 per cent of the electorate, Premier Ford is trashing sex education in deference to religious extremists, cancelling the arbitration award that resolved last year\u2019s bitter college strike, doubling-down on Mike Harris\u2019 ill-conceived amalgamation by changing Toronto\u2019s election rules and empowering himself to do for Queen\u2019s Park what voters sensibly prevented him from doing as Mayor of Toronto, and robbing citizens of York Region of the right to elect our own chief executive officer, and much, much more.
\nSoon he will surely rescind needed increases to the minimum wage and repeal the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act that brought hope to precarious workers.
\nFollowing the mass shooting in Toronto, he wants to expand police presence and electronic surveillance by defunding mental health programs. He has blundered into the immigration debate, cancelled important environmental programs, and is abandoning the lucrative marijuana industry to for-profit entrepreneurs regardless of public health and safety.
\nSay what you like about these thoughtless initiatives, but let no one claim that they\u2019re progressive, conservative, or in the interest of \u201cthe people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard A. Doughty
\nOak Ridges
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Re: Brock\u2019s Banter, July 26) Remember when conservatives wanted to \u201cconserve\u201d things? And some of them were actually \u201cprogressive\u201d? No more! Within 24 hours of Brock Weir\u2019s publication of his thoughtful meditation on decency, civility and resilience, Doug Ford dropped several bombs on good faith and good governance. Destructive, anti-democratic impulses are driving decision making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5wX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 13:07:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}