Doug Ford’s populist vendetta strikes again

It seems that the flames of Doug Ford’s vendetta against public education have been re-lit. We’ve watched in the past couple of weeks as his backwards, populist government tries for the umpteenth time to make education workers and their unions a scapegoat. 

Ford was re-elected not with a triumphant mandate, but the whimper of an apathetic electorate. He won due to an outdated system of electoral distribution, not by popular vote, and not with the great enthusiasm of the public. Although he claims to represent Ontarians, almost 60 percent of voters said no to him this last election. This is not—by any standards of accurate, representative democracy—a government with a real mandate.

We know, by now, who Ford is. We know that he supported Donald Trump through much of his presidency, calling his support of the former president “unwavering.” We know that, although he claims to be of the people, he remains a wealthy member of a political dynasty. He does not know the struggles of day-to-day life for a working-class family in Sudbury, or of a single mother in Ottawa, or of students trying to build a life in Toronto, which The Globe and Mail has recently advised young professionals to abandon due to sky-high costs of living. 

Ford has struggled in convincing the public, but his favourite project is to try and turn education workers and teachers into his political scapegoat. All long-lasting populist movements need one eventually. Their new tactic is communicating to the public that teachers’ unions and education workers’ unions are deliberately not cooperating with the government and striking. Ford and his cronies claim that this causes children to fall further behind in school. In short, the new tactic is to pit families against teachers.

The job of public sector unions like the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is expressly not to “cooperate” with the government—it is to push back against it, to bargain, to gain rights for their members. If a union is cooperating with government, something is gravely wrong. Ford whines about union executives not representing their members. If this were true, tens of thousands of CUPE workers wouldn’t have shown up at the picket lines–but they did.

Furthermore, why are children in this province so behind? Firstly, it is because Ontario had such a botched COVID-19 response, with the government preferring to listen to self-interested corporations and businesspeople instead of scientists, resulting in longer (and many more) lockdowns. It’s also because education funding is not up to par, which is something only Ford can fix.

For Doug Ford, there appears to be an ulterior motive. The fact that unions are defying him is an affront. Another hallmark of populist strongmen like Ford is that the opposition is not only undesirable, they also consider it against the popular interest. Ford wants to have his cake and eat it too—he wants CUPE to just take whatever he gives them. 

That’s how Bill 28 came about. The courts have recognized that the Canadian Constitution protects collective bargaining. It’s the same for striking. This left Ford with one option: to suspend the Constitution itself by using the “notwithstanding” clause, depriving Ontarians—the people he claims to be “for”—of their court-recognized constitutional rights. This is never what this clause was meant for. What Ford tried to do was change institutions to fit his whimsy. As we’ve seen in Europe, when weak populist governments are constrained by courts and the rule of law, they don’t respect that limit—they instead aim to destroy the authority of both.

What Ford did by depriving workers of fundamental rights was un-Canadian. It went against our most sacred of national values: “peace, order, and good government.” This was not an emergency, nor a matter of national security—it is a strike for underpaid workers, of which too many are sentenced by this government to poverty wages of $39,000. It did not merit the abrogation of people’s rights. You can’t live in Toronto or in any of the major Canadian suburbs on that paycheque. CUPE members know that and are fighting to change it. 

Ford is still counting on middle-class parents who too often view public education as daycare to turn against education workers out of pure convenience. However, it seems that the public also knows this isn’t education workers’ fault. It’s Ford’s. Trying to brazenly take away their rights with draconian legislation made that clear. 

To be clear, I don’t think a strike is what workers want. They don’t want to be out on days that are increasingly colder and colder, living on strike pay. They’re not having fun or relaxing.

Although this time, CUPE and other unions stopped Ford and made him repeal Bill 28 or face a general strike, they can’t always save us. Right-wing populism is rearing its ugly head in Canada. The self-proclaimed protector of freedom Pierre Poilievre remained silent when actual rights were being infringed on, while illegal blockades run in conjunction with those who advocate the end of democratic rule get his full endorsement. 

It’s up to us to oppose Ford now. Let’s stand behind CUPE and get it right this time.