TORONTO – Education or Industry, Premier Ford has established a public persona that suggests “he the man!” He is without exception, the highest-ranking political figure who encapsulates the Everyman (and because this is a politically correct publication sensitive to the assaults on grammatical nuances of the day, Everyperson) reaction and response to the challenges and stimuli of everyday life.
No impetus is beyond his reach or measure to demonstrate that he is fearless and undaunted by challenges facing public office holders: he calls a spade a spade. Do not get into a card game with him.
Think about the symbolism of him dumping a bottle of whiskey before cameras and microphones – with the producer’s workers as background – and ask yourself if he will follow through on the threats to fight back the effects of tariffs. The product is Crown Royal and, believe it or not, politicos at the two senior levels of government swear allegiance to the [Constitutional] Monarch. The message: “don’t mess with me, I’m with the people” – drinkers or not.
In the course of an international, Trump/American driven re-organization of commercials exchange patterns of behaviour, he is not waiting for the “niceties of negotiations” to determine where Ontario will stand – come hell or high alcoholic content. Ontario’s agency of booze is being reported as the world’s biggest purveyor alcoholic products.
Coincidentally, yesterday being the first day of school, some dilettante trustees thought it wise to poke the bear, or goad the lion, with their “tut-tut” concerns about parents and children on the first day of school. You know the drill… they left the house worried that there might not be trustees (what do they do now?) to whom they might turn to in the face of the woe is me eventuality likely to befall everyone daring to enter school premises. Plueese…
Why they would wait for the last possible minute to engage in self-serving, transparent drivel to condemn Ford’s (more precisely his Minister of Education’s) placement of several School Boards under supervision because they were found to be fiscally incompetent by third party investigators. That happened late last Spring, not yesterday.
As if on cue, the usual progressive crowd at Queen’s Park “and friends” paraded before a carefully prepared local TV outlet’s cameras to bemoan the slashing of education dollars…blah, blah, blah. The Province allocates more than $31 billion annually for direct educational expenditures for 72 school boards, almost all of them experiencing declining enrolment. Briefly, that suggests, the Ministry of Education is allocating – annually – more money to educate fewer children. The issue of placing school boards under supervision was the perceived misuse of the money by those “entrusted to deliver the goods”.
One trustee insisted that the new Supervisors have no background in education. Maybe they will outperform the trustees who also do not have that background. Ford, as if on cue, angrily affirmed that the boards are out-dated dysfunctional structures as organizations and governance models (I paraphrase). He insisted that funds should/will go to the education of kids in the classroom not into the fancy Taj Mahals to accommodate the desires of Administrators.
If there is fault to pour on the Premier in this case, it will be that the public is asking why those Administrators still have a job. Stay tuned, as they say.
In the pic below, Doug Ford pours “Crown Royal” whisky, expressing his disdain for the company’s decision to leave Canada (photo-screenshot from Ford’s Twitter page – @fordnation)
