TORONTO – Doug Ford recites the mea culpa but dismisses the possibility of resignation. Six days after the announcement of the new restrictions to curb the covid-19 race – measures then shelved after just 24 hours – the Ontario premier admitted that the executive was too hasty in triggering two measures that sparked protests from medical authorities and the public. In particular, special powers conferred on police forces to stop people during lockdown and closure of playgrounds for children. Ford held a news conference in Etobicoke Thursday while in isolation after possibly being exposed to COVID-19 earlier this week, after a staffer in his office tested positive for the virus.
“We moved fast to put in measures in place to reduce mobility. But we moved too fast. And I know that some of those measures, especially around enforcement, they went too far,” Ford said. “Simply put, we got it wrong. We made a mistake.”
The admission of guilt comes at an extremely delicate time in this third wave of the pandemic. Yesterday, for the first time, the number of Covid patients admitted to intensive care departments exceeded 800. Chief Medical Officer David Williams has sent a letter to all Ontario hospitals asking them to stop the non-essential surgeries that have been scheduled for the coming weeks with immediate effect.
The premier then addressed another issue that in recent days has been the cause of accusations and poisons in Queen’s Park: that of paid sick days for workers who contract Covid-19. In recent months Ford, despite constant calls for this from the leader of the opposition in Queen’s Park, Andrea Horwath, had always opposed to passing such a measure: according to the Conservative premier, the measure had already been activated by the federal government. Now, however, with Ottawa preparing to pass the new Federal Budget Law for 2021-2022, the planned measures will not be renewed and for this reason it will be up to the provincial executive to activate a mechanism that guarantees the payment of sick days for workers who fall ill with Covid and, as a result, cannot go to work until they recover or until they are negative to the tampon.
Yesterday Ford confirmed what Queen’s Park group leader Paul Calandra had anticipated on Wednesday: in the coming days the government will make an announcement to that effect.
Finally, also yesterday an Abacus poll was published that highlights how the prime minister’s popularity is in freefall: in less than a week, after the announcement of the new restrictions, the approval rating towards Ford fell by 11 percentage points to a meagre 28%. Now it remains to be seen whether the mea culpa will also affect voters’ liking of the disgraced premier.
