Wait for it. ... that principled conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who emphatically raised both thumbs up when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, is at it again. This time he wants to create something called “strong mayors” in Ontario’s largest cities of Toronto and Ottawa..Just great. Isn’t this the same concept we had in American corruption-ridden cities where strong mayors controlled the police, the district attorneys and the judges? But Ford seems to have gotten a taste of big government and authoritarian control during the COVID-19 era and he just wants to pass it on. .“The mayor of Toronto or Ottawa — or any mayor — they’re accountable for everything, but they have the same single vote as a single councilor,” he told reporters during a media scrum..“And no matter if it’s a good decision or a tough decision they make, they have to be accountable and (this) just allows them the ability — not the power, because I always say you have a tremendous amount of responsibility and ability — to make the appropriate changes.”.The problem of course is that the mayors of both Toronto and Ottawa are not people you'd want to see with more power..There’s Toronto Mayor John “Red” Tory, the former leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party who finally found his level of competency after blowing it at the provincial level. Tory found a home in Canada’s largest city, but during Canada’s open door immigration crisis, he was packing the illegals into every hotel in town and seeking federal money to do it. .If Tory was ever a Tory politically, the policies have long since left his vocabulary and spends much of his time dreaming up new ways to appease the identity politics in the city. Give this guy more power over the budget and appointments..But the guy you really have to worry about is Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson who already thinks he’s a strong mayor and has a very big mouth. Watson couldn’t stop shooting off his mouth when the Freedom Convoy came to town in February, accusing them of being the worst bunch of scoundrels ever to visit his capital. Watson claimed they were homophobic, misogynistic, racist and ready to set the town ablaze. Of course, it was all nonsense..But it was most interesting was how Watson constantly wrung his hands about the bouncy tents the Freedom Convoy protesters had set up for the children to play in. Watson couldn’t stand this. He just bristled at the thought these working class people were actually having fun on his streets and weren’t intimidated in the least by his tirades! Watson was almost unhinged at times and I wondered if he was going to make it to the spring without getting some kind of treatment. He pushed the police into a violent and completely unnecessary response to the convoy and you could tell for once he was happy. Something was finally working out for this little dictator..When many of the folks came back in late June to celebrate Canada Day, Watson was ready with enough police on the streets to quell an armed revolt. It was really ridiculous as Watson was expecting a riot and the demonstrators — still looking for some sanity on the vaccine mandates — marched peacefully down Wellington and Bank St..And Watson was ready for the protest in other ways. He had bylaw enforcement officers shutting down ice cream trucks, lest any of the Freedom Convoy kids have a holiday treat. And then there were the $1,000 fines for urinating or defecating on the street, making unusual noise or just making too much noise. .There wasn’t a single incident of any Freedom Convoy person using the street as a toilet in February, but Watson pushed through the special bylaw as an insult to everyone. Is this the sort of man you want to invest with special, “strong” powers?.It was apparent to anyone Watson was using the Ottawa Police Service as his private constabulary and this was an abuse of power..Ottawa always had one of the worst municipal governments in the Western world. It was so bad it’s only finishing its rapid transit decades after every other major city in Canada had it done. The council could never make decisions and it tended to be dominated by curious and outlandish politicians..It still doesn’t get much done, but now it’s got a dangerous mayor in charge who’s on the verge of getting more dangerous..Doug Ford used to be a fairly simple politician, who, like his late brother, understood one thing about politics: the people come first. You are there to serve the public, not to hector and lecture them about how superior you think you are. This is something Ford has long forgotten as he builds city states in Ontario with authoritarian mayors who can only be vetoed by two-thirds of the council opposing their decision. That’s a tall order in municipal politics, where councilors are rarely organized and never whipped. .Ford needs to remember less politics is always better. Less government, not more..He’s forgotten what conservatism is all about and has become Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s alter ego..Scary stuff.
