Ford has really ramped up the showmanship lately, calling for a bike lane witch hunt and making magical announcements about beer, highway tunnels and $200 cheques. Much of it, it seems, is being done in the service of getting us to look away from the reality of how things are going in Ford’s Ontario.
In particular, he’d really like us to pay no attention to the housing policy failure behind the curtain. But by the numbers, Ford’s failure on housing should be way too big to hide.
A report released last week by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation revealed that housing starts in Ontario are down 18 per cent so far this year. That stat, which measures the number of new housing units that saw construction get started, should set off loud alarm bells. Because housing, more than any other issue, has been Ford’s signature issue — the subject of lots of legislation. He’s styled himself as a builder-in-chief who will “get it done.”
This isn’t a case of Ontario’s large population skewing the numbers, either. For his excellent Data Shows newsletter, analyst Tom Parkin recently crunched the per-capita numbers for housing starts and found Ontario ranked eighth out of Canada’s 10 provinces. According to Parkin’s numbers, with just 34 new starts for every 100,000 people, Ontario’s rate of per-capita building was well below that of provincial peers like Manitoba (47), Quebec (47.8), B.C. (58.8) and Alberta (89.9).
With numbers like that, it’s no surprise that the province has dim hopes of hitting its much-ballyhooed goal of building 1.5 million homes by the end of 2031.
Ontario News Now keeps on trucking. Look over there!
Much like the bike lane portions of the legislation, Bill 212 has also drawn concern from Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, because it would allow work to begin on Highway 413 before an Indigenous consultation is finished and exempts the project from the Environmental Assessment Act.
Highway 413 would be a 52-kilometre highway that connects Peel, Halton and York — much of which falls within treaty lands. In connecting those regions, the highway would cut across wetlands, rivers, forests and agricultural areas, according to the outgoing director of the Department of Consultation for Mississaugas of the Credit. CBC, Nov 25, '24
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Remember Doug vowed during the 2018 election campaign that he would let big business develop the Greenbelt, and that he got the idea from “some of the biggest developers in this country.”
“We will open up the Greenbelt — not all of it, but we’re going to open a big chunk of it up — and we’re going to start building and making it more affordable and putting more houses out there,” Ford said in a video.
"I’ve already talked to some of the biggest developers in this country and again, I wish I could say it’s my idea, but it was their idea as well. Give us property, we’ll build and we’ll drive the cost down. That’s my plan for affordable housing."
It got out and he immediately changed course, saying that the PC platform would pledge NOT to touch it. He said, “I govern through the people, I don’t govern through government. The people have spoken − we won’t touch the Greenbelt.” G&M, 2018
Then, in Dec 2020, our Conservative government used the Pandemic Recovery Bill to neuter Ontario’s Conservation Authorities and give a government minister the power to veto CA decisions. AND they amended the Conservation Authorities Act to give a provincial minister complete control over issuing permits. No appealing decisions. No appealing MZOs.
Well, the focus on bike lanes is one that directly affects the safety of people. It’s a very important issue.
But yes, Ford is one failure after another, which doesn’t phase Conservative voters.
We need a different approach to government who is abusing their power and failing the people this badly.
On a side-note, the urban sprawl in Durham Region has been insane. Unrecognizable if you’ve lived here a while. We really need to stop building low density homes and focus on building taller, high-density units.
Our wildlife has been devastated, and if this is what 8th out of 10 looks like, I would hate to see how bad it could get.
I’m told I’m less safe riding on a bike lane than the road. I don’t buy it. I think the safety line is a false narrative used to sell the removal.
Even if that were true you’re even safer riding on a raised or physically separated bike path.
My guess is that they’re pushing to get cyclists in the streets first so that they can later can cycles from the road altogether when drivers complain about having to navigate around slow cyclists on their roads
Bike lanes are an issue that Ford can use to his political advantage in a way that housing is not. His base wants to see cyclists get punished for biking. On the other hand, the boomer segment of his base also do not want to see housing prices come down because that is where the majority of their assets are, so it almost makes sense for Ford to talk big about it and then do nothing…
It’s fitting that the Wizard of Oz is back on the big screen in the new “Wicked” movie, because Premier Doug Ford is reminding me a lot of the old Wiz these days.
Lol that was a fantastic opening to the article.
Also, he, and all other Conservatives, are doing a good job of pinning his failures on Trudeau. It’s mind boggling how many people genuinely believe that the housing crisis is all because of Trudeau and not because of the incompetence of their local politicians.
It feels like all legacy/mainstream social/news media are owned by billionaires these days and these media provide coverage that promotes the interests of billionaires, emphasizes rage-bait, treats facts and rigorous analysis as passé, fails to call out right-wing politicians on their lies and BS, and create algorithmic echo chambers that make it seem like these ideas are more widely endorsed than they really are. This degradation of the news ecosystem (no doubt facilitated by other parties in favour of watering down a self-interested electorate) means that people must be “investigative news consumers” to actually know what’s going on. Not taking on that part-time job, which might require above-average critical thinking capabilities, some kind of university education, and some free time, leaves results like the outcome of the recent US election (an objectively bad outcome for everyone but uber-rich bigots) to be expected. I’m so used to this I’m not mind-boggled myself. I feel gravely concerned about how this state of affairs will change. This year, Musk is clearly sowing misinformed discord on xitter in the US and UK and most people still won’t entertain leaving that platform. It’s kind of a new bystander effect on a much much larger scale
This is so well put. 👏
