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Long time coming
I expect a lot of Ontarians woke up on Sunday morning, rousing Google to find out who the NDP candidate is in their riding in the June 7 provincial election. That it was as easy as that.
So distressed by the outcome of the Progressive Conservative leadership race, that I expect many folks can neither face the prospect of putting an X beside another Liberal government nor a party led by Doug Ford. Not since Paul Johnson was elected in 1990 has the prospect of an NDP government seemed a possibility. Yet here we are. (The Bay of Quinte NDP will pick their candidate on March 25 in Trenton).
Many of those hungry for a change of direction in Ontario remain stunned this week by the PC’s sparkling ineptitude in choosing a leader. And there was certainly plenty of that on display in Markham on Saturday. Yet there is more going on here than just a broken leader selection process. There is more necrotic flesh here than just the PC’s spectacular knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of certain victory.
We believed we were immune to the effects from the wave of populism breaking on shores around the western world. We comforted ourselves with the notion that we were smarter, more liberal-minded than all of that. After all, we elected the handsome, young prime minister and his fun socks. We believed we were the anti-Trumpians.
Yet here we are. Polls suggest that on June 8, Doug Ford will be the next premier of Ontario.
And while I disagree, mildly, with the sentiment of my favourite letter-writer Grace Clements, that the PCs have elected their own Donald Trump, I contend similar fissures running through Ontario society have led us to a place that looks and feels a lot like the US on November 9, 2016.
Some have diagnosed the malaise as the result of a decade or more of economic stagnation— the seeming inability of a wide swath of our community to get ahead. It is certainly part of Ford’s appeal.
But there is more going on than this. There is a general sense among a large portion of the (mostly rural) population that our political structures are fundamentally broken, that they’ve been broken a long time. And that they serve only a small group of insiders, who mostly live in large cities.
There is a hunger among a surprisingly large and growing constituency for a strong man to tear down the current structure and to rebuild it—based on their values and beliefs. They will surely be disappointed by Ford and his government, and I expect some know that at some level. Yet they will celebrate and cheer loudly the day he is elected to “drain the swamp”.
Demography is part of it: young people enamoured and encouraged by achievements in social progress, are eager to push for faster, more broader change. Older, paler generations worry about rising debt, exporting jobs and declining competitiveness.
We are talking past each other. Worse, the divide is expanding.
School closures in rural communities across this province have created armies of angry young families who see the future of their towns and villages taken away by an uncaring and stone-deaf bureaucracy. They see their own prosperity at risk in a decaying community. They wake up to this existential threat every day.
Places like Prince Edward County are graced with a great many seniors and the fastest growing population of greying folks in Ontario, yet we are losing long-term care accommodation to Ajax and Mississauga. It defies comprehension.
For many it feels as though a giant funnel is draining the countryside of residents, propelling them into large, unaffordable cities.
Urban folks, on the other hand, are perplexed by the anxiety and anger created by renewable energy in rural Ontario. If they consider it at all, they put it down to Not-in- My-Back-Yard whinging. Meanwhile rural folks struggle to comprehend how intelligent urbanites remain complacent about risking their rural neighbours’ health, their well-being and the safety of their water. They don’t understand how their urban cousins support arming developers with certificates to kill endangered species—for a handful of magic beans that promise to fix climate change.
But none of this can be pinned solely on a Liberal government that lost its way. Ontario voters chose the Liberals in 2003 to rid themselves of the failed Mike Harris experiment. But that promised change never came. Amalgamated communities and hospitals stayed amalgamated. Unaffordable roads and downloaded costs onto the property taxpayers stayed unaffordable and downloaded. Meanwhile electricity bills soared even as demand remained flat. Water bills soared. Real wages barely budged.
It seems to me that Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau are a function of the same frustration. For a great many folks, government isn’t working for them. There is deep-rooted desire for something else. Anything else. The more different the better.
Doug Ford seems likely to pull a lot of voters to one end of the political spectrum in this province. Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath will take another large group to the other pole. The arguments will get more simplistic, more shrill. Less helpful. Less democratic.
The truth will be a fungible material for a while. Nuance and good faith will be dispensed with for a time. We seem destined to a coarser, darker political climate. Our fidelity to democratic institutions is likely to be tested.
It is important to remember, however, Doug Ford didn’t do this. This is a symptom of a much deeper problem in our politics. We allowed complacency to supplant engaged citizenship. We told ourselves it didn’t matter. That our participation didn’t really make a difference.
So here we are.
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