Three years ago, Ontario’s Doug Ford won an overwhelming majority government on the basis of the ballots of less than 18 per cent of the province’s eligible voters. Are voters still disengaged?

Author: Mark Winfield, Professor, Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Canada

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has justified his early election call on the need to respond to United States President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports.

While the threat of tariffs on all Canadian imports has been paused — although Trump has since slapped levies on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. — Ontario voters need to reflect more than ever on the province’s circumstances and the performance of its government as they prepare to head to the polls next week.

The Ford government’s approach to the environment and climate change, as well as its policies on a range of other issues like housing, health care and education, is best understood in the context of its overall “market populist” approach to governance.

Several defining features of this model have emerged over the past six and a half years under Ford’s rule.

  • araneae@beehaw.org
    42·
    4 days ago

    Go ahead and give up your voice in your presently at least nominally democratic society then.

    • Jerkface (any/all)English
      2·
      3 days ago

      That’s such bullshit. Voting is literally the LEAST YOU CAN DO to participate in democracy, not THE ONLY THING.

    • Nik282000
      22·
      3 days ago

      What voice? Your/my choices are between lining the pockets of an ethnically and culturally diverse collection of rich people, or a collection of old, white, rich people.