For Halloween, Doug Ford decided to get dressed up as a union buster, circa 1930. You know, the type of guy who feels tough when he’s with a bunch of hoodlums paid by the bosses to rough-up honest workers who just want an even break.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve often attacked Francois Legault for using the “notwithstanding clause” to shield his attacks on the Charter rights of religious and linguistic minorities. Immigrants and the English have been good cannon fodder for Québec’s populist premier.
I was therefore appalled, but not completely shocked, to see Doug Ford shamelessly steal a page from his “ami Francois” playbook and use the exact same strategy to remove constitutionally guaranteed labour rights. Because, make no mistake, the reason Ford is scheming to use the notwithstanding clause, is because he’s planning to attack the Charter rights of workers.
It’s been a long road but Canada’s Supreme Court has even recognized the right of members of the RCMP to bargain collectively and fairly. It got rid of a retrograde system of the bosses’ divisional representatives. RCMP officers now have the rights to have their own chosen leadership defend them and negotiate on their behalf.
Ford is attacking that edifice without a mandate and without ever having the courage to tell Ontarians what he’d do if they re-elected him. He’s attacking those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder in Ontario’s education system. Threatening to remove their right to bargain and to withhold their services. Doing everything he can to continue to keep them underpaid and unable to meet rising costs.
It’s the type of toadyism that came as a surprise because Ford had done such a good job of hiding his plans during the campaign. From populist firebrand to “running-dog lackey” in a matter of months. Quite a feat.
“Law and order” Ford has been proven a fraud as he refuses to respect his summons to appear before the Emergencies Act Commission of inquiry. Now voters get to see that “for the people” was as much a subterfuge as “get it done”…Ford is only there for Ford -- not for the people -- and workers are the ones who are done…like dinner!
In the tradition of the demagogue that he is, Ford claims to be all about defending the rights of families to send their kids to school. In fact, what he’s doing is finding the lowest common denominator and whittling the whole system down to that. With Ford’s approach, everyone will lose. Students, parents, workers and, ultimately, society as a whole.
Ford pretends to care about families and about the inflation that is robbing their purchasing power. Yet when he has the choice, instead of helping workers, he attacks them, removes their rights and tramples their ability to get a fair wage that would enable them to afford to live decently.
I was an elected official in the largest public sector professional union, the SPGQ, in Quebec during the 1980s. It, too, was a time of financial difficulty and high inflation.
René Lévesque was in his second mandate and incompetent fiscal management was leading to a crisis. The province decided that public service workers, always easy targets, would pay a hefty price to help turn things around. Lévesque ordered his negotiator, a certain Lucien Bouchard, to do the dirty work. Wages of many public sector workers were actually reduced by 20 per cent!
Lévesque never fought another election.
Ford has some tough choices going forward. Never a whiz kid when it came to government finances, he appears intent on taking the easy road and blaming public sector workers for his inability to manage. Of course it was and remains possible to negotiate fair wages that take inflation into account and do what Ford claims he wants to do, preserve the living standard of families.
But Ford’s concern for working families during the campaign was all for show. Crocodile tears. Now the real Dougie comes out. The one whose backbenchers will give emotional speeches about protecting hardworking Ontario workers from inflation but who uses the notwithstanding clause to remove their right to bargain fairly for a decent wage.
All of the provinces, as well as the feds, face difficult times in the coming year. With Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine dragging on, and the full invoice for pandemic spending now being added to the collective debt, there are no easy choices. That’s why it’s so disappointing to see Canada’s largest province succumbing to the facile anti-union siren song.
Ontario working families deserve better. Turning public servants into scapegoats may be a satisfying short-term ploy. Long term, no one wins when the services we all rely on, from health care to education to transportation are all reduced as a result of short-term thinking and weak administration.
The “Ford Nation” apparently excludes public sector workers. They’re likely to remember the lesson at the next election.
Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017
