Doug Ford’s Government Has Been Disastrous For Workers

Voters in Ontario will head to the polls on February 27. Premier Doug Ford called an early election and at this stage appears poised to win another majority. Ford’s Progressive Conservative government has been nothing short of disastrous for Ontario workers, yet it retains its grip on power.

Bryan Evans and Carlo Fanelli’s new edited book analyzing the Ford government’s reckless policies and politics, Against the People: How Ford Nation Is Dismantling Ontario, therefore could not be better timed. This week, I sat down with Bryan and Carlo to talk about the book and its analysis of the PC government’s record in Ontario.

Bryans Evans is a professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. Carlo Fanelli is an associate professor of Work and Labour Studies at York University.

Against the People will be published by Fernwood Books later this month. If you are in the Toronto area, consider attending the book launch at 7 p.m. on February 18 at the CSI Annex, located at 720 Bathurst St. The event is co-sponsored by The Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education.

Adam King: First, congratulations on the book, and thank you for putting together such a timely intervention. Can you tell readers what motivated you to undertake this book project?

Bryan Evans: This book is Carlo’s ‘brain child’ so he can speak to what was influencing his thinking. I can say when he suggested we put this on the workbench I was immediately drawn back to the time I worked at the Ontario Legislature in the mid-1980s.

Back then, I met and came to know some Progressive Conservative MPPs. All decent, publicly-spirited people. They came out of that 1943 to 1985 province-building period where even Conservatives used the resources of the province to create a more broadly, though uneven, social and economically inclusive province. Think of our public universities and colleges, our single-payer health care, hospitals in every corner of the province and so much more.

But since 2018, we have watched a Progressive Conservative government begin to dismantle so much of that infrastructure. This sincerely troubled me because all that public infrastructure enabled me to have a very different life than my working class family could ever dream of. I fear, as all this erodes, it will be increasingly difficult for working class people to enjoy the benefits and opportunities that all of this public infrastructure once enabled.

Carlo Fanelli: This project was motivated by a desire to bring together the diverse voices of those most directly impacted by the regressive policies of the Doug Ford government. While contributors span an array of policy domains, they share a common experience of retrenchment, privatization and worsening social outcomes.

The aim was also to produce scholarly work in the public interest, so that various groups can take up and engage with both the historical record and proposed remedies in meaningful ways. I also wrote an earlier book about the disastrous policies of Doug Ford’s brother, former city councillor and mayor of Toronto Rob Ford, where Doug was also a city councillor. In the time since, he’s moved from conservative operator to brotherly wingman, to centre stage. In hindsight, it was a significant underestimation as the damage done at the provincial level has been in many ways far worse.

AK: The chapters in this book provide an impressive analysis covering the Ford PCs’ numerous devastating policies, from their manufactured fiscal crisis and the latter’s particular manifestations in the education and health-care sectors, to their disrespect for Indigenous communities and contempt for democracy.

Can you give readers some overall sense of the damage Ford and his government has inflicted on Ontario since they were first elected in 2018?

BE: While the Mike Harris Conservatives were a real turning point in the history of Ontario — where they impoverished not only the public sector but also inflicted long-term damage on large sections of the working population — the Ford government is actually seeking to sell off and starve out much of that public infrastructure I referred to before.

When you look at public expenditures per capita, Ontario ranks at the bottom of all 10 provinces, lower than the so-called ‘have not’ provinces. We are experiencing a tremendous shift in our economy and society driven by nearly unprecedented economic inequality. You would need to go back to before the Second World War to find anything comparable. And as this second Gilded Age deepens, the Ford government is not only doing nothing to moderate this polarization but is actually fueling it.

The old time Tories bought into progressive taxation, they even brought in rent control in 1975! Reluctantly and under pressure, but they did it. Today, the context is much more dire for many. Look, 10 per cent of people in Toronto routinely rely on food banks. This is in a city that ranks 13th in the world for the number of high-net worth individuals living there. It is stunning. And the Ontario government just stands by. Back in the 1950s, an Ontario Conservative finance minister talked about ‘human betterment’ or moving forward with a sense of collective good. That’s so yesterday.

CF: At the core of this book is the question: Are Ontarians better off today than when the Ford government first came to power? In nearly all cases, the answer is unequivocally no. [...] Colleges and universities across Ontario have resorted to a record number of program closures, staff and faculty layoffs, and have growing repair backlogs, while students bear the brunt of larger classroom sizes and fewer supports. The same is true for our elementary and secondary schools where, had investments grown along with Ontario’s population, there would be an additional 5,000 frontline classroom educators.

The same is true in health care, where no matter how you measure it, Ontarians are living with the most under-resourced health-care system in the country. A staggering 2.5 million Ontarians do not have a family doctor — the highest number ever recorded in the province. If Ontario hospitals were even similarly staffed as other provinces, we would have close to an additional 35,000 extra full-time hospital workers to deal with the record long wait times, hallway medicine and the crisis of worker burnout.

Had the Ford government kept spending consistent with population growth, that would mean close to an additional [4,400] hospital beds. Instead, we’ve seen the largest expansion of for-profit health care in Ontario’s history, with taxpayers shelling out more to private operators than it gives to Ontario's public hospitals to perform the same operations, like cataracts and knee surgeries.

Ontario Disability Support Program rates, in real terms, have been frozen at 2018 levels, while inflation-adjusted social assistance rates are lower today than when the last Conservative government was in power more than 20 years ago. Since the Ford government took office, the number of Ontarians with developmental disabilities waiting for supportive housing has grown by 10,000. [...]

Only about 25 per cent of the more than [$80 million] owed to workers as a result of employment standards violations have been recovered, while Ministry of Labour inspections are down [some 44 per cent] since this government was elected.

AK: Against the People brings together academic scholars, activists, union-based researchers and other on-the-ground experts. That’s fairly unique for a political book of this type. I found it especially helpful to hear from people directly involved with these issues and struggles.

Tell me a little about the various contributors to the book and the value of compiling their critiques of the Ford government?

CF: The last seven years have ushered in an unprecedented assault against workers and what vestiges remain of Ontario’s social infrastructure. As we noted earlier, the scale and degree of privatization, contracting-out and demands for worker concessions is in many ways unprecedented, going far and above what even their Conservative predecessors some 30 years earlier had thought possible.

In this regard, this book only begins to scratch the surface, but it does so in a way that tries to connect what people often experience as individuals, to larger structures and groups, to centres of power, politics, and economics. The authors, of course, do not agree on everything, but there is plenty that they do agree upon, perhaps most notably that things do not have to be this way. They also lay bare the half-truths and dishonesty that often passes for government talking points.

AK: As you say, Ford has continued a familiar tradition among Conservative politicians in Canada: attacking labour, imposing austerity through public spending and service cuts, slashing regulations and undermining environmental protections, and limiting democratic and popular influence. But he and his government have taken it to another level.

In what ways would you say Ford has innovated on the familiar Conservative playbook and with what consequences? In particular, how would you characterize Ford’s appeal to voters, particular blue-collar and working class people?

BE: First, unlike the Harris Conservatives’ program, the ‘Common Sense Revolution,’ the Ford Conservatives have been rather vague about their policy agenda. I worked in the policy branch at the Ontario labour ministry through much of the first term of the Harris government. Most of what they did was stated in the manifesto. It was no surprise to anyone who paid attention. When it came to rolling back most of the modest NDP reforms to labour law and policy, well, no one in the branch was in the dark on that. The same is true for social assistance and the move to a really bad workfare model, deregulation, contracting out programs, and so much more.

The Ford Conservatives have been much more subtle. It’s a bit of ‘whack a mole.’ But it is clear with Bill 124, the cutting of revenues for colleges and universities, the privatization by stealth of our health-care system, the old strategies for waging class war are very much still there, maybe just not as overt and transparent. There were a number of organic intellectuals who shaped the policy agenda of Harris. They were known. With Ford, who is actually informing the actions is opaque. They are there but unknown to some greater degree.

As for the appeal to working class voters, that is an important question to work through concretely. Books have been written about such in other places. But we need to think of this in historical terms. The Great Depression, the Second World War, were the formative events which gave rise to the post-1945 capital-labour compromises, including the welfare state and trade union rights. These events left an indelible mark on a couple of generations of working class people here and obviously all around the world.

The unravelling of the post-1945 political compromises took off in the 1980s. Here we are 40 years later. Many working class people today have no experience of being a union member, of engaging in any collective action, of being informed by union political education. I grew up in Sudbury. Back in the day, a union called the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers represented the miners and even some retail workers. They had a full-time cultural director on staff. This is the work of class formation, of providing working class people with a sense of identity, of what power they have but also how the economy works and for whom. That work does not happen now. Also, a mainstream media which was not as concentrated in terms of ownership back in the day, now essentially provides only one perspective: that of markets, businesses, or big corporations driven by only shareholder value.

What I am saying is that we have forgotten a great deal. The reference points of another generation are forgotten or never learned. So, when working class people are given a choice between being given a few more bucks and the vague promises of mainly centrist political parties, the additional few dollars or a promise of more employment look sincere and doable.

Another dimension to this question is not that working class people vote for the Right, but how many simply have given up on voting altogether. When there doesn’t appear to be anyone in your corner, why bother? This is the great failure of social democratic parties, here and elsewhere.

Someone I know who has worked with the premier once said to me a key consideration in any decision is, “Will anyone care?” This 21st century brand of conservatism relies on indifference, apathy, even ignorance of large swathes of the electorate. Of course, the more affluent and wealthy know it's important to get out and vote. Voter studies show this. Take the last Ontario election with a [43 per cent] turnout. That means the Conservatives won a comfortable majority with [20 per cent] of eligible voters casting a ballot for them. The real and overwhelming winner was abstention.

CF: Whereas it may have been possible to speak about an organized left some 30 years ago when the last Conservative government came to power in Ontario, the same cannot be said today. We are, in many ways, starting over. Though many of the same challenges exist, new ones have also emerged. The Ford government’s electoral success also shows that working-class conservatism can thrive in places other than the white, Christian, rural heartlands most often imagined as the “natural” home of conservatism. Indeed, Erin O’Toole, former leader of the federal Conservative party, was explicit about chasing votes from unionized workers — a task which Pierre Poilievre has continued to run with. This is a question in need of a solution that the left must unavoidably grapple with if they are ever going to seriously challenge for power.

AK: With that in mind, what does the book have to say about countering Ford’s appeal and building an alternative to his politics and policies? This is particularly pressing as Ontarians head to the polls and are staring down the prospect of yet another Ford majority government.

CF: The Ford government has been incredibly successful at controlling the dominant narratives. For instance, much was made of Ontario’s 2024 budget spending, which was the largest on record. This led some to argue that Doug Ford has governed like a centrist.

For anyone seriously paying attention, this was a ludicrous position to take for at least two reasons. First, while the budget grew in nominal terms, it didn’t keep pace with inflation or population growth. Second, total budget spending tells us nothing about where the money is actually going. Like many things, the devil is in the details, and Ontario’s largest ever budget actually cut spending on several social programs and services in real terms, while doling out billions in new ‘welfare’ subsidies for the development industry and to underwrite business expansion. A short catalogue includes: $1.2 billion in developer regulatory cuts; $1 billion in direct payouts to the Beer Store, grocery chains and convenience stores; a 95-year lease to Therme to build a spa at Ontario Place subsidized by taxpayers to the tune of $1 billion; and the list goes on.

We hope this book aids those thinking about what can really be done for the people, and not just a small segment of the wealthy and powerful.

BE: I would say the primary purpose of this book is to provide a ‘memory’ — a recollection of what the Ford Conservatives have done and will continue to do. We aren’t so deluded as to think a book will turn an election. Rather this book, and some of the early reception, suggests it can contribute to a process of rebuilding a political culture where class and democracy are central.

Regardless of the outcome of this next election, we are in a long struggle. Ford and company represent a crudely authoritarian turn, but the other parties, while more polite, have little to offer in terms of building a vision and an attendant politics of moving beyond not just neoliberalism but capitalism as a system of economic organization.

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