In Doug Ford’s Ontario, there’s no problem that can’t be solved by giving police new powers. This time, the issue is human trafficking— which, well that makes sense, right? The reality is far more complicated.
Allison Smith
Co-host, Wag the Doug
Jonathan Goldsbie
News Editor
Damilola Onime
Producer, Wag the Doug
Kevin Sexton
Producer
Hosted by Allison Smith and Jonathan Goldsbie
Allison and Jonathan talk to Elene Lam of Butterfly, the Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network, who explains how the government’s new Bill 251 will actually cause harm to vulnerable populations that are already criminalized and over-policed.
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With electricity demand set to rise and Pickering’s nuclear plant set to close, Doug Ford’s government is now scrambling to keep the province’s lights on.
The province has got a housing crisis, and the only prescription is… more mayoral powers?? Allison and Jonathan probe the comically flimsy pretense under which Doug Ford has fundamentally, if casually, reshaped how Ontario’s two largest cities are governed. Because what doesn’t quite kill Toronto and Ottawa, apparently just makes their mayors stronger.
Allison and Jonathan talk with Jacobin’s Luke Savage about why the NDP so often provokes indifference, while its American and British counterparts sometimes seem poised to spark revolution. Might a new leader succeed where Andrea Horwath did not?
Plus: The Premier’s new cabinet offers unprecedented representation by members of the Ford family. Because it’s 2022.
The PCs are up seven seats from last time, and the opposition parties are down two leaders. We were going to record this from Doug Ford’s election-night event, but Jonathan wasn’t allowed in. So he and Allison met up after to talk about life in the Second Age of Ford, and what it means when a vindictive government also believes it’s a vindicated one.
As Doug Ford campaigns against fumes, his opponents are increasingly running on them. Less than a week away, the election’s outcome is hardly a foregone conclusion, but the Liberals, at least, have reached chicken-suit levels of desperation. Are they telling us there’s no candour available in all of Del Duca’s vista? Also, Allison and Jonathan consider whether Doug Ford has actually “evolved” (he hasn’t) and why the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist is so convinced that he has.
