ep. 21 AUDIO ONLY

The host of the Bill Kelly podcast discusses the feedback he has been receiving from listeners and viewers. He encourages dialogue and the exchange of ideas but criticizes frivolous comments. He then talks about the controversies surrounding the Doug Ford government in Ontario, specifically the Green Belt issue. He mentions that governments often deny wrongdoing initially, but investigations have revealed potential abuse of power. He cautions against assuming that these controversies will lead to the downfall of the Ford government, as voters have short memories and a lot can happen before the next election. He refers to a list compiled by the Ontario Federation of Labour that outlines the government's broken promises and political embarrassments. He also criticizes the government's decisions regarding the pandemic and Ontario Place. The host argues that the government's actions prioritize money and special interests over the common good. He emphasizes the importance of holding governm Welcome to the Bill Kelly podcast, critical discussions in critical times. Here's your host, Bill Kelly. And welcome to another edition of the Bill Kelly podcast, critical discussions for critical times. I'm Bill Kelly, your host. I want to talk about some of the feedback we've been getting from you, the listeners and viewers, of course, over the last little while on our social media, on our email sites, and it's fabulous. I always welcome this, don't always agree with it, but that's what democracy is all about, and that's what the exchange of ideas is all about. That's one of the reasons why we're doing the show. But there's one thing I do want to comment on. I want to keep that stuff coming because it's interesting and always important, I think, that we find out how you're feeling. And what I try to do on this podcast is generate that conversation, all right? It's an exchange of ideas, sometimes provocative. I don't expect people to always agree with me. It'd be boring if they did for you and for me. But as long as the dialogue can be civil and hopefully we can all learn from each other's opinions and some of the input into that, that doesn't always happen. But some of the comments are just plain, well, frivolous. For instance, I mean, we're going to talk in a couple of minutes here about Doug Ford's government and the Green Belt and some of the flip-flops and things of that nature. And I'm not the only person that's been talking about this. Many others have on social media and in print media and, of course, broadcasting over the last little while, and justifiably so because it's more and more information that's coming to light these days. But what really bothers me is some people's comments about this, is that, yeah, well, what about the other guys? What about the liberals? What about SNC-Lavalin? What about the – yeah, you know what, that's got nothing to do with it. Back then, this is now. And by the way, the liberals, the federal liberals especially, they got taken to task on all of those things because if people screw up in government, they deserve to be criticized, roundly criticized, and they deserve to have their feet held to the fire. And Trudeau has gone through that time and time again. And now I know, because I've seen the comments, well, how come he's still in office? Well, because we don't subscribe to the Donald Trump system of justice. Throw them in jail. There's a system. There's investigations. I don't always agree with them, but that's the system that we've got. And he'll answer, ultimately, all politicians do eventually, sooner than later, I suppose, which is why these days we're looking at the Ford government here in Ontario for some of the egregious things that they have done over the last little while. And of course, one of the elements, I think, that exacerbates that is the fact that they, first of all, usually deny everything. No, nothing wrong here, nothing to see here, and then we find out differently. And the Green Bell is a classic example of that, and I don't want to rehash the whole thing. You know, if you haven't got all the details on that, it's probably because you haven't been paying attention or maybe you don't want to pay attention. But governments have always, I guess, as one Jack Nicholson movie said, you know, we've always told you some version of the truth. Well, that's not always the case. Sometimes they just won't tell you the truth at all. I think it was like 38 times Doug Ford and his municipal affairs minister said, don't worry, we're never going to touch the Green Bell. It's sacrosanct. It's a very important piece of legislation. And then, of course, we all know the history. He turned around and just reversed his opinion on all of that stuff. And the shit has hit the fan about this whole thing because of investigations by the Auditor General, the Integrity Commissioner, and so many other people, and now a criminal investigation by the RCMP. So don't tell me that there's nothing going on here. And don't tell me that this is a witch hunt against the Conservative Party. It isn't. It's a witch hunt. It's not even that. It's an investigation into potential wrongdoing by the government that we elected and the abuse of power there. But again, on and on it goes. And I've seen some of the comments on Instagram and on X or Twitter or whatever you want to call it these days. This is going to lead to the demise of the Ford government. You know, I'm not so sure. I really am not so sure. I can understand some people's desire and hunger for that sort of thing to happen. But the political reality here is, well, a number of things. First of all, it's a majority government. So there's not as if there's going to be a vote of non-confidence. He's going to stay in office. Second of all, as outraged as you might be, as outraged as some other people may be because of what's going on here, the other side of this is, quite frankly, we as voters here in Ontario, and I guess right around the country, have pretty short memories. I mean, we can get really pissed off at a government or an individual politician for egregious behavior and say, that's it, boy, they're going to get turped, we're going to do something about it. But we forget. Don't forget, it's two and a half years until the next election here in Ontario, and a lot can happen. A lot can happen to this government. And I would not necessarily say, okay, these guys are toast. We've seen that happen before. You know, the McGinney government, of course, was involved in the gas plant scandal and some other egregious behavior and some questionable contracts that they handed out for green energy, you know, wind farms and all this sort of stuff. And they were down in the polls too. We thought, well, that's it, that government's toast. It changed leaders. Kathleen Wynne took over, and they won, another government. So it's the sort of thing that we have to pay attention to, and don't just think that this moment of outrage is going to signal what's going to happen in two years. You know, a political columnist by the name of David Moskow, maybe you've read some of his stuff, talked about this in a recent article that he published in The Walrus. The article is entitled, We May Be Stuck With Doug Ford. It's a rather provocative title, I know. But it may well be true. He references, well, you may have heard of this, the Ontario Federation of Labour's Ford Tracker. That's what they call this. Now, this is a list of the fiascos, the broken promises, the political embarrassments by the Ford government. And by the way, if you want to check it out, set a lot of time aside, because it's a very, very, very long list, and it outlines and chronicles some of the things that they have done wrong. Some of these things are minuscule, I get that, and, you know, frivolous, I suppose, to a certain extent. But some of them are pretty egregious, the Greenbelt thing being one of those, the way he handled the pandemic, of course, being another one. And we haven't even talked about Ontario Place. That seems to be shoved over the back burner these days. But here we go once again, with the government awarding a 99-year contract to some offshore agency. And God knows how much money they're going to make from this. This is very much akin to what Mike Harris did, selling off the 407, and, you know, these contracts that can't be broken. We just don't seem to learn, and we let our guard down, and governments do these sorts of things, because it's all about money. Money for them, money for whatever their purposes might be. And this is the thing, I think, that drives people nuts. They get elected. And Doug Ford said this, if he said it once, he said it a thousand times during his personal campaign. We're for the people. I'm for the little guy. Well, he's for you. If you've got a lot of money to offer to the progressive Conservative Party here in Ontario, because that seems to be the bar that you have to meet. And it's becoming more and more obvious that that was a major factor in some of these policy decisions. So this is the thing that I think has to be dealt with, and we have to look at exactly where this is going to go here in Ontario, and the impact it's going to have on some of the decisions of the government. You want credibility. Nobody is perfect, right? I mean, every government is going to screw up. Every government is going to make decisions that you're not going to agree with. But they're not supposed to make bad decisions. And one of the classic moments, and because I am a bit of a history buff, I guess, when it comes to politics, was when George W. Bush was stepping aside after his second term. And somebody asked him about, you know, how is he going to be viewed in history? And he says, well, we've made some mistakes. All governments do. And they said, well, like what? And he tried to recount them. And of course, he got flustered, and Bush often did. And you can't be like that. You know, the answer should be, based on your track record, look at, yeah, maybe we've screwed up a few times, but every decision that we tried to make was based on what we thought was going to be best for the people of Ontario. Not what was going to be best for this group of developers that just gave us a ton of money. Not what's best for some other major organization that's trying to get a foothold here and spend a lot of money and making donations to us. It's about what's the common good for the province of Ontario? And what's the common good for the country, for that matter, when you want to talk about federal politics? And that's not always the case. And it's pretty obvious, so I think to most of us now, that governments do have their own agenda. Some of it's a political agenda. I get that. But on the other hand, there's some pretty strong examples right now that they have their own agenda based on who's supporting them and who's writing the checks for them. And I think that's something that really gets under our skin these days, is when people start using their office, their political office, their political standing, for a different agenda. We had that here in Ontario just a little while ago with the MPP that just got booted out of the MDP caucus and was censured by the Ontario government. You know, there are rules and regulations. And yeah, I know that the people of Hamilton Centre elected Sarah Jama, and she's got a right to hold office. She still does. She hasn't been booted out of politics. She's just not a member of the party anymore. And the element, because I've seen some of those comments over the last little while too, and they say, you know, it's an insult that she should... Those are privileges. The privilege of sitting in question period, the privilege of asking questions. It's not a right for MPPs. It's a privilege. And if you abuse the rules or disobey the rules in any way, those are privileges that can be taken away. Now, you can agree or disagree about why and how egregious her problems were, her penalties were, but it's well within their rights to do that. And I think we just get so wrapped up in our own self-interest and our own political standings rather that we forget about that, that there has to be some sense of decorum and there has to be some sense of what's right or wrong politically. And we seem to have lost that right now. The polarization in politics these days is, well, I think representative of what's going on in our society, that we don't find any middle ground because we don't want to find any middle ground. We're just saying, I'm right and the other person's wrong. And not only are they wrong, but they're being an idiot. And how can you ever find consensus and move things forward when we're in this sort of attitude? And it's infectious right now. And it's causing all kinds of problems. And I don't know where this is going to go. I don't know if Doug Ford is going to get reelected. I don't even know if Doug Ford is going to run again in two and a half years. He's apparently a relatively wealthy man. Maybe he's just figuring, you know what, I don't need this shit anymore. He may step aside. Who's going to take your place? Well, that's the other element to this whole thing. You want to boot a government out? Well, you better have somebody else in mind to fill that void. And I'm not so sure that they have that in Ontario right now. I mean, both the other opposition, the main opposition parties have new leaders. Mike Schreiner, of course, is still with the Green Party. Marge Stiles is the new NDP leader. She only got the job, though, because nobody else wanted it. Nobody else even applied for it. And, well, I don't see anybody jumping up and down about her job performance so far. Maybe that'll change. I don't know. The Liberals, well, the Liberals are in the process, I guess, of selecting a leader. And I don't know who that's going to be. But none of the people that seem to be setting the world on fire to, you know, this anticipation, I just wait till so-and-so becomes the leader and everything's going to change. It's really, I think, bothersome. And it's the sort of thing that turns people off politics altogether because they see the crap that's going on. And the fact that they all seem to want to just score political points with these little quips or some social media, Twitter or Instagram, some little phrase or some little shot that they're going to take at the opposition. It's not helping. It's not doing anything. It's the sort of thing that I think is turning people off of politics altogether. So here's my take on this. And again, I'm not going to start making predictions about who's going to do what. There is an RCMP investigation that's going on about Ford and the Green Belt and a couple of things that are related to that. I don't know where that's going to go. If they do come back, I guess it's a worst case scenario as far as Ford is concerned anyway, and charges are laid, well, that could change the political dynamic a lot. Whether or not that happens again, there's another case. The NDP, I just get the sense that the NDP here in the province of Ontario are going to be in political purgatory for the next little while. And it goes all the way back to 1995 when people got pissed off about the Ray Days and a lot of other things and they get stereotyped. And I think a lot of people are still living with that stereotype and thinking the NDP too far to the left, too extremist. That's not what we want right now. The Liberals, well, they're in the penalty box politically in Ontario right now, too, for a variety of reasons. Now, I don't know if the new leader, whoever that's going to be, is going to have any sort of an impact to change that dynamic, which is why I guess Mr. Moscrop is writing about the fact that whether you like it or not, we may have Doug Ford around for the next little while, even beyond the next election. But here's just one little suggestion that I have. Whether you're Doug Ford or you're Myra Stiles or you're whether who the Liberal leader is going to be here in the province of Ontario, how about you stop worrying about the pronouns that can people relate to these days or what classic literature we should be allowed to read in our libraries or even to our children? That may score points with a little part of the population, but it's not moving us forward and it's not solving the problems that are facing us. Why don't you, as a politician, whoever you are, just do your job, do what you're supposed to do, really make living here in Ontario affordable for us, make it safe, and maybe then, then Ontarians can have the trust and confidence in government that they're supposed to have, because right now you've lost it and you've shown no reason why we should put it back. That's it for this edition of the Bill Kelly podcast. Thanks for listening and thanks for subscribing, too. You can get your podcast news and updates and more exclusive content by subscribing to the Substack, of course. And as always, we do welcome your comments. Great to have them. Keep them coming. And your suggestions for future programs as well. You can follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. And of course, this is Bill Kelly. Until next time, take care. We'll talk soon. This podcast was brought to you by Rebecca Wissons and her team at Wissons Law. Rebecca Wissons is a 20 time winner of the Hamilton Reader's Choice Awards for their exceptional client care and legal practice specializing in personal injury, car accidents, accidental falls and Wilson Estates. Now, if you or a loved one have been seriously injured or if you want to make sure that your family is taken care of for the future with the will and powers of attorney, call Rebecca Wissons, 905-522-1102 for a free consultation. When life happens, you can rely on Rebecca Wissons and Wissons Law. And trust me, Rebecca is my wife. I don't know what I'd do without her. That's Wissons Law, 905-522-1102 for a free consultation. Subscribe to my sub stack for timely news updates and commentary straight to your inbox. Let's keep the conversation going. I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode. Let me know what you think we should be talking about next by contacting me through my website at www.billkelly.co. Thanks for tuning in. This is Bill Kelly. Till next time, you take care.