What is Doug Getting Done?

This story originally appeared in March 2024 at “What is Doug Getting Done?” by Bob Wood | Seniors for Climate Action Now As of today Bill 162 is being considered by the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I must have been the only one who never heard it. 

I’m talking about The Get it Done song that was a feature of Doug Ford election rallies back in 2022.   

“It's poppy. It's got a good vibe to it. It sounds very positive," Chris Beck told CBC reporter Lucas Powers on a sidewalk in downtown Toronto. "It's very catchy." 

Here’s a bit:

“Nobody said it was an easy road / And we won't stop, we don't ever fold."

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that the Get it Done song is now followed up 
with the Get it Done Act.

Get it Done is an Omnibus Bill. An omnibus bill is a single document that covers a number of diverse or unrelated topics. Such bills are intended to pass in a single vote by a legislature, avoiding scrutiny. The Ford government likes to use such bills. We have written about the problem with omnibus bills before (see SCAN-Climate-Crime-19-2022-12Update.pdf (seniorsforclimateactionnow.org).

Bill 162 was introduced on February 20, 2024

It amends the -Environmental Assessment Act 

-Highway Traffic Act 
-Official Plan Adjustment Act 2023  
-Photo Card Act 2008
-Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act 

It enacts the Protection Against Carbon Taxes Act. 

The government says it is creating the conditions to rebuild Ontario’s economy and. 
is helping to get shovels in the ground sooner on new roads, highways and public transit. This will reduce gridlock; help ensure housing for a growing population and move the province’s economy forward.  We’ve heard all this before.

As is often the case the devil is in the details in such legislation so one needs to look at how it will change various regulations. Let’s look at what critics and experts have to say. 

On Streamlining Environmental Regulations

According to the municipal and land use planning group of Aird and Berlis, Ontario is changing the current environmental assessment process (EA) for municipal infrastructure projects. To do this Ford government is proposing to revoke certain regulations to create a streamlined EA regulation that focuses on certain higher-risk water, shoreline and sewage projects.

Only projects listed in the regulation would have Environmental Assessment Act requirements. It is proposed that some projects deemed to be low risk, which are currently subject to the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment, would no longer be subject to it. 

This would include: 
• all projects currently subject to Schedule B of the MCEA, 
• all municipal roads or new parking lots, 
• all private sector infrastructure projects for residents of a municipality, regardless of  size, including a new sewage treatment plant of any size. 

On Expropriations

The Narwhal is a Canadian investigative online magazine that focuses on environmental issues. It writes that the Ontario’s government is vulnerable to court challenges if it wants to expropriate land.

To block such challenges that could come up related to Greenbelt and Highway 413, the Get It Done Act would amend the Environmental Assessment Act to explicitly allow both provincial and municipal governments to expropriate land before environmental approvals. 

Environmental Defence (ED), a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization, believes the bill is designed to prevent landowners who aren’t in on the Highway 413 scheme from legally challenging the seizure of their land. 

“This appears to be designed to help the Ontario government move quickly to destroy habitats, waterways and Indigenous sites that fall within federal jurisdiction.”

The Federal government needs to introduce an updated federal Impact Assessment Act soon before the province takes advantage of the gap in protection. 

On a Referendum
  
Much of the Bill deals with a potential vote on any future carbon pricing plan.
The Narwhal says the bill empowers the province’s chief electoral officer to hold a vote on any future carbon pricing plan, which would only be put in place if more than 50 per cent of Ontarians vote in favour of it. 

“It's performative politics at its worst, distracting from the Ford government's failure in addressing the housing crisis and the fact that they've made access to health care worse," says Mike Schreiner, leader of the Ontario Green Party.

Municipal Official Plans 

Many municipal official plans are changed by the legislation. For better or worse? It is hard to say how the changes will impact farmland or green space.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has been asking for more collaboration by the province with local governments. Right now, AMO “is pleased that the government is making these changes in consultation with municipalities.” 

On the other hand, Environmental Defence (ED) claims that so-called “special building zones appear calculated to let the provincial government take over local decision-making power in order to accelerate hand-picked projects.”  ED argues that this government favours spawl subdivisions rather than building more labour and cost-efficient housing in existing neighbourhoods.
 
On Tolls 

The legislation proposes to block the possibility of new tolls on new and existing provincial highways. In 2022, the Ford government dropped tolls on Highways 412 and 418 which, according to CBC, meant foregoing about $38.2 million in annual revenue. 

There is a good argument to be made that tolls on the relatively empty Highway 407 could be reduced for trucks making Highway #413 unnecessary.  There is no good argument to be made for building the Highway 413. 

What Now?

Upon receiving royal assent, the changes proposed by Bill 162 will be deemed to have come info force on December 6, 2023.

The province is currently seeking feedback on the proposed amendments for various dates in March. Comments may be submitted through the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

In spite of these short timelines I believe opposition will begin to coalesce to the impacts Bill 162 will have as it did last year around the Greenbelt.

Let’s start by rewriting the Get it Done Song.

How about a new tune?  We could call it Do it Right Doug!  

Nobody ever said we need more roads/ Let’s fight that idea and stop it cold.

Sources:

CBC NewsCBC - What's in a song? For Doug Ford's campaign, a whole lot | CBC News

Aird and Berlis - Ontario Introduces Bill 162: The Get It Done Act, 2024 (airdberlis.com)

The Narwhal - Ontario’s Get It Done Act: faster road building, fewer environmental guardrails | The Narwhal

Environmental Defence - Statement: The Ontario Government’s So-Called “Get It Done” 

Bill Would Revive the Sprawl and Land Speculation Scandal - Environmental Defence

AMO - Get It Done Act, Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, CMHC Housing Data, Seniors Active Living Centres Regulations | AMO

The Budget

On a long ago budget day, a procedural quirk

put a simple regional ward councillor

in a position to freeze the police budget.

Ward councillors don’t obstruct police budgets

because, as we all learned as kids,

the police(man) is our friend

does important and dangerous work

protects and keep us safe and

for all of this deserves to be well paid.

These are things that ward councillors,

even simple ones, should understand.

But since the common sense drumbeat

set the revolution in motion

we have come to know that the best government is

to have practically no government at all

and respect for hard earned taxpayer’s dollars

is the order of the day.

Others are compelled to run their ship tightly

while the law and order liner sails unimpeded

through the calm waters of political indifference.

On that budget day, the simple ward councillor

Having, for a time, ascended

to the lofty heights of budget committee member

advanced what was (by his own humble admission)

a particularly persuasive presentation

convincing the one colleague who needed convincing

that police spending should be apprehended and

it was a great day for local democracy

or at least it seemed that way.

But the votes aren’t counted

until the politicians raise their hands

and when they did

the police got their money, as they always do.

No media or public witnessed the sad event though

police brass made time in otherwise busy days

to behold the councillor’s misbegotten manoeuvre.

Following his 15 minutes of small town fame

our councillor drove his car like an undertaker.

Even now, my lane changes are by-the-book perfect

and inviolable police budgets escalate still.

This piece was originally published in the Dream, the Glory and 

the Strife edited by Raymond Fenech, Hidden Brook Press, 2018.

Facts, Democracy and Alternatives

Years ago, I attended a training session that included a workshop on negative political campaigning.

The workshop was a “how-to” and there was a resource person, I think.  

It was a long time ago. I really only remember two things about the session. One detail I recall was that only a few of us questioned the ethics of such campaigns.   And looking back I sure was naïve.  I mean it was a “how-to” workshop, wasn’t it?   

The other thing I remember is that it was emphasized that if you were doing such advertising in our democracies you had to have your facts right.   That was because if you didn’t you would lose credibility.  And that meant losing votes.

Well things have changed. Today it seems that political campaigns and politics in general are all about saying negative things about your opponent.   And it doesn’t matter if those utterances are factual or bogus.

I thought about that long ago training session while reading Martin Baron’s excellent book Collision of Power Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post.  Baron was the top editor at the Post from 2013-2021.

The book shows the difficult decisions those in newsrooms have to make.  What to publish?  What to leave out?  What to include?

The work became more difficult beginning June 16, 2015 when a blustering, big-headed reality show host rode down a golden escalator in New York’s Trump Tower and announced that he was running for president.  From then on Donald Trump was relentless in attacks on any media that had the audacity to publish anything negative about him.

The issue of calling out a public figure by saying s/he is telling a lie was a controversial one for Baron and his colleagues.  It seems that getting a handle on the concept of truth is about as difficult as getting a hold of a Lake Erie Eel. 

Early in his presidency Trump advisor Kelly Ann Conway introduced the idea of “alternative facts” to a bewildered public. But Ms. Conway went one better when she claimed that “if you don't know what's true, you can say whatever you want and it's not a lie."

Baron believes that the role of papers like the Washington Post is to hold people who are in power accountable.  That’s becoming harder as resources for traditional reporting dwindle.  

Maybe it doesn’t matter?  Is anyone really paying attention?  Baron quotes New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada from his 2020 book, What Were we Thinking.

“First, we are asked to believe specific lies.  Then bend the truth to our preferred politics. Next, to accept only what the president certifies to be true, no matter the subject or how often his positions shifts. After that, to hold that there is really no knowable, agreed-upon truth. Finally, to conclude that even if there is truth, it is inconsequential.  Lies don’t matter, only the man uttering them does." 

There is no room for traditional Upper Canadian smugness, however.  “Alternative facts” practitioners are alive and well in Ontario.  Take Doug Ford, for example.  Here’s what he said recently about the health-care system: 

“I want to be clear — Ontarians continue to have access to the care they need, when they need it.”

Check that “fact” out with the residents of Clinton or Minden or Fort Erie.  Last month the Ontario Health Coalition reported 868 temporary or permanent emergency department closures; and 316 urgent care centre closures in 2023. That is, in fact, a fact.

Our democracy seems to be coming apart. We need to find a way to agree on facts and come together to address what matters in our communities.

Different Alternatives

Baron writes about national media but there is a role for our local media which unfortunately is diminished and in danger of disappearing.   Two hundred years ago William Lyon Mackenzie, revolutionary, first mayor of Toronto began publishing a paper called the Colonial Advocate.  To be sure Mackenzie had his own views front and centre but the paper would also provide verbatim reports on meetings, proceedings of the legislature etc... so people could form opinions of their own.  

John McKnight has other ideas for local media. McKnight, is a community organizer and co-founder of the Asset Based Community Development Institute.  He has championed the idea that communities are places of strength; that solutions to some of our issues can be found by seeing the assets of our communities and neighbourhoods rather than the deficiencies. 

John McKnight

McKnight believes that our local newspapers should be “servants of citizenship.”  Big papers can’t do it as they “act on the hidden assumption that the large institutions of government, corporations and agencies provide the important news.”   The big papers hold up “a kind of mirror that promotes a disabling culture where citizens pull back from public life and grow cynical about their society,” he writes. *

Local media, on the other hand has the potential to engage citizens around real issues that matter in a way that can bring people together. Check out your local paper and you’ll notice the focus on citizen initiatives and community.

We need to find ways to support it.  Our Democracy requires it.

*Servants of Citizenship: Understanding the Basic Function of Newspapers in a Democracy (Learning Twenty-three) | John L McKnight (johnmcknight.org)