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Protesters angry at Doug Ford gathered at Ottawa’s human rights monument and elsewhere in Ontario on Saturday as the premier faces scandal and record low polling numbers.
The demonstration was one of dozens scheduled to take place across the province, part of an ongoing movement dubbed “Fight Ford.”
“I didn’t go out and protest a lot of things when I was younger,” said Johane Hamilton, who carried a placard calling Ford “Canada’s Lil’ Trump” on one side and saying he was “more crooked than this sign” on the other.
“[Ford] made me angry enough that I felt the need to go out now.”
A new poll by Liaison Strategies shows just 24 per cent of Ontarians approve of Ford’s performance, which the polling firm said is the lowest approval rating it’s recorded for the premier.
Lois Pond, who helped organize the protest as a member of the Ottawa Harm Reduction Collective, said it was a surprise that number isn’t lower.
She said she was sad that Ontario voters have had to “see how bad it can get.”
“But here we are. I mean, all I can do is hope that we learn from this, right?” said Pond, who was an outreach worker at one of the province’s now-closed supervised drug consumption sites.
“And hope that we grow … because frankly, once people have died, you can’t bring them back.”
CBC reached out to Ford’s office Saturday for comment on the protests but did not receive a response by deadline.
People hold signs at a ‘Fight Ford’ protest in downtown Ottawa on Saturday. (Gabrielle Huston/CBC)
‘Deeper set of concerns’
Ford has criticized the unfavourable polling, including the latest numbers, which his office said in a statement Friday wasn’t consistent with its own findings — though they didn’t say those findings were.
His low approval comes on the heels of two major scandals.
In April, the Ontario government purchased a private jet and then sold it after public outcry.
Earlier this month, news broke that some of Ford’s caucus members representing Toronto ridings were billing taxpayers for hotel stays, prompting now-former tourism minister Stan Cho to resign from cabinet.
Doug Ford’s approval rating hits record low amid hotel expense scandal
Peter Graefe, a professor of political science at McMaster University, said that Saturday’s protesters may have been thinking about recent scandals and perceived failures of government.
“But behind that is a deeper set of concerns that we’ve seen recurring,” he added, including “a lack of funding for health care, [a] failure to invest in social services and social assistance and concerns about privatization.”
Signs and speakers at the Ottawa protest reflected the variety of concerns.
Pond said that when consumption sites closed after Ford’s government cut funding, there “was no safety net in place” to catch vulnerable people.
Signs at Saturday’s rally criticize the Ford government’s decision to pull funding for supervised drug consumption sites. (Gabrielle Huston/CBC)
Christophe Elie, an activist and singer-songwriter, said it’s “easy for [Ford] to stand up to the U.S. … but he’s not standing up for the people of Ontario.”
“There’s northern communities that are being left behind. There’s wildfires taking place and there’s people fleeing their communities,” Elie said.
As for Hamilton, health care was on the mind. After living in Quebec most of her life, she said she dealt with medical problems and her husband battled cancer after moving to Ontario.
“I doubt the system would support us now,” she said. “[Ford’s] dismantled too much.”
Hamilton said it didn’t matter that an election had happened just last year; there were still ways Ontarians could take a stand.
“We could ask for a leadership review. We can call in the ethics commissioner. He can actually be investigated by the RCMP,” Hamilton said.
“I would love to see those things happen. He’s crooked. The man is crooked.”
