Ford launches 2022 campaign at policy convention, as labour leaders outside warn of escalated action

iPolitics.ca
February 24, 2020
Victoria Gibson

As Ontario PCs assembled behind closed doors on Saturday -- for what one minister described as ‘hot’ debate, and the premier pitched as the start of his 2022 re-election campaign -- several labour groups protesting outside warned of potential consequences, including general strikes, if the PCs don’t change their current policy course.

The two-day PC convention, which kicked off on Friday in Niagara Falls, lay the groundwork for Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s re-election bid in two years, and aimed to iron out what kind of policies the party is eyeing for his campaign.

Deliberations amongst members inside the convention centre were almost entirely shielded from the public eye, with reporters allowed a 20 minute scrum with Government House Leader Paul Calandra, and to observe as Ford offered his Saturday evening speech to the party faithful. “These are party discussions, with the policies and priorities that the government, or the party, will bring forward in the next campaign,” Calandra told reporters about the closed-door setup on Saturday. “Our members, our grassroots members, would like to have the opportunity to have those discussions in private.”

Calandra declined to share any conclusions from the myriad of break-out sessions that had gone on throughout the day on Saturday, which were divided by both policy area and regional interest. Instead, he reiterated the current government’s existing priorities -- a list that included economic growth, a balanced provincial budget and furthering transit projects.

The 2020 convention had been criticized from within, in the days leading up to its kickoff. A letter that appeared to be from PC policy chair and third vice-president Bola Otaraki -- a copy of which was obtained by iPolitics -- was revealed in the press earlier this week. (Otaraki did not answer an email inquiry.) The letter claimed that the convention was “nothing more than a glorified ‘pep rally,'” and alleged that the lack of delegates meant votes on resolutions were invalid and wouldn’t be part of policy development. Asked about the claims made with the letter on Thursday, Calandra responded to reporters by saying that the PCs would be “a very boring party if all members of our party believed everything the exact same way.”

Some resolutions that party members were prompted to vote on included questions about “conscience rights” for healthcare professionals and the party’s stance on gender identity. No outcomes from those votes were immediately available.

The protests outside on Saturday morning were organized by the Ontario Federation of Labour, a coalition of union groups from different sectors. Their rotation of speakers took aim at the Ford PCs for their handling of the ongoing education negotiations, as well as the public sector wage cap that the PCs passed in the fall, and their continual navigation of government files from autism to public health. The crowd, which appeared to be around a thousand people, wielded signs, whistles, flags representing a myriad of unions, and effigies of Ford that peeked out from overtop the crowd.

As protesters assembled outside the convention centre in the morning, a series of signs -- which differed only because of the names of various MPPs and cabinet ministers that were blazoned across the tops, and their corresponding photographs -- were perched up against a fence to the side of the intersection. “Thousands of constituents have told you to stop the cuts to education,” each of the signs read, beneath their addressee’s name and picture. “Why aren’t you listening?”

Protest signs lean against a fence, shortly before speakers took to an outdoor stage at a protest held outside the Ontario PCs policy convention. Victoria Gibson/iPolitics.
Education union leaders quipped on stage about the protest being a form of “public consultation,” and Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates, who also spoke, lauded the unity amongst labour groups. Some speakers went further, promising escalated actions, if the calls from their morning rally went unheeded by the elected officials inside the convention centre.

“If they don’t listen to us… we will shut this province down,” Patty Coates, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, pledged from the stage. Sara Labelle, regional vice president at the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, was more direct in her remarks. “If it takes a general strike down the road, we’re not scared,” she told the crowd.

Beyond the stage, out in the crowd, opinions were divided on some of the labour issues ongoing in the province -- particularly, the province’s protracted negotiations with multiple teachers’ unions, and an argument about whether educators should be granted cost-of-living wage and benefit increases above the PCs’ one-per-cent public sector wage cap. Some in the crowd, who identified themselves as educators, insisted that the request was deserving of a fight; others told iPolitics that they would be happy with their unions dropping that request to push harder on class sizes and e-learning.

The Ford government has diluted their proposed changes to funded class averages since their original pitch, but their last official public position still saw the funded averages increasing. That issue, too, has been central to public disagreements between the two sides. “I teach 27 students in grade six right now, and I have a student with special needs, and I don’t give him the amount of time that I should be because there’s too many kids in the classroom,” Juli Chadwick, who said she had travelled to Niagara Falls from Cambridge with her daughter for the protest, told iPolitics from the morning crowd.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with wages. I’ve already lost six days of pay,” Chadwick noted. If that was the last sticking point on the table, she told iPolitics she’d have “no problem” relinquishing the ask. Brian Iwasiwka, who identified himself as a Toronto-based OECTA member, took a similar position. “We’ve got not a big complaint about our salaries. We know we’re paid well,” he said. “It would be nice to keep up with inflation. It would be nice, but that’s not the biggest issue.”

In his speech to supporters on Saturday evening, Ford boasted about his government’s handling of financial matters since taking office. “We can’t go back to spending taxpayers’ money like it grows on trees,” he said, before evoking his brother, the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford. “As my brother Rob used to say, the gravy train is over at Queen’s Park. It’s done. It’s done.”

The premier’s remarks, overall, focused the economic state of the province, with claims that Ontario’s economy was “firing on all cylinders,” and a description of his government as “pro-business, pro-jobs, pro-people.” Ford also made mention of his government’s promise to allow beer and wine to be purchased in corner stores, among comments about transit, healthcare and education. In more specific comments, Ford eyed up the specific southwestern Ontario riding of Essex for 2022, held now by NDP MPP Taras Natyshak. “I’m telling you, they’re looking for any excuse, any reason to vote PC in the next election,” Ford claimed, pointing to the federal Tories’ victory in the area during the national vote this fall.

“My friends, the 2022 campaign starts today, starts now,” he pledged.

Throughout the remarks, Ford also shouted out several of his Ministers and MPPs individually, with the largest applause received after comments about Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who was the focal point of the morning protest. “I saw how popular you were the last couple days. Your name’s all over the place,” Ford quipped. “… Keep going. Don’t give up.”