For Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government, 2023 will be a year to push forward with the “get it done” agenda they promised voters in the provincial election campaign.
If the first six months of Ford’s second term are any indication, you can expect his government to move on that agenda with tactics and policies that raise plenty of controversy.
Since forming his new cabinet this summer, Ford’s ministers brought in a raft of legislation ostensibly designed to increase the pace of housing construction.
The changes drew criticism because they also open up pockets of the Greenbelt to development, weaken the powers of conservation authorities, limit what municipalities can charge developers for infrastructure costs and give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the power to push through bylaws with the support of only one third of city council.
One of the government’s most controversial tactics so far in its new mandate was invoking the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights to ban education workers from striking.
Ford’s 83-seat victory in 2022 marks the first time since 1955 that an Ontario premier has increased the size of his majority in his second election. (Carlos Osorio/CBC)
CBC News requested a year-end interview with Ford in early December, but the request was not granted.
So to find out what to expect from the premier and his government in 2023, CBC News interviewed three PC insiders:
Kory Teneycke, co-founder and CEO of Rubicon Strategy. He managed both of Ford’s provincial election campaigns.
Karl Baldauf, vice president at McMillian Vantage, a public affairs firm. He served as chief of staff to the Treasury Board president during Ford’s first term.
Shakir Chambers, a principal at Earnsclliffe Strategies and former PC staffer at Queen’s Park.
1. Focus on the economy
All three insiders believe the high rate of inflation and the risks of an economic downturn will preoccupy Ford and his government in the coming year.
“There are a lot of economists out there that are concerned that we’re going to be in a recession, and that would by far be the biggest challenge facing not just the government of Ontario, but every government,” said Teneycke.
With inflation running high and Ontario facing the risk of a recession, Progressive Conservative insiders say the economy will be Ford’s top focus in the coming year. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Chambers believes the government will dole out more “money in your pocket” rebates along the lines of its pre-election scrapping of vehicle registration fees and the $200 per child payments to parents of school-age kids.
“Those little $100 here, $50 there really matter to people and really resonate with the average voter,” said Chambers.
Baldauf warns that financial measures that are too broadly-based could fuel inflation rather than tackle it.
“If the Ford government takes actions to put money in people’s pockets, it’s going to be in a very targeted way,” Baldauf said. “They have to ensure that the money going out the door is going to those who are most struggling to deal with the inflationary pressures.”
2. Health care in crisis
Ensuring the viability of Ontario’s health-care system will be “one of the biggest political challenges” facing the Ford government in 2023, said Baldauf.
“Health care is in people’s face in a way that few other issues are,” he said. “If somebody’s waiting in an emergency room for a dozen hours on end, you can’t get around that, you can’t sugarcoat that with messaging. That’s an issue you have to deal with through system change.”
In October, Ford visited CHEO, the children’s hospital in Ottawa and was given a personalized hard hat by Alex Munter, CHEO’s president and CEO. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
He predicts a big push by the government in 2023 for greater private sector involvement in the delivery of publicly funded health care. If he’s correct, you can expect that to become pretty contentious.
Chambers notes that the government is yet to put forward a comprehensive policy on fixing the health-care system, instead offering piece-by-piece measures such as attempting to recruit more nurses and moving hospital patients into long-term care placements farther from their homes.
He expects there will be changes to health care because Ford and his government believe the status quo is not acceptable.
An open question is whether Ontario will put significantly more money into its $75-billion health budget. That could largely depend on whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government ponies up.
3. Sparring (and partnering) with Trudeau
Ford and the rest of Canada’s premiers are engaged in a campaign calling for an increase to federal transfer payments for health care that would amount to an extra $28 billion a year. Trudeau has said he’s willing to offer up money, but not how much and not without conditions.
Teneycke predicts the Trudeau government will reach some sort of deal with the provinces on health-care funding.
“I think the pressure is sufficient that you’re going to see a movement on the federal side,” he said.
Ford and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marked the launch of Canada’s first full-scale electric vehicle manufacturing plant in early December at the General Motors CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont. (Nicole Osborne/The Canadian Press)
But if there isn’t a deal soon, you can expect Ford to bang the drum about federal funding more often and more loudly.
“I think you’ll see the premier become more pointed in this regard especially through the winter months as Ontarians struggle with the challenges of the health-care system,” said Baldauf.
Ford and Trudeau are “more than willing to work together to get results, because they share a lot of the same voters in ridings that decide elections,” said Chambers.
4. Will controversial moves deliver housing?
Critics say the Ford government is using the housing crisis as a pretext to make changes that help housing developers maximize their profits. The coming year will be a test of whether the government’s measures actually do more than that.
Since 2020, new housing starts in Ontario have been at all-time highs, but have yet to exceed 100,000 per year, according to statistics from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. That means the pace of construction must pick up dramatically for Ford to keep his promise of 1.5 million new homes built in a decade.
Ford has promised that 1.5 million new homes will be built in Ontario in the coming decade. However, the government’s own recently published economic outlook forecasts just 240,000 housing starts over the next three years. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
But with an economic environment of high interest rates, inflation pushing up construction costs and a slumping real estate market, there are plenty of predictions that new home starts will actually decline in 2023 rather than rise. Even the government’s own forecasts show housing starts failing to total more than 85,000 annually in each of the next three years.
“I think there are a lot more things that the government’s going to try to do,” said Teneycke. “But a lot of what has to happen is more on the execution and implementation side.”
Teneycke says the government was right to make structural changes to housing development policy early in its new mandate.
“You need to have time for those changes to actually take effect and to work their way through the system so that you’re starting to see outcomes by the time the next election rolls around,” he said.
Chambers says Ford and his government have done a lot of talking about housing.
“What they want to see now is progress. Are we actually building?”
5. Expect the unexpected
Ford’s time as premier has shown it can be difficult to predict his government’s moves with great accuracy. From slashing the size of Toronto city council in 2018 to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2021 (after previously freezing it) to breaking his oft repeated promise not to touch the Greenbelt in 2022, Ford has done things as premier that he’d not signalled ahead of time.
So it’s likely safe to expect in 2023 that Ford will do something you don’t expect.
Ford’s government brought in legislation to give the mayors of Toronto and Ottawa the power to push through bylaws with the support of only one third of city council. (Carlos Osorio/CBC)
Asked what issue they think the government will tackle in the coming year that has not been making headlines, both Teneycke and Baldauf independently flagged the skilled trades workforce.
“We’re just desperately short of people in the skilled trades,” said Teneycke. “These are the people that you need to build the highways and dig the subway tunnels and build the new condo towers and the new houses.”
“Ensuring people can work in the jobs of the future … will be an important priority, I imagine, for this government,” said Baldauf.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
