Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is proclaiming himself the right pick for working class Ontarians, sometimes even assembling hard hat-wearing workers behind him at media events. It’s a novelty story that’s getting some attention.
Working class Ontarians deserve media attention. Front-line workers kept Ontario going. Then they got walloped with job loss, wage cuts, COVID-19 and rising prices. They deserve a debate about who’s on their side.
It’s my job to listen to workers’ concerns. And Andrea Horwath is the only leader with a platform to fix the problems workers talk about. That’s why CUPE Ontario has endorsed her full slate of candidates across Ontario.
Workers are concerned about paycheques that don’t keep up with the bills. Rising rent. Skyrocketing housing prices. Health benefits. Unexpected medical expenses.
Doug Ford’s government hurt workers on those issues.
Ford created more rent control loopholes by ending protection for tenants in new apartments, adding to the Liberals’ loophole that has led to rampant “renovictions.” The result has been rents that go up and up.
People trying to buy a house faced a 44 per cent price increase, while Ford made special land deals with developers who profit from high prices.
The PCs continued the Liberals’ health-care cuts, delisting procedures, creating long wait-lists and health-care staff shortages.
Ford took $6,000 from every full-time minimum wage worker by cancelling a planned minimum wage increase.
He continued the Liberals’ cruel freeze on social assistance, leaving people who cannot get a job because of a mental or physical disability to survive on an annual income of just $14,000.
And like the Liberals before him, Ford tore up collective agreements, holding wage increases to one per cent while inflation runs at seven per cent, effectively a wage theft.
