Wayne Gates
Special to The Lake Report

It’s not secret that people are really struggling right now in the province of Ontario.

Families cannot keep up with the cost of living, seniors are choosing between groceries and medication and ER wait times and hallway medicine are out of control, while rural urgent care centres are forced to close their doors.

And despite all this, the Ford government thought it was a good idea to spend nearly $30 million on a private jet.

Let that sink in. Thirty million dollars.

I don’t know anyone in Niagara who thinks that’s a priority right now. What I do hear, every single day, is that people want better health care, affordable housing and help with rising costs. They want a government that understands what they’re going through, not one that’s out of touch.

And just before the news about the $30 million “gravy plane” broke, we saw the Ford government quietly try and change the rules around freedom of information laws, or FOIs.

Last week, the Ford government scheduled a rare late-night session to ram through Bill 97, their anti-democratic law to change freedom of information rules.

Doug Ford’s government skipped all forms of public consultation and hearings on this bill, to push it through as quickly and as quietly as possible.

Let’s be crystal clear: if this law had been in place a few years ago, we would have never found out about the Greenbelt scandal.
By putting this law into place, we may never even know about the next Greenbelt scandal.

Transparency isn’t optional in a democracy; it’s a basic responsibility.

People have a right to know how their money is being spent and how decisions are being made. When a government tries to limit that access, it raises serious concerns about what they don’t want you to see.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just about one bad decision from the Fors government. It’s about a pattern.

We’ve seen it before, backroom deals behind closed doors, priorities that don’t line up with what families need, and a lack of respect for the people footing the bill.

The Ford government is spending millions upon millions on private planes, private spas and handouts to developers, while our public services crumble and life gets increasingly unaffordable for families in Ontario.

To be fair, public pressure works. We organized, we won and the government backed off the jet purchase. We’ve seen that before when Ford attempted to clear up the Greenbelt for development.

That shows you something important: when people raise their voices, they can force change. But we shouldn’t have to fight this hard just to get common-sense decisions.

Government should be focused on making life better for people. We should be strengthening our hospitals, reducing wait times in ERs, getting more people a family doctor, supporting workers, helping young people afford a place to live and making sure seniors can retire with dignity.

That’s what I hear about at the doors. That’s what matters.

Right now, we can, and should, expect better.

Wayne Gates is the member of provincial parliament for the Niagara Falls riding.