Not a day goes by in my world without someone raising the topic of Trump’s ongoing chaos both on the international stage and within the country he claims to be leading into a bright new tomorrow.
Certainly anyone who has been forced to the gas pumps recently has felt the bite of his ill-advised strategy — and I use the word “strategy” very loosely — in launching the “war” on Iran.
Sadly, according to a CNN poll aired on April 6, more than 80 per cent of his MAGA base believe he has a considered plan for this overture.
One recalls the old saying, “There are none more blind than those who will not see” in this situation.
Closer to home, Doug Ford’s government is taking a page out of Trump’s playbook to introduce equally ill-advised legislation with dire future impacts on provincial and local levels. They too are counting on your willful blindness.
Remember, this is the premier who, when questioned about his push for amalgamation despite multiple readily available studies that show it will result in higher costs and greater inefficiencies, stated that he had “never seen that.”
Apparently, like Trump, the premier of Ontario simply believes what he wants to believe — facts be damned.
We have omnibus Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, undergoing second reading in the legislature; a bill the government claims will “reduce barriers to homebuilding and increase economic efficiency by creating a simplified and standardized format for official plans and clarifying and streamlining site plan rules.”
Amongst other things, should this bill be passed into law, municipal official plans will no longer be required to address adaption strategies to climate change or mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.
It will repeal sections of the Municipal Act that provide for the use of green development standards, effectively gutting more than a decade of moving towards sustainability in new developments and will translate into higher energy consumption (and higher operating costs for property owners) over the lifespan of new houses.
In a LinkedIn commentary, Chris Ballard, who served as Ontario’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister of Housing in the former Liberal government, states that Bill 98 “ignores the downstream costs taxpayers will bear in flood damage, heat emergencies, and aging infrastructure.”
He observes that “this bill continues the government’s practice of shutting out public scrutiny and legal accountability.”
Adding that, “bundling housing, transit, water, green building standards, and climate planning into a single omnibus bill prevents meaningful public debate on each issue. The government is using a housing headline to slip through environmental rollbacks that would never pass on their own merits.”
But this certainly isn’t the first time that the Ford government has masqueraded handouts to developers behind fanciful words and titles. Think of the More Homes Built Faster Act for example. Indeed, bills 109, 185, 3, 44 and 17 are all titled with promises to build more homes faster.
And, while the development community enjoys the benefits, none of these pieces of legislation have translated into new housing starts.
Which brings us to Ford’s penchant for secrecy and avoidance of accountability.
Hidden away in the 2026 budget, his government is proposing significant, retroactive changes to Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to exempt the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and their staff from public records disclosure.
In a March 13 statement on the proposed changes written by Patricia Kosseim, the information and privacy commissioner, we read, “This amendment is about hiding government-related business to evade public accountability.”
She observes that, “If records about government business can be shielded from scrutiny simply because they sit in a minister’s office, on a staffer’s device, or within a political account, public accountability is eviscerated.”
Warning the changes could result in citizens experiencing “excessive government intrusion into their private lives.”
One has to wonder whether the ongoing investigation into the Greenbelt scandal and the current action to access Doug Ford’s cellphone records by Global Media may not be two of the principal causes for this overture — particularly given the fact the changes will be retroactive.
Finally, it seems that Premier Ford has achieved amalgamation in all but name. Regional council will be reduced to the 12 mayors with a handpicked (by the premier) appointed chair with “strong ‘mayor’ powers.”
By dint of weighted voting, effective control of council has devolved upon the three big-city mayors and control of the budget will sit directly with the new chair … centralized control by Queen’s Park.
Lower costs? Not on your life. Ford is running the biggest budget and largest debt in Ontario’s history.
Just consider the cost of his office staff which has skyrocketed since he took office, with 50 people on the 2025 Sunshine List at a cost of $8.1 million dollars.
But he’ll be in charge.
Brian Marshall is a NOTL realtor, author and expert consultant on architectural design, restoration and heritage.
