The Ford PCs won their second mandate in Ontario in 2022. Did they get any better at governing since 2018 when they first came to power?

*shakes magic 8 ball*

Hmm, don’t count on it.

The Ford PCs have long had a prickly relationship with educators and education workers. In the run-up to the 2018 provincial election, they promised to get rid of the updated Health and Physical Education curriculum document, because it dared to talk about gender identity and consent. If teachers chose to ignore this openly transphobic and queerphobic move, the PCs were ready with a teacher snitch line. When they won, they scrapped a TRC-mandated summer curriculum writing session that was to focus on Indigenous education.

A pattern emerges.

Cuts to education started in 2018 and haven’t abated in 2022.

Education unions went on strike with votes taking place in 2019 and picketing happening over much of the province in 2020, up until the COVID pandemic shuttered the province. Ford, and his education minister, Stephen Lecce, were in full combat mode. Cuts were felt across the entire education system, with the system straining to keep up with the needs of its students. The status quo was maintained when the strike was over.

However, conservatives and Conservatives alike were not happy. They wanted to take away teachers’ right to strike, a right enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The result? Well, let’s fast forward to November 2022.

CUPE’s education workers staged a protest on Friday, November 4. Stephen Lecce was more than slightly displeased by this turn of events. The PCs took the highly contentious decision of using the Notwithstanding Clause and legislate CUPE’s workers (Ford, however, was somewhere else for the vote).

Section 33 was first invoked in the 1980s. Ontario, under Doug Ford, first flirted with using the Notwithstanding Clause in 2018 after it came into power. Ford wanted to settle some old scores and tamper with Toronto’s city council. Ultimately it wasn’t use. In 2019, Quebec used it (they were the first to invoke it in the 80s) to prevent religious symbols from being worn in public by public servants. This change in Quebec’s laws directly impacted hijabi teachers, and jobs were lost as a result. Boldened by Quebec’s success, the Ford government used it to increase individual political campaign donations in 2021.

Coming off another majority, but failing to get most Ontarians to vote, Ford is once more facing the ire of education workers and educators. Inflation has caused housing, food, and everything else to skyrocket in price. Guess what didn’t move up with inflation? Salaries in education. Workers are facing less support in schools, thanks to endless austerity cuts, despite the province posting a surplus. They are increasingly expected to live in poverty and make use of foodbanks.

Do all these links paint a vivid enough picture yet? They should and it is bleak.

Ontario is dealing with an orchestrated campaign to destabilize social safety nets and public services while aiming for a transition to privatized options. It has started in earnest in healthcare. Journalists in relationships with Ford staffers are pushing the same for education.

What can you do? Pressure your PC MPPs. Join a picketing location near you. Donate grocery gift cards to those protesting. Push your unions and non-PC MPPs to aim for a general strike. We can stop these attacks by working together.

May the Force be with us all.