‘Harebrained ideas’
Dear Editor:
A $30-million jet is equivalent to approximately 2,000 charter flights for Premier Doug Ford and his entourage, from Toronto to Thunder Bay, not including the cost of airport fees, storage, maintenance, pilots/support staff wages, and jet fuel expenses.
The leather filled jet he selected is too big to land on 90% of Ontario’s runways and is useless for evacuating people or delivering supplies from remote areas. No other provincial premiers have private jets. They all fly commercial economy and charter flights when logistically necessary or financially prudent.
Private mining and forestry executives don’t fly to Thunder Bay, they pay staff to do that for them. Premiers and ministers don’t need to fly to Thunder Bay, they have regional directors who work there. The only reason the premier needs to fly to Thunder Bay is to show face and kiss babies, which should be at their party’s expense, not the taxpayers. The premier‘s job is in Queens Park.
Doug Ford was caught red-handed, secretly buying unnecessary luxury items for his personal purpose using taxpayers money. No FOI required. He is a narcissist and a juvenile rationalizer with harebrained ideas that attempt to impress and benefit an inner circle of private business people.
If he was actually powerful and important then he would have people travel to see him in Queen’s Park instead of chasing them around like a lost puppy. If he wants to fly around the continent in a private jet, pretending he’s a playboy rock star, then he needs to find a job in the private sector.
Doug Ford’s lame excuses about “double standards,” “excessive scrutiny” or “providing a business case” that was probably never considered or financially feasible, are pathetic and unbecoming of our provincial representative. His use of insults to deflect from his inability to answer straightforward questions in the legislature demonstrates immaturity, not leadership.
We will never know how often, where or why he flies, how much it costs the taxpayers, or even if there was a calculated business case, due to his abolishment of our “Freedom of Information.”
This issue should be the last straw for voters and lead to the undoing of his cabinet of cronies, whose only strength is disproportionate representation due to poor voter turn out.
Whether it’s for the FOI, healthcare, education, OSAP, the ballooning deficit, the Green Belt, farmland, food security, the Blue Belt, water privatization or the appointment of regional chairs to silence voters’ voices (and the list of injustices goes on) … every Ontarian has an important responsibility to support their community and the Fight Ford Protests.
Shane Lambert,
Centre Wellington