Letters to the Editor

A mandate to fight Trump’s tariffs

February 5, 2025   ·   0 Comments

Dear Editor,

If Doug Ford is calling this election to gain a mandate to fight President Trump’s tariffs, it should come with three irrevocable promises. The first is to promise to stop spending tens of billions of dollars on Highway 413. The second promise must be to resign if the RCMP report on the Greenbelt scandal implicates Doug Ford. The third, to quickly transition Ontario from being dependent on oil and gas that comes from the US to electricity generated in Ontario.

The last thing Ontario needs is to be spending tens of billions of dollars destroying productive farmland to start construction of Highway 413, which we may never need. If there is money to build a whole new highway, it would be better spent buying back Highway 407. Then reduce the tolls to relieve congestion on Highway 401, for the benefit of people and businesses now.

Doug Ford simply must resign if the RCMP investigation report, which is due this spring, finds him connected to ethical or criminal behaviour while enriching specific developers in the rezoning of Ontario Greenbelt land. A Premier of Ontario suspected of misusing power cannot be effective at fighting Donald Trump, nor can they be trusted to spend billions of dollars on “special initiatives” to protect our economy.

Doug Ford recklessly threatened a cross-border energy war apparently not realizing that the crude oil feeding Ontario’s refineries come from or through the US. In addition, the natural gas heating our homes and powering the generating stations that the Conservatives have built comes from fracking in the US. Thanks to Conservative policies that cancelled renewable energy projects, electric car subsidies, home energy efficiency programs and heat pump subsidies for our homes, Ontario has been left ever more dependent on the US for energy. We need a government that realizes Ontario produces electricity, not crude oil.

Without these three promises, Doug Ford cannot have a mandate to fight Donald Trump’s tariffs, and this election has no purpose beyond wasting taxpayers dollars.

Rob Strang

Orangeville

Readers Comments (0)