Lab Notes

$4.3 million on Bill 124 legal costs. $48 million on ripping out Toronto bike lanes. $103.5 million on government ads. One of these governments loves telling you there is no money.

West End Phoenix put together a Ford-era “Dirty Dozen” carousel comparing what the province spent on political choices versus what that same money could have covered in public services. In the slides you attached, the tradeoffs are the whole point: money spent fighting nurses in court, money spent on ad campaigns, money spent speeding up booze sales, and money spent on an early election that nobody outside Queen’s Park was exactly begging for. (West End Phoenix)And look, not every item belongs in the exact same bucket. Cutting a fee is not identical to cutting a cheque. Canceling a program is not identical to moving a building. Fine. But the broader story still lands. Ford’s government keeps finding billions for ideology, branding, and pet projects while hospitals, schools, housing, and transit are told to be patient. Again. (West End Phoenix)That is the actual Ontario model here. There is always money for the splashy announcement, the culture-war flex, or the thing that looks good in a campaign ad. The shortage only appears when the ask is a family doctor, a nurse, a teacher, affordable housing, or basic public infrastructure.This is not a province that cannot afford better priorities. It is a province being run by a government with very weird ones.— Marcus | The Headline Lab#onpoli #cdnpoli #TheHeadlineLab #DougFord #Ontario ... See MoreSee Less