Dear Editor:
I am absolutely appalled by Doug Ford and his crowd of merry men and women who are creating a society with scandal after scandal.
I want to live in a society that values health care for all, education for all, an affordable, sustainable food supply produced on farm land in Ontario and Canada, and this all has to come under a larger umbrella of environmental protection. Instead of that, we get private clinics for health care paying three times the amount that our public system receives out of taxpayer dollars, teachers being fired which will lead to a very broken system that will have to be fixed by the private for-profit model.
And farmland being buried under pavement for more housing, highways and expensive spas. The list goes on and on.
The time has come for Ontarians to stand together to create a society that benefits everyone, not just the “little guys who drink beer,” not just the wealthy developers, not just the families facing undue hardship with medical issues, not just the families with children needing quality education and support, the university students experiencing monumental debt, the people working in low paying jobs for the benefit of those further up the food chain, the elderly needing quality homecare, elder care. We need everyone on board to tell Doug Ford we want a civil society to benefit one and all.
But how will we bring everyone together? One not-so-simple idea is that we come together from the perspective of creating a livable society for everyone and I am suggesting for starters that we call on grandparents, aunts and uncles to look at the future through a new lens that features their special children for the next seven generations.
We have to leave our COVID navel gazing selves at the curb and tell politicians that pandering to a vote-getting model will no longer be tolerated. We need politicians to step to the plate who will say, “Yes, we care about future generations. We will work to provide clean air for them to breathe, clean water for them to drink, quality education, health care and food to eat.”
And yes, this will cost money but our grandchildren, nieces and nephews are worth it. The alternative model, starting with the broken contract with the beer stores, is already costing us plenty, as is the foray onto that very slippery slope of private medicine.
The conversation must begin now. Each and everyone of us must step to the plate to ensure a livable Ontario for future generations.
Burna Wilton,
Guelph