Doug Ford Seeks To Make Anti-Protest Emergency Powers Permanent

Ontario has mostly reopened at this point, with mask mandates, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates presumably behind the province, but it seems like Premier Doug Ford’s PC government does not want to let go of all the new powers it granted itself over the last two years. 

Bill 100 was tabled by the Solicitor General, Sylvia Jones, who was the same PC MPP who tabled Bill 195, ironically named “The Reopening Ontario Act” which gave Ford the power to lockdown Ontario and add restrictions whenever he wanted.

Bill 100, the “Keeping Ontario Open For Business Act” also does the reverse of what its title implies. The Bill is seeking to ban protest in Ontario by making the federal Emergencies Act powers permanent in Ontario allowing police officers to detain people and seize property that is being used for a protest like the Freedom Convoy. 

If Bill 100 passes through committee and is approved in a final vote in the Ontario legislature, the Ontario Police would be allowed to also suspend drivers’ licenses, suspend permits, and take numbered plates, which removes a person’s ability to legally operate their own vehicle. 

Upon Bill 100’s second reading there were only 4 MPPs who had the courage to stand up to this draconian new law those 4 beings:

• Green Party MPP/Leader Mike Schreiner

• New Blue Party of Ontario MPP  Belinda Karahalios

• Independent MPP Roman Baber

• Independent MPP Lindsey Park 

It is notable that Ontario Party MPP Rick Nicholls (formerly a PC MPP) has been trying to portray himself as a tough critic of Doug Ford and the PCs did not show up to vote against Ford’s government trying to stifle protest in the province. A few weeks ago Nicholls also voted in favour of Bill 67, which seeks to inject Critical Race Theory into K-12 education, showing Nicholls to be an unreliable advocate for conservative Ontarians. 

This is becoming a pattern for Derek Sloan’s barely existent Ontario Party. Derek will talk about being a party that will fight to save our education system from radical Leftists, but then his only MPP votes for implementing Critical Race Theory in schools. Recently Derek has been saying that the Ontario Party is “a trucker party”, but his one MPP cannot oppose the government’s power grab that enabled Doug Ford to steal the truckers’ money and property.

Any rational person would recognize that Bill 100 has little to nothing to do with “keeping Ontario open for business” and really is just an attempt by Doug Ford to suppress the voices of conservative Ontarians he has alienated.

It is the height of arrogance for Ford to think that those who have had their businesses, job prospects, and social lives ruined over the past two years of overbearing government control need to be banned from peacefully protesting.

The Freedom Convoy was probably the first time the financially and socially dispossessed actually got to have their voices heard, and Ford just wants them to shut up and go away. He really doesn’t care about those people’s pain because he has an election to win…