Spite is the least useful, and least attractive, emotional motivation. It’s been fuel for a thousand excellent revenge movies, but it is something pathetic and small and mean in real life. It’s petty, destructive, and often counterproductive.We know this. It’s the reason our most famous axiom about spite is that it would lead a person to cut off their own nose.It also appears to be one of the driving forces of our provincial government’s policies and actions. Oh boy. At first it was easy enough for some people to plausibly pretend that petty vengeance was not the main policy rationale behind some high-profile decisions — I mean, what kind of maniac would you have to be to derail an election and restructure an entire level of government on the fly just to mess with some municipal-level politicians you’ve been carrying a grudge against? Surely, in the name of the principle of charitable interpretation if nothing else, we could imagine some actual policy rationale that led to those actions, implemented in a rush as if it were a pressing emergency, and then further led to an attempt to hit the constitutional nuclear button of the notwithstanding clause to force it through if the courts hadn’t ruled it legal?I mean, no such rationale was presented in any way that made sense, but it seemed fair to at least consider that one might exist.Read more: Ontario Tories pile on against Justin Trudeau at party conventionEditorial | Political score-settling at taxpayer expense is the height of hypocrisyOntario Tories open campaign finance loophole that could be exploitedAnd when three new university campuses were cancelled, including one in Brampton around which a whole new urban revitalization plan had been based, the immediate and obvious suspicion that this was a middle finger raised at new Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown seemed too horrible to entertain.But we are talking about Doug Ford. Catering to resentment and bringing the fury of ...
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