Premier Doug Ford has recently taken to characterizing those who oppose his massive retroactive cuts to Toronto Public Health. It’s just a “bastion of lefties” wasting “ridiculous amounts of money,” he said this week.Let us, then, venture into this bastion to see these lefty spendthrifts in action, at Tuesday’s Toronto city council meeting, where a motion from the former leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party, Mayor John Tory, was being debated. The motion called for the province to reverse the cuts immediately.Councillor Stephen Holyday, of Ward 2 Etobicoke Centre, rose to speak.“Nobody should be surprised, I’m one of the first councillors here to openly admit that I’ve questioned many programs in the city. And I question them fundamentally,” he said.Indeed, he is a second-generation small-government skinflint. His father was for a long time young councillor Rob Ford’s mentor and only ally, and shared with the late mayor the opinion that almost no government spending was good government spending. Stephen followed his old man onto council, and has hewed closely to the family ideology, steadfastly opposing bike lanes, LRTs, the King Street Pilot, road tolls. He’s said and made clear through action that his priority is keeping “government costs contained.” He publicly supported Doug Ford’s cut to the size of city council last year in the middle of the election. He is perhaps council’s most consistent vote against program spending of almost any variety.Read more: City manager says Toronto homeowners could get ‘second tax bill’ due to Ford government cutsOpinion | Edward Keenan: Doug Ford may be the ‘Night King’ of Ontario politics. John Tory has few weapons to fight himFord’s strategy of hitting municipalities with budget cuts, service downloads is ‘risky’ politics, expert says“But I opened up the public h ...
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