Against the People: How Ford Nation Is Dismantling Ontario

Ford’s deregulatory agenda has explicitly degraded the quality of social provisioning and eroded labour rights to the benefit of business. From undermining the fiscal capacity to fund program expenditures adequately to reducing public sector employment and service levels, Ford Nation has reordered an array of ministries and agencies to boost business and development in general and the resource-extraction and investment sectors in particular. Tens of billions have been put back into the pockets of the business community, often directly out of public coffers. Few ministries and programs have been left unscathed. Most people have not benefited.

Against the People is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth look into the devastating policies of the Ford government across a wide range of public policy issues: from health care, municipal, education and judicial restructuring, to economics, arts, labour, environmental, housing and Indigenous lands. Written by on-the-ground experts and focused on the Progressive Conservatives since coming to power in 2018, this book showcases the politics of dismantling a province.