An open letter from someone who’s been in the streets protesting Doug Ford
I’m getting tired of protesting.
Not because I’ve given up — but because I’ve been out there, over and over, sign in hand, voice raw, marching in the heat and standing in the cold with thousands of other Ontarians who are furious, and I keep getting the same feeling: nobody in power is listening. Our MPPs pocket our tax dollars, nod politely at town halls, and then go back to Queen’s Park and vote however Doug Ford tells them to.
So I’m putting it in writing, for public consumption, because not enough of us are showing up. It’s the same people, over and over, carrying the weight. And the truth is simple: this government is not going to listen until there are so many of us in the streets that they don’t have a choice.
The decision to start protesting isn’t about party politics anymore. This is about a Premier who is systematically dismantling the things that make Ontario worth living in — and now, actively trying to make sure you can’t find out what he’s doing and how much it’s costing us.
Let’s start with the most dangerous move: the FOI blackout. The Ford government is introducing legislation to make the Premier’s records — along with those of every cabinet minister and parliamentary assistant — completely exempt from Freedom of Information requests, and it’s retroactive. The province’s own Information and Privacy Commissioner called it “shocking” and “alarming,” saying it is “about hiding government-related business to evade public accountability.”
This isn’t modernization. This move would undo more than 35 years of lawful public access to those records — and it comes, deliberately, right as the government is losing court battles over Ford’s personal phone records and Greenbelt emails. If you have nothing to hide, you don’t rewrite the rules to hide it.
And the Greenbelt. Ford promised he wouldn’t touch it. He said it clearly during a debate. And then he went ahead and did exactly the opposite. His government shifted 7,400 acres outside the Greenbelt reserve, with some developers having purchased property in the area shortly before the changes were announced, raising serious questions about who got tipped off.
The RCMP’s sensitive and international investigations unit launched a criminal investigation. That investigation has been ongoing for over a year, with results still pending. Meanwhile, opposition leaders have argued that the snap election call in 2025 was an attempt to get ahead of any charges stemming from the Mounties’ probe. Think about that. Our Premier may have called a province-wide election — costing us $189 million — partly to outrun a criminal investigation.
Then there are the safe consumption sites. Between 2020 and 2024, trained workers at Ontario’s supervised consumption sites medically intervened to prevent almost 22,000 overdose deaths. Ford shut them down anyway, replacing them with abstinence-only HART hubs — because apparently, Ford’s ideology matters more than people not dying in alleyways. Toronto Public Health warned this would lead to more overdoses and more pressure on paramedics. The evidence is there. The bodies will follow. But Ford says he won’t reverse course.
Education and healthcare are the ongoing, frustrating issues. The story is the same: photo-op funding announcements, real-world cuts. Per-student funding has dropped by roughly $1,500 since 2018, while schools crumble, and public money flows to private clinics offering the same procedures at a higher cost. Our ERs close. Our nurses burn out and leave. The waitlists grow. The Premier sends us $200 cheques before elections and calls it leadership. That $200 wouldn’t even cover a week of private health insurance in the U.S., let alone a year.
So here is what I said to my MPP, and anyone who will listen: you work for us. Not for the developers who show up at family weddings. Not for the donors whose calls get answered on personal cellphones that the Premier fought to keep secret. Not for the lobbyists racing through the revolving door between Queen’s Park and the private sector. They work for US!
If you need proof that they know exactly what they’re doing and don’t care, just take a look at the 2026 budget.
It is their answer to every protest, every petition, every letter, every person who has stood in the cold holding a sign. This “BUDGET” funds a $2 billion spa and convention center at Ontario Place that nobody asked for. It keeps Highway 413 and the 401-tunnel fantasy alive — billions for roads that solve nothing — while municipalities are shorted $4 billion they need to function.
It earmarks hundreds of millions for HART hubs built on ideology, while the safe consumption sites that were actually saving lives get shut down. It sends money to private clinics that charge more while public ERs close. It allocates nothing for the $17 billion school repair backlog. This budget does not reflect difficult trade-offs or tough choices. It reflects exactly whose interests this government serves — and it sure as hell isn’t yours.
Our silence is his permission. Every time we shake our heads and go back to our lives, Ford wins. He is counting on our exhaustion. He has built his political survival on the bet that we are too stretched, too tired, too busy surviving to notice him retroactively rewriting the laws that were catching him.
I’ve been in the streets. It hasn’t been enough — YET. But it could be if we faced reality: THERE AREN’T ENOUGH OF US PROTESTING. Protests don’t fail because they don’t work. They fail because too many people sit comfortably on the sidelines, hoping someone else will carry it.
So I’m asking you—no, I’m telling you—pay attention and show up. Not just online. Not just in conversation. But, in person, holding your sign – protesting at your MPP’s office or wherever pressure can actually be felt.
It’s obvious that this government is not going to change course out of goodwill. It will change when ignoring us becomes harder than listening.
This province belongs to us. But if we don’t act like it—if we don’t show up in numbers that can’t be dismissed—we are going to lose it. And we won’t get to say we didn’t see it coming.
We already watched this exact story play out in the United States under Donald Trump. People were warned. They didn’t take it seriously. And look where that got them. We are not special. It can happen here, too.
This province belongs to us, and it’s time we took it back. ✊
Sources: RCMP Greenbelt investigation, CBC | FOI exemption announcement, Globe and Mail | IPC Commissioner’s statement | Safe consumption site closures, CBC | Social Planning Toronto election backgrounder
You can find up-to-date information on upcoming protests at this Facebook site, “Fighting Ford (protest Doug)”. The next protest is on April 25th in many towns and cities in Ontario. The times and locations are posted on this Facebook site.
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