Do people need to get off their asses and start working? Premier Doug Ford certainly thinks so and he’s absolutely right. Ford has been asked two days in a row about the idea that some people living in tent cities, homeless encampments, aren’t doing their best to look after themselves. “Do you know what the best way to get people to be able to get out of the encampments, get out the homeless? Get an application and drop it off at one of these companies and start working,” Ford said Monday.
“You need to start working if you’re healthy. Bottom line. If you’re unhealthy, I’ll take care of you the rest of my life, your life, we’ll take care of you.
But if you’re healthy, get off your A-S-S and start working like everyone else is. Very simple.” Sounds like a pretty common sense approach but of course, those comments had some clutching their pearls.
How dare Ford say such things? Doesn’t he know people are struggling? Of course, Ford knows people are struggling; this is a premier who is more in touch with the average citizen than any politician I’ve ever encountered. He takes their phone calls, he stops to talk to people while he is out, he understands what average people are dealing with on a level most politicians could only dream of. Asked about his comments again on Tuesday, Ford didn’t back away and instead doubled down.
“If there’s anyone out there, maybe have mental health issues, addictions, have a disability, I’m always going to take care of those people for the rest of their lives. You’re young, you’re healthy, and you can work, you have to find gainful employment. That’s what you need to do,” Ford said.
Who can argue with those words? Well, Canada’s crazy progressives — that’s who. “Housing is a human right, not a luxury,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said. Actually, housing is not a human right, not one recognized by our federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Stiles would simply like it to be named a human right so that the government would be required to provide more housing, not that those currently living in parks would step up to live in such housing. “Doug Ford’s heartless comments about people being forced to live on our streets clearly show just how out of touch he is with the reality facing people in Ontario, or how much harder life has become under his watch,” Stiles said. A big part of why people are living in encampments has to do with policies that Stiles and the NDP support.
One example is the NDP’s undying support for so-called “safe supply,” which means handing out opioid pills to addicts and expecting them to get better. This is claimed to be a way to get people who are addicted to drugs into addiction treatment and yet under the current system, treatment for addiction is never offered. That is why the Ford government is changing the current system and moving towards treatment hubs, a change the NDP opposes.
Simply accepting that people will live in parks should not be a position we endorse. That appears to be the position that many of our so-called “progressive” politicians have taken. If we truly care for our fellow citizens, this isn’t a position any of us should take and that is what Premier Ford was clearly speaking about.
If you can work, get off your ass..
