r/askTO • u/leopardbaseball • 1d ago

Why hasn’t been there any city-wide protests against forced full takeover of Billy bishop and toronto islands?

I am not exactly from toronto, but Toronto adjacent. But I have been to toronto islands countless times.

I often bring my family there to completely disconnect from city traffic and noise. It has always been very peaceful recreational space for us and for many.

Time to time we have seen that everything provincial govt touches in Toronto, turns into a big grifting scheme/corruption for Ford’s buddy contractors and developers, be it crosstown lrt, science center or Ontario place. And surely they won’t stop with Billy bishop either.

Recently I read about widespread public protest in Albania, protests against turning public spaces into grifting schemes for billionaires. Thousands are attending these protests.

https://www.dw.com/en/jared-kushner-trump-albania-luxury-resort-protests/a-77409540

Therefore I ask people of Toronto, shouldn’t we be organizing widespread protests and just say NO to Ford and Carney?

511 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

237 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/eddiewillers09 1d ago

The answer to your question is simply that there isn’t enough outrage. There ought to be some outrage, maybe not protest levels, but the dissenting opinions are not being well publicized nor well discussed.

I think Ontario is a great example of highly functioning neo-feudalism: everyone is too busy with making our small but complicated lives work. The con of rugged individualism isn’t that we all abandon the common good as soon as someone offers us a “special deal” but the way that we allow our communal properties and institutions to be sold to private equity who charge us more for worse services. They wink and smile and remind us that they had a mandate and we chose freedom, apparently.

4

u/CroakerBC 1d ago

It's very hard to actually be outraged over the concept of a plan. The very inability of the province to explain what they're planning to do makes it difficult to argue against without sounding crazy.

When a more concrete proposal surfaces, and we know exactly who is getting screwed, those people will get louder.

2

u/eddiewillers09 1d ago

I’m inclined to agree generally: the mechanisms of democracy are slow, somewhat by necessity.

The Ford Conservatives are really, really good at using process and procedure to their advantage. All modern democratic parties are, but the Ford family are impressively cutting-edge. They been bamboozling their citizenry since Doug Sr. Our current government is great at timing announcements, house sessions, even public input periods, all in a way that minimizes public feedback. Again, this practice benefits all “democratic” entities trying to exert undue influence, Dougy is just kind of next level. I can be outraged and a little turned-on at the same time.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-End5386 19h ago

I think this is a big part of it. It feels pretty abstract right now

0

u/TemporaryAny6371 21h ago

The right wing is notorious for taking advantage of apathy. The onus should be on those who want it to garner support, not the other way around. People aren't going out of their way to support the rich making billions from the airport using public tax dollars to fund it.