If Doug Ford is serious about the threat of American tariffs — though pretending he needs an election to fight them is, er, nuts — then he needs to halt the construction of two major highway projects that will pave over some of the best farmland in the country.
“If built, Highway 413 would run through Ontario’s Greenbelt, prime farmland, wetlands, woodlands, and waterways, connecting suburbs north and west of Toronto,” reports The Narwhal. While much focus from voices against the development has been on the destruction of the habitat of many protected species, current global events have to thrust this discussion back to the role that the land — that unpaved land — plays in feeding Ontarians, and Canadians.
Over 2,000 acres of farmland is poised to be destroyed, at a time when three cities here in southern Ontario have declared food insecurity emergencies.
Ford should pause the Brantford Bypass as “the proposed route pass[es] over the Holland River and cutting through part of the Holland Marsh, which has some of the province’s richest and rarest soil.” Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has said she supports the bypass; she, too, should revisit this decision. The NDP and Ontario Greens have both come out against both projects.
I’m writing this ahead of the February 1 deadline for the promised tariffs, camping out under the Sword of Donaldcles. We’re all dancing at the end of a madman’s chain, full-on hand-wringing yet failing to understand there is no right answer as to what to do, because the question will keep changing. We know this person. That sigh of relief when he took office and didn’t announce tariffs that day? We should buckle up for at least four more years of this cage-and-sabre-rattling bullshit.
According to this Global News report, Canada “has consistently ranked as the top destination for most American consumer-oriented agricultural goods.” Tariffs would impact “everything you see in the healthy section of the supermarket — lettuce, nuts, fruits, melons, vegetables and tubers” immediately. We import many things that we can’t grow here, or at least don’t grow here. But in war — and Mr. Ford isn’t the only one framing a tariff shootout as a war — things change. My late father, a farmer, wouldn’t have known an avocado from his arsehole; we can adapt.
“According to the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service, America’s agricultural exports to Canada in 2023 amounted to US$28 billion. Consumer-oriented products, including fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, processed food, and beverages, constituted 72% of that trade with a value of US$20 billion,” says Global. Ford is pushing “buy Canadian,” and he’s right. But he also needs to protect our ability to provide Canadian.
Ontario exports a significant amount of agricultural products to the U.S., including nearly all our greenhouse vegetables, which will presumably fall under blanket tariffs. As Canadian politicians race to knock down provincial trading barriers, Canada has a chance to be self-sustaining in much of this sector, a key factor in this learning curve that has kicked the entire world’s butt, but especially ours. We need to continue to move in this direction no matter how the goalposts to the south keep moving — and they will keep moving. There is no one-and-done with someone like Trump, and too many pulling the levers will continue to do so long after he’s exited stage right.
Ontario is already burdened with Ford Tariffs. I’m on the hook for a 95-year lease on a spa with a huge mystery-priced parking facility I’ll never go to at a revamped Ontario Place which, according to a recent City of Toronto report, will be a doozy for clogging traffic, whereby “congestion on parts of the Lake Shore Boulevard could increase by as much as 67% by 2032.” Nobody liked my recent addressing of congestion pricing, but the topic hasn’t been out of the headlines since.
I’m still questioning a $189-million election we don’t need (Mr. Ford, seriously, you get to run this province like a potentate already). Back to transportation, explain to me what makes sense about a low-estimate $60–billion tunnel Ford hadn’t thought of until, I’m guessing wildly, Mr. Musk tossed it on the table during a convo about the interlinks. I’ve cynically made up my mind to accept that the much-anticipated RCMP report on the Greenbelt shenanigans will give Mr. Mueller’s a run for his money; pleasant surprises graciously accepted.
Mr. Ford likes aggressive energy. He uses phrases like “bringing a knife to a gunfight.” “We’re sending a message to the U.S. You come and attack Ontario, you attack the livelihoods of Ontario and Canadians, we’re going to use every tool in our toolbox to defend Ontarians and Canadians across the border,” he told CBC. “This is gonna be a battle for the next four years,” he told the BBC.
In a tariff war, you shed what you can and pull up the drawbridge. In the case of Canadian farmland, well, to quote every Dad everywhere, they’re not making it any more. There’s a reason Bill Gates keeps buying it. Napoleon famously said an army marches on its stomach. In times of uncertainty, you plant gardens, you don’t tear them out.
I could list all the lost-cause enormously expensive initiatives Premier Ford has undertaken (Ontarians drink too much it seems; we get it) and, yes, I could also list previous administrations’ questionable and terrible use of my money. Too many of Ford’s decisions seem abrupt and back-of-the-wedding-napkin. In a different time, maybe we could eventually rebuild the damage from reckless decisions. But thousands of acres of some of the best farmland in the country being covered in asphalt can never be retrieved, and it’s time for Ford’s protectionist actions to match his fighting words.
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