I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Doug Ford and his cabinet ministers are the only political figures to ever figure out that if you don’t use your government issue devices that it’s harder for people to keep track of what you’re up to, but I’m pretty sure they might be the only ones to make themselves sound this silly and guilty of something when called out on it.
Marit Stiles peppered the government with questions about how ministers communicate after Global News revealed the ministers of education, finance, health, housing and transportation made between zero and 20 minutes of calls on their official devices.
Freedom of information requests have also revealed four months where Ontario Premier Doug Ford failed to make a single call from his official device.
“Is it standard practice for ministers to avoid accountability in this way?” Stiles asked Wednesday.
Progressive Conservative House Leader Paul Calandra denied any rules had been broken and said the lack of phone calls was because the Ford cabinet was communicating in other ways.“I’ll tell you what the Minister of Health is doing, like every other minister of the government, we’re not contemplating, ‘How many times did I turn my phone on each and every day?’” he said when asked why Sylvia Jones failed to make a single call from her government device in January.
“There are other ways of communicating: my iPad — actually, I can text message on my iPad.”
I’ll bet you can also text on your official government phone, my guy.
And he keeps going, for some reason. That reason, of course, being that this government is made up almost entirely of dumb, arrogant people whose only purpose in elected life appears to be tripping over their own feet, then spinning around and power walking in the opposite direction.
Phone records obtained by Global News revealed senior cabinet ministers were not using their work devices at key times.
The finance minister, for example, made just two minutes of phone calls in March 2023 when he was finalizing and presenting the province’s annual budget.
All five ministers said they followed record-keeping rules and used other forms of communication like in-person meetings or Microsoft Teams.
“I know the Minister of Finance and the parliamentary assistants are crisscrossing the province,” Calandra said. “Not talking to people on a phone.”
Lol.
What else can you say about a quote like that, honestly. What a clown.
Yes, there are a lot of ways to communicate. Yes, I’m sure the government uses several of them. But the finance minister was only on his work phone for two minutes at budget time because he prefers to set up Zoom meetings and wait for a response? Come on, man. There are good lies and there are bad lies. this, without question, is a bad lie. The sort to which we’ve grown sadly accustomed since 2018.
