Before and during the pandemic, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has implemented a right wing agenda to undercut democratic decision-making, attacked Toronto’s city council, and abused parliamentary procedure to silence debate and critique. For Ford, the goals are simple: making government more “efficient” at the expense of basic democratic protections and privileging the power of capital over public institutions.

What takes place in the House of Commons in September will be of considerable interest but the fight for workers’ rights, decent income and housing that we take up outside of Parliament will be considerably more important. We can be sure that whatever Trudeau’s “ambitious plan” looks like in the end, that fight will remain urgent and inescapable.

Since winning the provincial election in 2018, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has made critical interventions in landlord-tenant relations. In declaring Ontario ‘Open For Business,’ Ford has made a concerted effort towards privileging landlords and developers at the expense of tenants in both market and legal adjudication. The question is, will we let him?

As unemployment remains high, CERB remains an important way to keep Canadians afloat. We should continue fighting for its survival. But the long-term idea of converting CERB to basic income, both as a policy and strategy for the left, is less a matter of principle and imagining the possible than it is a gamble with conservatives and free market fetishists.

The ideas raised at the recent Courage press conference urge government officials and journalists to consider the importance of essential workers and vulnerable communities, not only during the pandemic, but in Canada’s economic recovery. Only by taking stock of their concerns and demands will Canada be better prepared for future crises.

When unprecedented crisis situations arise, protectionist laws are implemented, bills are amended, and policies changed. However, for those under temporary or vulnerable legal status in Canada, exploitative conditions are continuously normalized. It is time for Canada and its universities to reassess their treatment of international graduate students.

The verdict is in: not only have Ford and his PC government not stepped up during the pandemic, but their response to the crisis has been delayed, negligent, and ineffectual. To claim that Ford has shown strong leadership during this crisis requires deliberately closing one’s eyes to the ugly realities confronting Ontario’s most vulnerable.

Without proactive and big-dreaming progressive leadership at all levels, the municipal financial crisis will only grow worse. As we ask about the city we want, the question then becomes: what kind of leaders do we want, and what kind of leaders should we kick to the curb? Is their urgency proportionate to the scale of our city’s crises? Is it life and death to them as it is to us?

This marks the sixth installment in an ongoing curated series that asks contributors to imagine the perils and possibilities that will ground our collective response to or emergence from the COVID-19 crisis. The sixth edition is about the Arctic, with contributions from Crystal Gail Fraser, Julia Christensen, and James Wilt.

We are entering a period of crisis that is simply without precedent and the course the federal government is pursuing shows a clear intention to ensure that working class people will pay for that crisis, while corporations are cushioned and supported by the state. Unions and communities will have to respond to this with a united fightback against attacks on workers’ rights and public services.