Election Result: Big Private Interests Put Their Ducks in a Row
One of the issues the election was used to sort out had to do with the big private interests involved in mining and automotive manufacturing putting their ducks in a row to establish the infrastructure and arrangements needed to extract critical minerals from the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario, process them in Timmins and then ship them south to places like Windsor-Essex for use in producing electric vehicle (EV) batteries for the automotive sector as the joint venture between Stellantis and LG aims to do in the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh. Making this clear, Premier Doug Ford’s first statement in his victory speech after being re-elected was that “we are going to build that road to the Ring of Fire!” Having passed new legislation before the election to establish any roads heading to the U.S. border as secure transportation corridors, the issue for Ford after the election is to “get it done” in terms of ripping resources out of the ground and shipping them securely to the global private interests that covet them in both Canada and the U.S.
Amongst other things, putting their ducks in a row meant going all out to get the former Barrick Gold mining executive and Mayor of Timmins, George Pirie, elected as the Progressive Conservative (PC) MPP in the riding of Timmins, a strategic transit point for the Ring of Fire region, and where the critical minerals are likely to be processed. Timmins was one of the three ridings where the Liberals did not run a candidate in this election, ensuring that the vote to unseat NDP MPP Gilles Bisson who had held the riding for 35 years would not be split between the PCs and Liberals, allowing for a PC win. And it worked. The PCs now hope that that can fast track the construction of roads to the Ring of Fire in the face of First Nations and their communities which have not given their consent to the project.
Another objective was ensuring a PC was elected in the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh so that all the zoning and other arrangements needed for the private interests setting up shop to manufacture electric batteries there could be taken care of as quickly as possible. In the case of Windsor-Tecumseh high placed Liberals in municipal politics joined the PCs in endorsing Doug Ford and the PC candidate and raising doubts about the NDP.
This is why the Ford government is euphoric about its victory despite the fact that 82% of the electorate did not support the Party in the election. The result the cartel parties in power got was achieved by ensuring that the people really had no space to deliberate on the direction of their province post-covid. This ensured that the global private interests that direct the cartel of parties in power could get what they wanted in the result to serve their narrow interests.