Ford’s handpicked Conservative appointee registers to lobby for US gun manufacturer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
​February 26, 2024

TORONTO, ON – Bonnie Crombie, Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, released the following statement:

"Doug Ford has deliberately appointed partisan Conservatives, who recently were senior staffers in his government, to help select our judges.

"The Premier explicitly said he wanted to bring in US-style partisan judges to rule in a ‘like-minded’ way. He wants to stack the courts with Conservatives. That is not how we do things in Canada.

"But it gets even worse.

"The new Chair of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee registered to lobby on behalf of a major US gun manufacturer — mere days after Doug Ford appointed him to help pick our judges.

"The person Ford appoints to help pick judges is told to pick judges who will rule the way the Premier wants, and a few days later, he registers as a lobbyist to help get a gun manufacturer government grants.

"Is this what ‘like-minded’ means? This is wrong on several levels.

"Worse, it’s part of an intentional pattern. Doug Ford says he’s ‘for the people’ but what he’s really for is his rich, insider friends. He is not bumbling from one crisis to another. He is deliberately enacting a reckless Conservative agenda to help his Conservative cronies get ahead.

"And we are going to stop him. We are going to defeat and replace this scandal-plagued Conservative government with a government on real peoples’ side that works every day to ensure you and your family can live a better life."