Progress Peterborough

Bad taste; Bad Judgement

Ontario’s Conservatives are desperate for good press after Doug Ford’s recent private jet fiasco.

Despite the fact that they are willing to pay for it, his government’s public spending on advertising is not doing Conservatives any favours – at least with this voter.

Their ‘Safer Ontario’ advertisement aired dozens of times during Rogers Sportsnet’s broadcast of game 2 between the Montreal Canadiens and the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs.

It’s time to stop wasting public money on ads like this.

The advertisement brags about eliminating “encampments” from communities, keeping “injection sites” out of neighbourhoods, beefing up policing, and building prisons. It brazenly reveals the Conservatives’ holier-than-thou attitude they hold on what they consider to be matters of justice. Sadly, their approach and over-simplification of complex issues completely ignore the root causes of crime that will continue to persist in communities like Peterborough.

Ford and his communications team should recall that vulnerable Ontario residents are at the heart of these issues. Policies like building affordable housing, decriminalizing drug use, and expanding social services would do far more to make our communities safer than “building prisons” and enforcing a tough-on-crime approach. It might even save taxpayers some money, too, considering that their prison expansion is expected to cost the province over $3 billion.

Conservatives are stubbornly content to stand on the wrong side of these issues. Theirs is a vision for our province that ramps up incarcerations and intolerance towards the most vulnerable – towards those that need the most support.

At the very least, they ought to understand that their advertisement is extremely inflammatory and I, for one, do not support my tax dollars paying for such hurtful propaganda while the government sits on its hands and refuses to lift a finger for the most vulnerable.

They should direct money spent on advertising during the Stanley Cup Playoffs to social causes in desperate need of support; their website does enough talking when it comes to their tough-on-crime rhetoric and agenda.

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