PelhamToday received the following Letter to the Editor from reader Faye Suthons regarding the upcoming election. An Editor's Note has been appended below:
Premier Doug Ford definitely was the odd man out during the recent televised leaders debate. For instance, a light question to all on how they spent time off all three candidates extolled the importance of family and nature. Sharing weekly hikes while Ford insisted he is such a great worker and so consumed with his work ethic no time for bonding with nature. This explains his pave over theme.
Often people will say the three leaders are not known but on the other hand with Ford's constant lies some caught during the debate I say do we know who the real Ford is?
[Overspending] on a foreign spa at Ontario Place brought out to which Ford was quite mute.
Bringing up made-up figures of all those who will flock to the spas. All the other three pointed out how much better that money could have been spent.
Recent photo ops with Ford in Washington one wonders how large was that bill from airline travel to meals, etc.
Bonnie Crombie smartly brought down Ford after he criticized her work as mayor of Mississauga, telling the audience that Ford used to praise her on what she was doing as mayor. Just another sample of his two-faced personality and showing we do not know Doug Ford.
It is time for a change. Remember on February 27th: nature, farmlands, green spaces are counting on you not to vote Ford.
Faye Suthons
Wainfleet
Editor's Note: Some 24 hours after this letter was published, we received a tart email from a "management consultant advisory firm" working on behalf of something called the "Therme Group" requesting a correction of "misinformation about Therme Group that is demonstrably untrue." This was puzzling, since the letter writer never mentioned the Therme Group. The letter writer did argue that taxpayer funds to be spent on a spa project at Ontario Place were excessive, citing a figure of $2 billion dollars. This figure was in error. If you, like we, had not previously heard of the Therme Group, because you, like we, live many kilometres away from Toronto and Ontario Place, this lack of knowledge about the Therme Group will now be rectified, and well it should be, since we should all definitely be paying better attention to the Therme Group. The Therme Group is an Austrian registered company, perhaps best known for a spa facility in Bucharest, Romania. An associated corporation, Therme Canada, is a partner in a very interesting deal indeed to build those new spa facilities at Ontario Place, a deal that involves a 95-year lease and a requirement that the province (i.e., we taxpayers) construct a minimum of 1800 parking spaces. Here's the official provincial statement on the Ford deal with the Therme Group. And here is an illuminating commentary on Ford's deal with the Therme Group, "The Ontario Place spa is a costly extravagance we’ll be subsidizing forever," which we highly recommend you read—for a more complete understanding of the Therme Group's deal with the province of Ontario. The commentary was published last October, and presumably its continued existence means that it has survived the scrutiny of the management consultant advisory firm working on behalf of the Therme Group.