Ontarians are pushing back against the government's nonsense
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195.60614
Summary
Ontario is in a crazy situation right now where it has some truly remarkable laws on the books that are not being enforced, that nobody is following, and that many politicians are speaking out against. And yet it seems like the provincial government is being defiant in not backing down on those laws.
Transcript
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Ontario is in a crazy situation right now where it has some truly remarkable laws on the books
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that are not being enforced, that nobody is following, and that many politicians are speaking
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out against. And yet it seems like the provincial government is being defiant in not backing down
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on those laws. What are you talking about, Fury? They got rid of the rules when it comes to
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shutting down the playgrounds, which they did controversially on Friday. They got rid of that
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other law saying they're going to be randomly stopping people in the street, pedestrians and
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motorists. Yes, they got rid of the ones that caused the greatest backlash and the ones that
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I think people knew the most about. But there are also some other truly bizarre nitpicky laws
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that remain on the books and that the government is, yes, saying they're going to remain in place
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for, I don't know, for the next four or five weeks for the length of this latest stay-at-home order.
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Those include no sitting on picnic tables. Yes, they're there in the parks, but they are banned.
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You can be charged for sitting on a picnic table. Really? Yes, really. No playing catch with your
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friend, with your ball team, with your own children, with two small kids, siblings who live in the same
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household. That is against the law. Really? Yes, really. No meeting up a friend, meeting up with a
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friend, and going and lining up for a latte at an outdoor pickup window, going for a stroll, and then
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sitting down on the grass in the park together and having a little chat. That is against the law
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in Ontario right now. It's really quite something. Those were sort of the secondary, second-tier
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announcements that were made by the government last Friday. And people are really frustrated with
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them. People are speaking out against those as well. Now, I think a lot of people are just breaking
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those laws right now, engaging in a million little acts of civil disobedience every day, because they
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probably don't even know these laws are in effect. They are so bizarre, and they haven't really been
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communicated that well. I think other people are deliberately saying, well, we know these laws are
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in effect. We ain't following them. But what does it say when a government gets to a point where
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they're passing all these very aggressive laws? And a lot of people saw that press conference on
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Friday. I mean, boy, they were sounding ominous notes about how serious it was, and how there would be
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enforcement and so forth, how lawbreakers, how they would be dealt with and so forth. What does it say
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when you bring in these laws? You've got police associations saying they won't enforce some of
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them. You've got basically millions of people flat out ignoring them and going on and breaking those
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laws. And then you have politicians like mayors and others stepping forward and saying, we don't even
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really support all of this. There are now various industry associations related to soccer, basketball,
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golf. They are saying, uh-uh, you can't close us down. Reopen it. So basketball courts, outdoor
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basketball courts, they are technically shut down for a lot of young people who live in apartment
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buildings and so forth and very tightly confined spaces. That's one of their only outlets to just
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sort of get outside and get some physical fitness. And you've got groups organizing to say, reopen those.
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Now, when it comes to Ontario soccer saying, we got to get soccer happening again pretty much
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immediately. That's actually a thing that was not newly introduced on Friday. That's been a thing
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that's been on the books for a while now. So what's interesting is after you had the government
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overreach on Friday and police services push back and politicians and millions of people,
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you've actually now got groups basically smelling weakness and saying, we're not buying this nonsense
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from the government anymore. These outdoor restrictions that don't add up and we're going to push even
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further. Really interesting to see that the government not really being humble at all and
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really overreaching. And then it totally backfires. And it looks like the end result is that things are
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going to be even more open than they were before they brought these overbearing restrictions in in the