Ford Fest is now a longstanding back-slapping exercise by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Billed as a thankyou to Ford's right-wing base, it's more of an expensive public relations event than anything else, not dissimilar to those interminable taxpayer-funded Ontario adverts on local TV.
This year was a bit different, though. This year, Ford Fest was infiltrated in a big way by disgruntled members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), wearing purple t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Worth Fighting For". The protesters drowned out Ford's speech and generally made a real nuisance of themselves. OPSEU is currently demanding increased finding for community, health and social services, an end to public service privatization, and a retroactive reversal of the Conservatives' controversial wage cap legislation.
When members of Ford's caucus shared photos from the event online, though, all of those protesting purple t-shirts were miraculously converted into conservative blue Team Ontario t-shirts. The posters denied all knowledge of subterfuge, and later, there was a rather terse message from the Premier's office explaining how the photo had had "default saturation applied to correct an orange hue", adding that "this type of colour correction is standard and routine practice". The fact that it converted angry purple t-shirts into friendly blue ones was purely coincidental. OK...
This seems like another example of Ford veering towards Trumpian tactics and artifice.
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