‘Get off your A-S-S and start working’: Doug Ford’s advice to the unhoused

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has some blunt advice for those living in tent encampments across the province.

While holding a media scrum at a construction site in the Town of Cobourg, the premier was asked by a reporter what impact his government’s $25 million investment plan to build close to 3,000 homes would have on the over 1,000 people who are currently waitlisted for affordable housing in Northumberland County.

“You know what the best way to get people … out of the encampments? To get out of the homeless? Get an application and drop it off at one of these companies and start working,” Ford said Monday.

He said those who were unhealthy or ill would be taken care of, but he was adamant that those who weren’t need to find work.

“If you’re healthy, get off your A-S-S and start working like everyone else, very simple,” he added.

Ford also said he’s going to challenge a court ruling in Waterloo last year that said homeless people have the right to camp on public land.

“If they’re healthy they shouldn’t be there. They should be out there working and we will find them housing. We’re going to challenge that court case because you can’t have people setting up encampments in beautiful neighbourhoods. They just can’t do it. It destroys the neighbourhoods.”

Ford didn’t indicate how he’ll find housing for people when rents and home prices are sky high.

The premier also turned to other issues, such as how environmental assessments are delaying construction efforts to build Highway 413.

READ MORE: Ontario to begin buying land to build Highway 413, construction slated for next year

“Let’s build the damn highway,” he said. “There’s hundreds of thousands of people stuck in their cars, backed up from here to Timbuktu and you’re worried about a grasshopper jumping across the highway.”

When asked about the current state of bicycle lanes being put onto busy city streets, he called them “an absolute disaster.”