Doug Ford's Ontario - Dystopian Literature in the Making?

I read a lot. On average, every month or so I usually read 4-5 fiction books and 2 non- fiction book. I also listen to a couple of books a week as I spend my days spinning or weaving. While I am open to reading most types of fiction, my favourite genre is some sort of fantasy or Utopian/dystopian story about people that are sort of like me living on a planet sort of like mine. I have always been intrigued by stories that explore how different societies evolve and how an individual copes with the rules and structures that have been created. I think that type of story if done well, allows the author to explore how different societies might either nourish or destroy a people's capacity to grow and develop as a society. The good authors excite the sociologist within me.

However, few of the authors of Utopian/dystopian fiction spend very much time exploring how those future societies were developed. I always wonder how, for example, an autocratic society is allowed to even start. It always seems to me to be a flaw in all of the great books from More's Utopia to Huxley's Brave New World to even Collins' The Hunger Games (less of a great book) that how or why people allowed it all to happen is not discussed.

It has always been difficult for me to imagine me living in a world where I would willingly give up certain rights and freedom in exchange for perhaps some sort of security; where I would agree to have someone else make all of the critical decisions for me. And that I would do so with no sense of outrage and an overwhelming need to protest any such move.

On the other hand - I no longer live in the Province of Ontario, a place that seems to be rapidly sliding into some sort of dictatorship; a place where the bizarre views of one individual (and one has to assume the party that elected him as a leader) have become the law. The Ontario government is opposed to the federally imposed carbon tax. I would understand if they had a better plan and were not allowed to use it - but they don't have a better plan. The government appears to believe that either the amount of carbon that we spew into the atmosphere has no relationship to climate change or that climate change itself is not happening.

Governments are allowed, perhaps even suppose to disagree with each other. Rational dialogue between competent adults allows the various opposing parties to find reasonable compromises. Doug Ford's definition of a reasonable dialogue is to require gas station owners to post large notices on the gas pumps stating how much money the carbon tax is "taking" from the purchaser. What is missing from that notice is how much money will be rebated back to the consumer (all of it). The notice is disingenuous at best; at worst it is a conscious lie designed to manipulate the voters.

What makes all of this the start of a potentially good dystopian novel is the fact that the Ontario government is proposing passing a law that will significantly financially punish operators and owners who do not post the signs. To be clear - the Ontario provincial government is going to force individuals to post statements that depending upon one's perspective - are either incomplete or untrue. The government is going to force people to post signs that simply are political propaganda and the taxpayers of Ontario will, apparently willingly, pay for the cost of the posters.

Personally, if I had to buy gas in Ontario - I would consider only buying gas at a station that refused to post such signs. They are going to need the money to fight the criminal charges.