Premier Ford denies photoshopping protesters' shirts at Ford Fest

Premier Doug Ford is firing back at union protesters who crashed his annual Ford Fest BBQ while his team denies allegations of digitally altering photos to hide demonstrators.

On Tuesday in an unrelated announcement, Ford called the crowd “disrespectful”. But union members are standing firm as they protested again earlier in the day outside of Ford’s news conference.

“We are reaching out to him, making some noise and letting him know that as much as he’s been issuing press conferences talking about historic investments in developmental services — we’re here to for the almost 20,000 OPSEU members who still have not received their remedy for Bill 124,” says Sarah Dennis with OPSEU Local 511.

More than 4,500 community and social services workers went on strike four and a half weeks ago, including in Hamilton.

They’re demanding retroactive pay after Bill 124, that capped salary increases, was ruled unconstitutional.

The union says they have not received retro pay while other public sector workers have.

Union groups say they attended the community event over the weekend to protest and say their pink and purple shirts were changed to blue in images posted on two Member of Provincial Parliament’s social media accounts.

The photo in question can still be found on the X page of Ontario’s Solicitor General Doug Downey.

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Early Tuesday morning, the premier’s office issued a statement denying the allegation.

“Photos from Ford Fest, including the aerial shot posted by two MPPs, had default saturation applied to correct an orange hue. This type of colour correction is standard and routine practice. The images were not otherwise edited or altered in any way,” they wrote.

Ford didn’t address the images directly when asked on Tuesday, but reacted to what he says was the first time protesters have ever attended the festival in its 31-year history.

“Am I disappointed that they dropped off four bus loads of protesters and were using very vulgar language, using the F word every 10 seconds in front of little kids and families, intimidating thousands of our supporters? And then best of all, they ate the hamburgers and they ate the ice cream while they were protesting,” he says.

At Tuesday’s announcement, the premier was also asked about a poll that came out a week ago that found his approval rating is only 21 per cent.

Ford slammed it as being “fake” at the time it was released and doubled down on that on Tuesday, saying if an election was held today his party would win a “super majority.”

The polling company has asked Ford to retract his accusation.