Full Comment - Why Doug Ford keeps steamrolling his Ontario election critics

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00:00:53.840 restaurants in canada for a limited time i'm chris hadfield astronaut and citizen of planet earth

00:01:01.680 join me on a journey into the systems that power the world no politics just real conversations with

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00:01:16.880 in the last ontario election doug ford bored the province to sleep and won a bigger majority than

00:01:22.640 he had one in 2018 well fast forward two and a half years and in the current election he's riling

00:01:28.800 up the electorate using donald trump as a punching bag and it seems to be working hello and welcome

00:01:34.240 to the full comment podcast my name is brian lily your host and today a look at the ontario election

00:01:40.720 canada has been very bad to us on trade but now canada is going to have to

00:01:44.720 start paying up so i think canada is going to be a very serious contender to be our 51st state

00:01:53.040 ontario's election is all about one man and he's not even a resident of ontario it's donald trump

00:01:58.960 doug ford's pitch is that he and his pc party need a mandate to fight back against the american president

00:02:04.880 with his tariff and annexation threats canadians are standing united from coast to coast to coast

00:02:11.600 to protect canada from donald trump's tariffs the history books will show it was canada's

00:02:19.360 premiers who first answered the call to stand up and fight donald trump's tariffs ford snap election

00:02:26.640 call is something that he was telegraphing for months we all saw it coming we just didn't think

00:02:31.680 it would be about the american president at least for him ndp leader merit styles is trying to keep

00:02:37.200 her party as the official opposition insists they're ready this is a snap election you know

00:02:42.480 doug ford called an election three weeks ago uh his intention was to catch us all uh off our game

00:02:49.120 well we are working really hard my team has put together a fully costed platform it will be released

00:02:54.160 before the election and i'm proud of it and liberal leader bonnie crombie has been doing her best trying

00:02:59.040 to get voters excited so that they can regain official party status maybe even overtake the ndp i have

00:03:05.440 some really great news we are going to announce our platform today yeah and i'm so proud of the work

00:03:15.280 that we have done on our platform not a lot of it is new for you because it's things i've been speaking

00:03:21.040 about the entire campaign and it really focuses on the basics and getting the basics right for ontarians

00:03:29.040 the things that matter try as they might to woo voters the polls would seem to be showing that styles

00:03:34.400 and crombie aren't breaking through and doug ford looks set to win an even bigger majority his third

00:03:40.160 time around joining me on the podcast to talk about this is laurie goldstein a columnist and former

00:03:45.360 editor-in-chief of the toronto sun he spent years covering queen's park as a reporter and from the

00:03:50.640 national post chris ellie who's also toiled the hallways of the ontario legislature trying in vain

00:03:57.440 to hold politicians to account all right gents um we've all heard the the reason doug ford called

00:04:03.040 the election we've all heard the opposition leaders say doug ford shouldn't have called the election

00:04:08.080 they've they've all been trying to make their case on why they should be elected but this kind

00:04:12.560 of looks like a foregone conclusion doesn't it laurie yeah i mean everybody went to the what happened in

00:04:19.120 um 1990 when peterson uh david peterson the former liberal premier went uh without a good reason to

00:04:26.320 go and we ended up with an ndp government led by uh bob ray that didn't happen here and i think one of

00:04:34.320 the reasons was that you know people ford's written approval ratings are so so but there's no anger against

00:04:42.400 him if there was then obviously like premier you didn't go because of what's going on in the united

00:04:50.800 states with trump you were floating an early election months ago you were floating an early

00:04:56.640 election you reported on it brian before um trump was elected so that's the excuse then the second part

00:05:04.880 of it is so okay you've got a majority government it has a mandate till july of next year

00:05:11.200 and you need another mandate why you think 10 more seats is going to affect donald trump and in

00:05:21.920 terms of success yeah ford and the premiers have all gone down there has anything changed um you know

00:05:29.680 trump's not gonna trump's not gonna deal with him he's a provincial premier i'll just say that i have

00:05:34.640 to eat some crow because between christmas and new year i wrote a column saying doug ford won't be calling

00:05:39.600 an early election anytime soon um and at that point he wasn't his his mind was going against his advisors

00:05:47.920 who were saying we should go early and then they you know the the trump tariff threat kept coming down

00:05:54.320 and he suddenly realized oh well i've got a narrative i can play with doesn't mean it's necessarily true

00:06:00.480 but it's a narrative he can play with and chris it looks like he's played it successfully because

00:06:05.120 well i'll just read off the average of polls from 338 canada the pcs 45 percent the ontario liberals at

00:06:13.040 27 percent the ndp at 18 percent and the greens at six and that would give doug ford uh estimate of

00:06:20.960 about 96 seats the liberals 14 or sorry the ndp 14 the liberals 12 and two for the greens

00:06:28.400 yeah it's uh it does seem to have paid off uh i will note that that uh as recently as a or as soon as

00:06:36.480 a uh a week out from that 1990 election i was just looking at this uh earlier today that that uh polls

00:06:42.800 still had the liberals winning it was only the last poll like seven days before um where the

00:06:49.760 suddenly they had the ndp in front back in 1990 but i don't think that that's going to happen i mean bob

00:06:55.040 say what you will about him is a considerably more talented politician um i think than merit styles

00:07:01.520 uh who is more or bonnie crombie or bonnie crombie yeah although i think bonnie crombie has has i don't

00:07:07.360 know i mean she's hauled the liberals out of the absolute basement in terms of the popular vote but

00:07:11.920 the popular vote doesn't get you anything on election day um i've been kind of surprised how often

00:07:18.080 crombie and styles have both hit on this note that we shouldn't be having this election i mean that

00:07:24.000 just seems like a terrible election issue to to me to tell people that we shouldn't be doing this

00:07:30.480 well well then why i mean like should i stay home i or maybe i'll just stick with the with the devil

00:07:36.000 i know um in terms of his i think it's something that can work for the first couple days and if it

00:07:41.360 catches fire that's right stick with it but they all went with it in the first couple days and there

00:07:46.960 was no fire there uh the the public seemed to be like yeah okay i mean doug ford's been talking

00:07:52.000 about an early election since last may so we were expecting it so maybe they weren't bothered

00:07:57.200 because of that yeah it is surprising though i mean he is among the least popular premiers

00:08:02.240 if not the least popular in canada the last poll i saw so i guess that's what it is it's it's

00:08:08.400 he's not people don't love him but i don't think people necessarily need to love their politicians

00:08:13.200 um i know i don't uh so i i think that applies to all three of us yeah uh daryl bricker uh of ipsos

00:08:22.640 who's been telling me for years laurie that um liberal voters need inspiration and conservative

00:08:29.040 voters need competence and i i guess ford has shown some level of competence um enough that people are

00:08:36.640 willing to stick with them bonnie crombie you know she's lifted the party a couple of points

00:08:42.160 since she took over in what was it december of 2020 2023 yeah um you know i think they were at 24

00:08:50.160 points then now they're at about 27 some polls say maybe 30 uh but not exactly inspiring she's just

00:08:57.520 released her her platform and one of the promises is we'll take opioid deaths to zero in four years

00:09:05.280 um look even before the opioid crisis uh opioid deaths in canada were not zero i i i don't have

00:09:14.560 the ontario numbers in front of me but i you know i i write about bc's disaster quite a bit and i can

00:09:20.400 tell you a decade ago in 2014 before fentanyl shows up they had about 375 opioid deaths now it's over 2500

00:09:29.200 just tell me you're going to bring it down don't tell me zero and then when she's asked well how will

00:09:33.760 you do that what will you do and she said well we'll follow the science and the reporter followed

00:09:38.240 up and said well what does that mean does that include um safe injection sites and she said yes

00:09:43.920 but not near schools or daycares or playgrounds or small businesses but we'll follow the science

00:09:49.520 and that's the end of the answer yeah i think there's a couple observations uh there um first of all

00:09:55.280 um it's certainly true that ford is not universally popular but he's not running against indira um he's

00:10:02.000 not running against gandy and mother theresa he's running against bonnie crombie and and styles uh the

00:10:08.640 second thing is i think you're both absolutely right there comes a point where people know they have to

00:10:14.160 vote and so continually telling them um that there's no point or which is what you're saying why are we

00:10:20.000 having this election that's a bad strategy they should have pivoted much earlier and on the issue

00:10:25.200 like on this issue of opioid opioid this is infected our politics at every level of government uh promises

00:10:33.280 that the public knows will not be met because they can't be met because when it comes to health care

00:10:40.080 demand is uh infinite and resources are finite and you know doug doug ford promised to end hallway medicine

00:10:48.960 um but you're not going to do any better um but i was a young reporter i remember looking at all

00:11:18.160 their platforms and we saw this during the debate when they they raised them all how many doctors

00:11:22.080 they would hire it all sounds the same yeah and they also go by they do they do the amount of the

00:11:28.400 this this is another thing the amount governments use the amount of money they're spending as an

00:11:33.680 indication that they're solving the problem the two are completely unrelated you can spend a ton of

00:11:39.360 money and nothing improves and that's what the public sees i'll give you an example uh and chris jump

00:11:45.680 in any time but doug ford they keep saying ford and the pcs have cut health care and so at the last

00:11:52.720 budget or fall economic statement i forget which it was i said okay well have they cut and ran the

00:11:59.600 numbers and of course in total dollar terms of course it's up um but as a percentage and using inflation

00:12:06.720 adjusted dollars the total spend on health care is up 34 percent now okay factor in population growth

00:12:15.440 which has been insane and and that's a federal issue that impacts every province that has seen

00:12:20.720 this crazy population growth okay we'll add more doctors great we'll give you two more two million more

00:12:25.600 people but no more doctors you're you're gonna have the same problem but once you factor in population

00:12:30.640 growth and inflation um health care spending is it's still up but only by about two to three percent

00:12:38.240 um compared to before you took office so you can't say it's cut but it's not a huge increase when

00:12:44.880 you look at the growth of the province and and so we're kind of treading water uh in a system that

00:12:50.960 just devours more money all the time well i think the other thing is is that they don't i think one of you just

00:12:56.640 alluded to this i mean if you look at the plans uh the group there are the ndp's plan the liberals plan

00:13:03.200 uh and the tory's plan for health care they're not very different i mean they all agree basically

00:13:08.800 on the need to move to the sort of family health team model and i think that's a good idea i mean i'm

00:13:14.240 a patient of one of them myself and it's it's so much better than having one gp who's you know

00:13:20.720 referring you all over town and and uh things like that i mean so i on the one hand it's kind

00:13:26.480 of a big ask i think after seven years uh for ford to say oh look well i've just came up with i came

00:13:32.240 up with this plan and here's dr philpot uh that happened on sort of the day the election was called

00:13:38.480 i believe oh no let's be fair it was the day before or maybe even two all right fair enough fair enough

00:13:47.520 but roughly concurrent with the uh with the red shopping she uh suddenly they had this plan and

00:13:55.520 to me if if anything was going to turn for them it was going to be health care i mean i i feel like

00:14:01.040 that's the number one issue and and everyone has a horror story um but do they trust you know when

00:14:11.120 they say oh the liberals invented hallway medicine you know i think that's an ndp line or it's probably

00:14:16.160 conservative line as well um well yeah i mean we don't trust anyone i don't know i i mean and

00:14:24.400 and that that speaks to another point that i'll be interested to see is the turnout um i don't see

00:14:29.840 why this wouldn't be the lowest turnout election we've ever seen uh and and that'd be kind of funny if

00:14:36.080 if ford got a got an absolutely an even bigger majority with fewer votes well i wonder about that

00:14:42.240 because you know we're laughing at the idea that he called the election for donald trump

00:14:47.200 and yet you talk to people and you look at polling the whole trump attack on canada 51st state the the

00:14:54.160 tariffs issue it has ignited national pride including national pride in people that until two minutes ago

00:15:00.320 were saying we're a genocidal state built upon white supremacy post-national with no core identity

00:15:06.480 hello justin trudeau uh but but everyone is suddenly super nationalistic and i think that's

00:15:12.640 part of why they're buying into ford's line that he needs to do this to counter trump uh because there

00:15:20.080 there is this hey no i'm canadian and i'm standing up for this country that i didn't care about five

00:15:25.760 minutes ago i mean lots of canadians did that's just what the uh i think the chattering classes in our

00:15:31.200 country uh uh felt present company excluded um so maybe it does develop a further uh fervor where

00:15:39.280 people come out and say no heck no i'm going to vote because damn it doug ford does need that mandate

00:15:45.680 i the national pride thing's taken off far more than i expected yeah no look um and that's what ford's

00:15:52.640 advertising is it's all about protecting ontario he'll fight for you um and they've made that their whole

00:15:59.200 theme and and i i agree i don't think people make their decision about who to vote for on on a list

00:16:07.280 of check marks of okay health care education they look at the person and they go do i trust the cut of

00:16:15.200 his or her chip is that someone who um uh makes me feel confident or does it worry me and so absolutely

00:16:25.040 i believe uh we can say as much as uh we want to and we're right that uh ford used it as an excuse

00:16:33.680 not as a reason to go out to um to run but but i think the public perception is this donald trump is an

00:16:42.960 sob we need an sob to fight him now the other thing is at the time ford came out hard ottawa was in

00:16:54.960 chaos um because trudeau waited solo to resign so when he comes out okay we got a lame duck premier

00:17:03.440 we got the liberals doing a leadership race and their messages at the beginning were very

00:17:08.640 you know you know christian frielen everything's fine we negotiated in 2017 we'll negotiate again

00:17:16.080 uh trudeau uh yeah you have to be careful with what um trump says which is true but when the guy's

00:17:23.920 dumping all over our country and therefore our province um that's significant and ford you know

00:17:30.400 he hit the mark he came out saying basically street fighter when somebody does this to you you hit

00:17:37.040 him back harder we can't hit him back harder but but yeah no he hit he hit the moment perfectly

00:17:42.480 it might seem uh ridiculous if you just sit there from a pure public policy point of view and i know

00:17:48.240 the uh the distillers that i was speaking to were pretty angry but his his order to take all american

00:17:55.760 booze off the shelves um people notice that i mean that we are that we'd already picked that we'd already

00:18:02.560 paid for yeah but they're also canceling future contracts yeah that's significant and and and they were

00:18:08.800 noticing that you know he it was a bit different than david eby out in british columbia where the

00:18:13.760 ndp premier there said well we'll only take off booze from red states uh not not blue states i think he

00:18:19.840 wanted to keep his california chardonnay on ice and keep drinking that so you we we can all say well

00:18:26.080 that's a horrible public policy idea the public loved it it was an emotional response and voting at

00:18:32.160 the end of the day for most people is an emotional it's an intuitive action it it's not logic yeah

00:18:40.480 and i have to say like i rolled my eyes when i first saw the idea of pulling booze off the shelves

00:18:46.080 you know like i thought it was probably a good political strategy but i mean i it just i don't

00:18:51.600 know it offends me on several levels um but the the you know the more i thought about it you know the

00:18:57.840 the more you you see like kentucky lawmakers are suddenly like whoa whoa whoa you know

00:19:04.080 what about our bourbon and it's like well you guys are hardcore republicans i mean maybe go talk to

00:19:10.080 the president the governor is a democrat but uh both senators and most of the people from congress

00:19:16.800 are are republicans so yeah the the bourbon or tennessee whiskey yeah tennessee as well uh so i

00:19:23.760 thought that was i mean yeah kind of a master stroke uh politically but also vodka is out of

00:19:29.600 texas that's huge it's one of the biggest also potentially a real you know you got to hit them

00:19:36.000 well yeah i don't know maybe there's other ways to do it but but it seems like the consensus is you

00:19:40.960 have to retaliate and you have to hit them where it hurts and that's things like orange juice and

00:19:46.240 whiskey and all that stuff in in the republican heartland so

00:19:50.400 yeah i i thought it was uh a good move uh the the blue state red state thing was hilarious i mean

00:19:56.720 that was just pure uh that was just that was just wine drinkers privilege right i mean how many

00:20:01.600 how many red states make wine um none come to mind oregon washington california basically just down in

00:20:09.600 arizona and they've started making wine but you can't find it on canadian shelves it was quite good it

00:20:14.800 was quite good i you know travel junket down to arizona opened my eyes to that state and it just flipped to

00:20:20.080 to trump so he was very happy um but yeah you can't buy that up here yeah but california chardonnay

00:20:26.960 well i i think he'd be happy if he started getting calls from california politicians saying i'm really

00:20:32.480 angry at what you've done to my uh my state but he's going to be upset at the ones from from kentucky and

00:20:38.400 tennessee you're right so you know it's interesting well i'll shift to federal gears for a minute this

00:20:45.280 whole idea of retaliation and dollar for dollar the best description i've heard of it maybe you guys

00:20:50.640 have heard you know better descriptions from others but pier poliev was laid out his plan and he said

00:20:58.080 we've got to hit them dollar for dollar but we don't have to tariff what they do and the way he

00:21:02.560 described it i thought was the best i'd heard if it's something that we need we're not going to put

00:21:07.760 a tariff on it if it's something that we can build here or buy elsewhere we will and i thought okay in

00:21:14.480 the middle of winter that's really smart because we're getting a lot of our vegetables from like

00:21:18.880 bakersfield california and places like that and fresh vegetables and fruit is an important thing uh but you

00:21:27.120 know yeah if we can if we can find an alternative tariff it at 50 who cares uh if we're going to

00:21:33.440 retaliate there there is this and i i agree that that's a wise approach because you know there is

00:21:41.360 this sort of um contradiction where we say all tariffs are bad now here's ours i mean well are they

00:21:49.600 are they all bad or are they not like why are we making our lives more expensive we say well this is

00:21:54.800 just going to make americans lives more expensive and then we put in tariffs they're going to make

00:21:57.920 canadian's lives more expensive i mean it's i think it's probably the only language that trump understands

00:22:04.800 um it's just purely sort of transactional uh moves like that but it doesn't mean we

00:22:11.680 you know as you say fresh vegetables i mean people seem to like those and if we if we get rid of those

00:22:19.120 then in the winter we don't have any you know i guess we have some stuff in the root cellar

00:22:24.720 from uh from the summer but you know other than that we don't have anything you and i live in

00:22:31.280 downtown toronto we we both live in condo heaven chris there's no root cellars come on there's no

00:22:36.640 root cellars i think i may have a sack of potatoes under the in the cupboard over there from a while

00:22:40.800 back one one area of canada's industry that's going to be hit hard uh is uh beer i've been talking to

00:22:48.320 the the brewers and they're really worried about the terrace because the aluminum comes from here

00:22:52.960 and most beer is now sold in cans the days of the stubby they're long gone but so are the days of

00:22:58.640 the long neck most beer gets sold in cans made out of aluminum and so the aluminum gets shipped down

00:23:04.880 from quebec to the states there are can makers in canada but no one makes what's called can sheet

00:23:13.120 which they use to make the can so there's going to be a tariff on the canadian aluminum as it goes

00:23:19.040 into the united states and then they're worried that there's going to be a second tariff so a double

00:23:24.160 tariff when the can sheet comes back up for them to fill the cans and sell you your budweiser

00:23:29.280 a great canadian beer yeah i think there's a there's a lot of you know patriotism now because

00:23:34.560 nothing's happened and so people and like totally understandable people are angry but we also have

00:23:40.800 to remember if this speak and i do agree with polyev that has to be strategic because if we get into an

00:23:47.360 all-out tariff war with the united states we'll lose and so there has to be off ramps or at least

00:23:53.840 attempts to have off ramps so all that stuff is important but the unity now that we all have when

00:24:01.920 it hasn't cost anybody anything to me that's a mirage remember the start of covet we're all in this

00:24:08.240 together you know the government's going to help you uh we're going to get through this together

00:24:13.760 and within how many well a little over a year we were at war with each other we were literally at

00:24:20.560 war with each other the premiers couldn't even keep their their message straight when they were

00:24:24.480 down in washington i mean they were all freelancing their own policy ideas off the on the hoof that that

00:24:30.480 were all speaking to their own local concerns or provincial concerns um so yeah i mean it was always a

00:24:36.320 complete you know everyone's yelling at danielle smith for not signing the document but i mean

00:24:42.160 a signature doesn't mean anything if the if the person doesn't actually believe in it and i don't

00:24:46.320 think most of them do no the uh the the premiers being unified in the team canada approach you saw

00:24:52.880 the other day doug ford out campaigning in the ontario election they they announced he's got a special

00:24:58.960 surprise guest in a campaign stop in milton ontario just outside of toronto and i'm like huh

00:25:05.040 who's that going to be i didn't bother going uh because i wasn't that interested but it turns out

00:25:09.280 it was nova scotia premier tim houston and i thought uh are there a lot of nova scotians in milton is he

00:25:17.360 trying to vote but they announced they wanted to break down the the trade barriers and everyone's

00:25:22.000 talked about that and yet you see that francois lego is still saying probably not to a pipeline and mark

00:25:30.080 carney who's running to be our next unelected prime minister uh told a group in colonna yeah

00:25:35.760 we've got to build infrastructure and i'll use emergency uh powers of the federal government to

00:25:40.560 build desperately needed infrastructure on things like energy uh and then does a quebec tv interview

00:25:47.280 and says yeah but no that doesn't mean pipelines for you guys so it's like we're you know we've got a lot

00:25:53.920 of coming together except where we're going to argue carney wants remember carney wants to impose

00:25:59.520 a tariff on canadians uh the it's this border leakage thing that you um the carbon a border

00:26:07.920 adjustment and what yeah and what that means is that what that means is that you've seen it all over the

00:26:14.400 world where where countries are in places with less rigid or no uh greenhouse gas emission plan

00:26:22.240 they stay there or um companies from high tariff or high taxes go there so what you do is you make

00:26:31.120 the uh their imports more expensive so the government of canada under mark carney would decide does this

00:26:38.160 country have um a climate change policy equivalent to ours if they don't we'll tariff what we import from

00:26:46.960 them who will pay for that canadian consumers so it's exactly like both of you said you

00:26:52.160 know terrorists if necessary but not necessarily tariffs and um uh and it's it's idiotic uh it makes

00:27:00.400 no sense but but that's all part of you know this whole uh thing that we're in and but and to be

00:27:08.000 fair to fair it's ultimately driven by trump i mean everybody's responding to trump and i do have some

00:27:14.240 sympathy for our politicians on that score because what the heck do you do like he hasn't done anything yet

00:27:21.280 he just keeps talking like stop talking and tell us what you know go ahead chris we're gonna have

00:27:27.120 four more years of this uh yeah i mean why would he stop why would he stop stringing stringing us along

00:27:33.440 i mean i think the problem for carney the problem for a lot of kind of center left politicians are

00:27:39.280 actually probably more center politicians uh right now is that they they believe in a consumer carbon tax

00:27:46.800 uh but it it became politically radioactive long before trump came along that that was just uh

00:27:56.160 it became an absolute you know point of almost religious fervor among the conservative base

00:28:03.600 and then that bled over into it's you know the other parties need those votes and so you have uh carney

00:28:10.000 trying to dance around um uh what i think he really believes uh and it would be nice if

00:28:18.800 he actually said what he believed but i'm sure his advisors are saying oh no no no no no you can but

00:28:23.040 then again his advisors don't seem to know that it's not like 1992 like people can look up what you said

00:28:28.560 in quebec and look up what you said elsewhere and compare them right that doesn't really work

00:28:34.640 anymore and it hasn't worked for a long time the interwebs we all said that uh ford called this

00:28:40.160 election on a false pretense and now we're all talking about that false pretense very vigorously

00:28:44.720 but we're going to take a break and when we come back we have to get back to the ontario election

00:28:48.880 we'll talk about that um to merit styles and bonnie crombie even stick around are they gonna

00:28:54.720 win will bonnie crombie even winner seat these are open questions more in moments ontario the wait is

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00:30:14.880 post media is launching a brand new podcast canada did what it'll be hosted by tristan hopper

00:30:21.920 funny guy interesting guy he's been on this podcast canada did what will dig into the untold surprising

00:30:28.160 political stories of the last few decades and tristan hopper is going to look at everything

00:30:32.000 from the metric wars to morgentoller the october crisis the abortion debate we're unpacking all

00:30:36.960 the wildest political moments you might think you remember and giving you the real story that you

00:30:42.560 never knew tristan will talk to the politicians journalists newsmakers who were right there when

00:30:47.280 history happened and he's going to have a lot of fun doing it that is coming out shortly so keep an eye

00:30:52.320 eye out for that one we're here back at full comment with chris selley with laurie goldstein talking

00:30:58.400 about the ontario election and um if ford gets 96 seats and the ontario liberals get 12 does bonnie

00:31:09.120 crombie their this purported savior of the ontario liberals stick around i mean there's talk she may not

00:31:16.640 win her seat patrick brown's entire political apparatus is behind the pc candidate who happens to

00:31:23.360 be checks notes his mother-in-law uh hazel mccallion's son the sainted hazel mccallion of mississauga has

00:31:30.800 endorsed uh sylvia goletary uh patrick brown's mother-in-law for the pcs they're putting a real

00:31:38.080 push to try and make sure that crombie doesn't even win her seat and she's got to be campaigning

00:31:42.160 across the entire province so what do you think happens going forward after this election because

00:31:47.520 i think we can be pretty sure barring a a a meteor strike that ford's going to win yeah i would the

00:31:54.240 way i would look at it is that if she um gets the liberals into second place even by one seat and over

00:32:02.320 the ndp and establishes um they've returned official party status she stays uh it's one election um if styles

00:32:11.440 you see both of the this is their first campaign for both of them there used to be a tradition in

00:32:16.640 politics in ontario that you got two chances um that doesn't really apply anymore people get blown

00:32:22.240 out after one but to me the battle here that i see is for second place um even if the ndp is in second

00:32:30.480 and bonnie comry gets official party status that's a partial win but but for the ndp the ndp's been going

00:32:38.400 downhill ever since they had a majority government at the end of 95 which they so screwed up that um

00:32:45.280 they're not coming back um so to me it's really it's really second place and things like does

00:32:51.600 bonnie crombie win her seat um because the main thing in this election but but you think if she

00:32:56.720 wins her seat and you said that gets to second place right that she'll stick around that's enough

00:33:02.240 because then you're the government and waiting you know then she's 65 it's four years from now

00:33:07.920 yes but remember is she gonna want to do that job of going out and uh you know i don't know building

00:33:14.960 the the electoral district associations by the way my comment about her age isn't being ageist it's just

00:33:20.080 like you're at an age where a lot of people end up retiring but remember if ford wins the next

00:33:27.120 election he'll have been in power for 12 years nobody's done that in recent ontario political

00:33:33.520 history or um say for jean chretien in federal history that is that is a long time that's a lot

00:33:41.440 of baggage next time i would presume that ford would would run again to go for four um but you know

00:33:48.480 it's and one thing we just forgot to mention is that one of the main reasons ford wanted to win

00:33:54.320 was while the federal liberals were still in power because with rare exceptions in ontario ontario

00:34:01.120 voters like different parties in ontario and in queens park so one of ford's concerns was up to

00:34:07.920 what three weeks ago was that pierre pauliev was going to have a majority and now he's got it so he

00:34:14.320 was worried about the the federal budget assuming that had uh pauliev gotten in before him that the

00:34:20.160 first budget would have a lot of cuts part of the reason for going now early uh over uh trump

00:34:26.960 is that they were like by june 2026 if those tariffs go in they're probably going to be hitting really

00:34:36.160 hard at that point unemployment will be up in the economy will be down yeah no i think it's a i think

00:34:41.920 it's a i think laurie's point is is well taken that that you know three election wins three

00:34:50.000 strong majority wins is a rarity four is like what mckenzie king territory right or or the the ontario

00:34:58.480 tories of the yeah it's not in the modern era 50s and 60s um so i i think they didn't do it with the

00:35:05.120 same leader every time no no that's right uh so i i would think that she would have a strong case to

00:35:11.360 stay as you say as if she puts posts some kind of respectable showing i mean i just think this

00:35:15.760 one and done thing is is silly um well unless there's a really good reason to to get rid of

00:35:22.320 them steven del duca um you know horrible horrible decision everyone could see that from from day one

00:35:30.400 but this idea that you're supposed to you know this this partisan idea that you're so virtuous that if

00:35:38.080 you can't take down this person that you must just be not fit for purpose and you have to go

00:35:42.960 into exile afterwards because you didn't get it done i mean no one i you know it would have been an

00:35:48.480 amazing thing uh if if if the tories have managed to lose this election so i i think there's a good case

00:35:57.120 for i mean the the ndp are much more tolerant of losers who keep losing and losing and losing well

00:36:03.600 look at the federal ndp um oh my god tom mulcair gave them their second best result ever yeah and

00:36:10.480 they got rid of them and had to go they brought in jug meat saying he's you know had two horrible

00:36:15.920 results and they still love him and you know i don't think they will get rid of them after this

00:36:20.720 next federal election which will also be horrible for the the federal ndp it's it's it's ontarians letting

00:36:26.320 that party down it seems to be right like they govern in bc regularly they govern in manitoba regularly

00:36:33.600 i guess they haven't governed in saskatchewan for a while but they they pulled 40 of the vote in

00:36:37.840 the last saskatchewan election what 2007 was the last uh time the saskatchewan ndp was in in power

00:36:45.440 and they threatened this last one yeah yeah yeah so what what is wrong with new democrats in in this

00:36:50.960 province like they're nothing happens at queen's park and then they go to ottawa and they're an anchor

00:36:55.920 on the on the party there too if i'm like david evey or rachel notley i'm just i want to sort of

00:37:01.600 almost secede just make a new party is it that um well we'll turn to to laurie because laurie's the

00:37:10.880 the elder statesman uh 1990 was my first election oh and i voted for bob ray in the ndp as a young

00:37:17.760 college student i was like of course oh this peterson guy uh to heck with that you're a young man under 30

00:37:23.600 of course i never thought bob ray was gonna win i woke up with the handover like everyone else

00:37:28.800 but but is it that five years which you know things were really bad in ontario then is it that

00:37:37.200 five years that people will just not forgive the ndp for or are they are they too

00:37:47.200 detached from where they used to be um you know doug ford has 13 at least unions endorsing him now

00:37:54.960 unions that used to back the ndp or some back the liberals but most the ndp the ndp when i watch

00:38:00.960 them at queen's park i'm always thinking wow are you guys a political party or am i watching the

00:38:07.600 lobbyists for the public sector unions ask the government questions because they never really

00:38:12.960 go outside that that sort of realm of ideas of what's important to qp and opsu and if you're not

00:38:20.560 a member of qp and opsu i don't find them speaking to you so what what's your take is it the 1990 to

00:38:26.800 95 issue is it you know detaching themselves from their roots what i think i think it's two things

00:38:33.600 um i covered that the whole era of peterson as a queens park reporter and then um uh and then

00:38:42.960 bob ray's ascendancy and the first problem to be fair to bob ray and the ndp in 1990 the economy was

00:38:51.760 about to head into the tank that's why peterson called the early election he wanted to get in

00:38:57.040 before the bad effects of the recession hit but when they got in i remember covering their first

00:39:04.000 budget we're all in the lockup okay what are they going to do what are they going to do now the numbers

00:39:09.120 today sound charmingly small but back then in context they were huge they had a three billion

00:39:15.360 dollar deficit and they said we are proud to be fighting the recession so we're going to triple

00:39:22.800 the deficit to nine billion dollars and they did things like they gave a substantial raise to the

00:39:29.920 civil service well above inflation and when that happened i remember asking a question in a scrum

00:39:36.720 you realize you're going to have to give them that every year right you know like they were

00:39:41.360 getting the monies in from the tail end of the better economic times before they were heading in

00:39:46.560 and then just everything tanked and who destroyed the ndp it wasn't the toronto sun

00:39:54.400 it was the union you know ray days ray days look ray days look pretty good right now compared to

00:40:01.920 what's going on and i always used to joke with some of the more um uh temper prone um union public

00:40:10.320 sector union leaders when i would talk to them i'd go well you got rid of uh bob ray you got by

00:40:17.600 karis how'd that work out and so um and so and today i think there are other things that people

00:40:25.920 peter wordington our founding editor whenever he talks about the ndp somewhere in the same sentence

00:40:32.560 would be unfit to govern and frankly i agree with that i do when you look at their positions on um

00:40:41.280 issues and then there's the final thing which is that the ndp always advertised itself as the party

00:40:47.280 of the working person it has never been the party of the working person if it had been

00:40:51.680 if all union members were voting way favoring ndp we would have had ndp majorities forever

00:40:58.240 but the ndp is divided it has people like that a lot of them are retiring and then there's the

00:41:04.560 academic crap yeah they care more about the faculty club in the union hall that's right that's it and so

00:41:10.480 i think it's all those things and finally there's no reason to vote for them right now you know they

00:41:15.760 have not captured the neither have the greens you would think that with what we came through for the

00:41:21.920 past 10 years and i'm not blaming uh mike trying in in ontario it's it's everywhere you would think

00:41:28.640 that this was their time and and there it was to some extent out west but not in ontario and so um

00:41:36.640 yeah i just think the ndp are kind of people have bad memories and they're kind of irrelevant to the

00:41:42.880 serious political discussion today they're the conscience of the legislature um and they look

00:41:48.320 at themselves as beautiful losers and up to now that's what they are chris you alluded to this

00:41:53.280 though out west they govern yes um they're a different kind of party in western canada exactly

00:42:00.240 exactly um i when when they got official opposition status in 2018 and the liberals were reduced to

00:42:07.440 all fitting in the same minivan for the commute to work i thought if i was andrew horvath i'm going

00:42:14.160 to get my party to pivot and we're going to step on the throat of the ndp and or sorry the ontario

00:42:21.120 liberal party until they stopped breathing they never did that and they don't seem to have an interest in

00:42:25.440 doing that they seem to be trying to disappoint all their constituencies as little as possible

00:42:31.440 like that just there's nothing you know i mean what the ndp originally was prairie populists you

00:42:38.640 you know union leaders uh farmers urban urban elites yeah farmers prairie populists farmers um

00:42:47.520 and then you had urban elites then you had the urban sort of lower class and then you had uh for a

00:42:55.120 brief period of time quebec nationalists i mean this is a bizarre coalition for a party that

00:43:01.280 supposedly ideological um it's you know it's fine for the liberals right i mean they don't believe

00:43:07.360 in anything they can absorb any idea and make it their own it's all it's it's just about we don't

00:43:12.640 like the principles i've got now give me a minute yeah we'll just rewrite we'll rewrite the whole

00:43:17.920 platform for you like don't worry about it forget we said anything um so no i i just they don't seem to

00:43:23.840 know what they want to be i mean and they're certainly not appealing to the young young urban

00:43:29.840 uh said who i think are desperate kind of to vote for them not all of them well i mean a lot of them

00:43:36.960 have migrated to pierre polyev and how what a what an indictment of the ndp that is uh that they've let

00:43:43.760 him no i'm not criticizing polyev i just mean like that they've they've let this guy who they think is

00:43:50.400 satan incarnate uh eat their lunch i don't know i don't understand what what is up with that party it's

00:43:57.280 it's like they don't even want to win so bonnie crombie had one great line in the debate and it's

00:44:05.120 when she she said to ford you didn't get it done and i thought why hasn't she been using that more

00:44:12.000 turns out she has been using it for a while but not very effectively because as someone who pays

00:44:16.320 attention to this as much as i can um i hadn't heard it and i thought that should have been her slogan

00:44:24.480 because what was ford's slogan last time get it done and and look that you know if we're being fair

00:44:30.320 to all the parties ford would be able to point to some things and say yeah i got it done on that or

00:44:36.680 we're in the middle of getting it done yep the the 413 is moving ahead the bradford bypass construction

00:44:42.080 has started we're getting you a hospital there you know he could point to certain things but there's

00:44:46.560 also a lot of things he didn't get done and crombie could have pointed to those um and there's a great

00:44:54.280 ad from about 2008 that she could have just lifted the entire script and changed the names the

00:45:00.140 conservatives ran it against stefan dion you didn't get it done it was highly effective

00:45:04.820 that was michael ignatius line against uh michael ignatius in the 2006 debate telling

00:45:10.360 dion you didn't get it done she could have done all this and it's you know for all of

00:45:19.720 ford's problems it's remarkable that from 2018 until now they have not been able to prosecute him

00:45:25.820 on anything the guy has stumbled a lot um he's done some things well he's stumbled elsewhere but

00:45:32.260 they have not been able to prosecute him i think part of it is that he lives he lives in their heads

00:45:37.600 rent-free i i think they they just can't a lot of them just cannot understand what would lead people

00:45:46.920 to vote for this person or this party like it's just it and so because they don't understand they

00:45:52.960 come out with these strategies that that are sort of that i think the average person looks at and it's

00:45:57.100 like well i don't like him that much but he's not he's not the devil like why are you like why are you

00:46:03.660 so upset no the other thing i think brian you're making a great point but one thing that weakens

00:46:10.360 that is something we've already discussed and that's cynicism about all the parties i joined the

00:46:16.600 toronto sun in 1978 that's the bill davis era one of the most successful uh politicians in ontario

00:46:23.680 history uh two majorities sandwiched between two minorities uh for his tenure was 14 years

00:46:30.620 one of my first assignments 1978 was to write about hallway medicine that's when we that's when

00:46:39.260 we perceived it was the good times um now hallway medicine wasn't bad as bad then as it is now but

00:46:46.340 it was bad the same problem of chronic care patients and hospitals um in acute care hospitals because there

00:46:52.840 was no place for them to go existed then and so i think it's a different voter today than it was

00:46:59.580 back then back then yeah you could you know you didn't get it done you didn't do it you're today

00:47:05.020 people just look at them all and go none of you get it done none of you get it done but you know the

00:47:11.020 ndp and the liberals are constantly saying we don't need more highways and it puzzles anybody who drives

00:47:16.820 anywhere in the province but especially here in the gta where the three of us are and i'm out um

00:47:23.300 headed towards an event the other day uh so i'm you know out driving early and i'm stuck in traffic

00:47:29.580 i'm stuck on the 401 then i'm stuck on the 403 then i'm stuck on the qew and i'm thinking why do

00:47:36.940 these guys and a lot of our media colleagues just say ford's obsessed with highways and we don't need

00:47:44.080 more highways and why is he talking about that well i'll tell you why he's talking about it because he

00:47:47.480 lives out there he lives out in uh on on uh the edge of toronto where all the highways connect

00:47:53.540 and he sees how bad it is and he's promising to get something done about it um the the other parties

00:48:00.280 are are you know for ideological reasons against highways they just want everyone on public transit

00:48:07.040 meanwhile he's building a bunch of public transit and by the time the next election comes around

00:48:11.700 whether it's ford running or someone else leading the pc party all these infrastructure projects that

00:48:16.600 promised last time will be completed and you'll be able they'll be able to point and say look at what

00:48:21.920 we built if if they finish the projects that they've started and have promised this will be one of the

00:48:28.760 biggest infrastructure booms since the bill davis leslie frost era yeah i mean i think well and that's

00:48:38.420 interesting that you put it that way the bill davis leslie frost era because i think uh i think what a lot

00:48:43.480 of people don't understand because maybe because ford was such a sort of a cannonball at city hall

00:48:49.200 um and and and for in the first his first year in office for that matter was was pretty oh yeah

00:48:55.640 tumultuous um but he's he's he's calmed down a lot and you know to me maybe not temperamentally

00:49:02.640 but it's sort of ideologically or not ideologically maybe is a better way to put it he's a classic

00:49:10.080 ontario tory and the ontario tory has governed ontario for decades 43 43 years 43 years straight on

00:49:19.420 so you know i think maybe he's he's tapped into something um at least in an era where people don't

00:49:29.640 seem to care about balanced budgets uh i mean it is still bewildering to see a premier up there

00:49:35.020 saying you know like we're gonna build a tunnel under the 401 and i'm willing to spend up to 60

00:49:39.460 billion dollars to do it it's like well where did you come up with that figure ah like

00:49:43.740 so where did we come up with it jeff like come on you know um but that's that's the thing i mean

00:49:55.820 davis built the built the lrt right he and tried to sell all that technology to the world and it

00:50:01.160 didn't really work but that's kind of what people want i it looks like in ontario is is not small

00:50:07.700 government bonnie crombie's uh she's promising to build 90 schools and a full uh meal program

00:50:15.600 breakfast and lunch at school every day for every student i don't know about you guys but my my

00:50:21.180 schools were never equipped for a cafeteria where they could cook us lunch uh or anything else so

00:50:27.580 it's utterly bizarre but she was asked where are you gonna get the money for that and she said well

00:50:32.300 i won't spend the highway money and all the reporters saying but but that's that money's not

00:50:37.500 on the bookshed like that's only in ford's head but she's decided she's already spending it on other

00:50:43.420 stuff so it doesn't matter who's in they're all going to spend a ton of money yeah look it's so it's

00:50:47.920 easy to and and you know one thing we should acknowledge and you both touched on it is the

00:50:52.680 remarkable transformation of doug ford go back to him as an etobicoke counselor he was like the angry

00:51:00.440 medicine ball about everything everything you know that the opposition are liars that the mayor's a liar

00:51:07.420 the media are liars um blah blah blah blah blah and you're right he has turned into a mainstream

00:51:13.560 ontario progressive conservative remember they didn't abandon the name like like the hard like

00:51:22.160 press progressive conservative um and and and then logically it is true that when you build more

00:51:30.700 roads you'll get more traffic it's just true um the problem is the alternative for people

00:51:37.840 and here to me it's where the climate change agenda just discredits the other parties completely

00:51:43.640 your deal was that we and this is at all levels that support the company you would pay more for

00:51:51.220 gasoline and home heating and the extra charge and the consumer on 20 different forms of fossil fuel

00:51:57.880 energy but you will have lower cost alternatives they still say it it is absolute nonsense first of all

00:52:07.760 many people have to have their car to drive to work look at suburban and particularly rural ontario

00:52:14.240 you have to have it if your supplier of your heat is natural gas you know you know what the alternative

00:52:23.080 is you go to these bs things where you pay extra uh so that you know they're going to make the

00:52:30.020 emissions offsets offsets i always love that when i'm booking a plane ticket would you like to offset your

00:52:35.440 emissions so increase your price no they still do that yes oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah i thought they'd

00:52:41.920 i thought they'd just kind of given up on that so the reason you can mock ford and they do all they

00:52:47.240 want about about highways and building bridges under things but people live in reality and they go

00:52:54.140 i can't get to work i take transit it breaks down the um the eglinton cross down in toronto it's years

00:53:04.080 overdue we got ottawa lrt exactly it's all if i worked and nothing else so it's all sitting there

00:53:11.640 and like like when i drive i go they are literally white elephants the metrolink stations for the ecology

00:53:17.540 in along eglinton they're white they're literally white and they sit there and we don't they're going

00:53:24.640 to give us a start they think maybe this year so all i'm saying is that when these opposition parties

00:53:30.700 mock um ford first tunnel tunnels under billions of dollars of waste oh we're outraged the public goes

00:53:39.080 well at least he's trying to do something that's relevant to my life at least

00:53:44.480 and the record is well i was just gonna say that that their record on public transit's really good

00:53:49.800 uh i mean not notwithstanding the fact that that the crosstown can't open and we're not entitled to

00:53:55.480 know why they seem to have i think they've it's like they punctured hell underneath it's like they

00:54:01.560 punctured hell underneath young and eglinton or something and they're just trying to and they're

00:54:05.460 trying to like keep it keep it in check i i mean it's bizarre you know there's several there are

00:54:10.640 several dedicated transportation reporters in this city and even they haven't no even their sources

00:54:15.820 haven't told them really what the problem is but you know expanding ghost service i mean that's huge

00:54:20.300 compared to 10 years ago compared to 20 years ago they didn't start it but they continued it um so i i

00:54:27.580 think all the more reason that that those opposition attacks maybe ring hollow because it looks to me like

00:54:34.400 he's do he it looks to some people that he's focused on both people on car commuters and

00:54:39.560 uh public transit commuters good point good point all right gentlemen we're gonna leave it there we

00:54:44.780 we were able to talk about the ontario election far more than i thought for an election that nobody

00:54:49.300 cares about nobody wanted and uh we'll see what voting is like later this week thanks so much for the

00:54:55.420 time take care thank you full comment is a post media podcast my name is brian lowly your host

00:55:01.340 this episode was produced by andre prude theme music by bryos hall kevin liban is the executive

00:55:07.180 producer remember to subscribe to full comment on apple podcasts spotify amazon wherever you get

00:55:13.180 your podcast and help us out by giving us a rating leave a review and tell your friends about us

00:55:18.340 thanks for listening until next time i'm brian lily

Full Comment - February 24, 2025

Why Doug Ford keeps steamrolling his Ontario election critics

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