Juno News - Doug Ford's crony 'conservatism' hurts us all

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juno News, Alexander Brown, back for another episode of Not Sorry. I am the director of the

00:00:07.580 National Citizens Coalition. I'm a writer, a campaigner, communicator, jack of all trades,

00:00:12.680 master of none. Thrilled to have you back here. And while you are here,

00:00:16.280 take advantage of our promo code, junonews.com slash not sorry for 20% off. And if you've noticed

00:00:23.380 my peculiar attire today, filming this on Friday, very much rooting for Canada's team,

00:00:30.160 our beloved Toronto Blue Jays. I'm a Toronto boy at heart. So go Blue Jays. And on this recording,

00:00:36.180 we're talking Ontario. We're talking Doug Ford. It's a recording that's Ford Friday and there's

00:00:41.220 much to discuss. Doug Ford recently called out Danielle Smith for not approving his anti-tariff

00:00:47.720 ad. Check this out. Of course, Danielle Smith doesn't like the ads because she's not getting

00:00:52.280 her auto annihilated, her manufacturing, her steel, her life science sector. She has a commodity

00:00:57.780 called oil that the Americans need and want. So she's going to be fine. Ontario won't be fine

00:01:03.060 if we sign a lousy deal. He's admitting there amongst, you know, other inappropriate needling

00:01:10.980 of Western Canadians that he's playing Indian poker with a two on his forehead, that he doesn't have

00:01:17.160 something that Americans or Canadians want, that his EV market, this propped up unhealthy economy

00:01:24.780 built around subsidies, doesn't lead to true growth and isn't something that you can negotiate with.

00:01:32.100 He's even saying that when he was putting out this ad, this $75 million boondoggle of an ad buy,

00:01:38.440 that has led to an additional 10% tariff and has seemingly stalled negotiations. And we hope they

00:01:47.580 resume soon. That Mark Carney was in the room when the Reagan ad was reviewed.

00:01:53.380 Back to the Reagan ad. How do you know the prime minister and his chief of staff saw this particular

00:01:59.120 ad before you moved ahead with airing it?

00:02:02.440 I was with them.

00:02:03.040 Did they express concern when you were with them?

00:02:07.260 I'm not going to talk about our private conversation at all. I told them that we're

00:02:12.300 running it. I'm going to cut it off on, on Monday. And that's it. I think it was a, so, so man,

00:02:18.960 it was the right thing to do. It's sort of conversation like I've never seen before.

00:02:23.300 Was it the right thing to do? Has it been a success? He calls it effective. It, you could argue it is,

00:02:30.080 it is leading to some additional domestic pressure in America right now, uh, in, in their halls of

00:02:35.420 power. But the ordinary Canadian, the ordinary Canadian right now is, is getting crushed by

00:02:40.500 tariffs. It's getting crushed by political brinksmanship and gamesmanship that is not

00:02:46.400 delivering domestically. We, we love to blame everyone but ourselves. The, the premier of Ontario,

00:02:52.060 uh, has, has dined out on Donald Trump as a boogeyman and he is attacking his economy in,

00:02:57.500 in a sense. But the premier of Ontario is also capable of Trump proofing his economy of, of moving

00:03:06.320 off and away from a subsidy model that is empty calories that doesn't lead to true growth. There,

00:03:14.620 there are so many things that Doug Ford could be providing better leadership on. And the guy to talk

00:03:20.180 to about it today is project Ontario's Matt spoke. Matt is a house builder. He is a real estate

00:03:26.280 entrepreneur. He works with Canada strong and free. He's a leading voice on the conservative side of

00:03:31.560 things. He brought together this conservative coalition, these, these legacy groups who are

00:03:36.840 asking for better conservative principles from Queens park. And there's, there's much must like,

00:03:41.640 there's a ton to ask for right now. This is a province where, you know, beset by multiple scandals

00:03:47.680 where you can't just focus on Trump, where this, this skills development fund is looking a whole lot,

00:03:52.920 like pay to play and the kind of cronyism we're used to seeing from the federal liberals.

00:03:57.880 Let's talk to Matt spoke. Matt spoke is back on the show today. He's one of the co-founders of

00:04:02.200 project Ontario. He's a real estate entrepreneur, a dearly needed homebuilder in a never ending housing

00:04:08.440 crisis in Canada and Ontario. He's on the board of the Canada strong and free network. Matt, how are

00:04:13.880 you? I'm doing well, Alex. Good to see you. Yeah. Good to see you too. Getting into any trouble

00:04:19.080 recently. Any been called a radical right or Yahoo of late? No, I've been, I've been keeping my head,

00:04:25.480 keep my head down and taking care of the kids for the most part, but it's been, it's been a quiet

00:04:29.400 couple of weeks since the last time we got into the premier's mouth or in his head. Yeah. We

00:04:35.640 kicking the hornet's nest back in September, things have been auspiciously quiet. So we got to get back

00:04:40.840 to, well, you know, they keep, they, they keep doing themselves damage. They don't need us to do it for

00:04:44.920 them right now. And we're going to get into it, Matt, because it is Ford Friday here on a not sorry

00:04:50.840 on Juneau news recording this on Friday, coming out on Saturday. Uh, also I'm wearing my blue Jays

00:04:55.880 Jersey because go blue Jays. I'm a Torontonian at heart. Uh, there's much to get into. You've,

00:05:01.240 you've made waves with the founding of project Ontario and with conservative policy oriented

00:05:06.280 criticisms of the Ford government. We're not talking ad hominem ad hoc fallacy that gets tossed back in our

00:05:12.600 direction for those in our audience who wouldn't be familiar with project Ontario. Tell us about the

00:05:18.120 founding of that effort and some of its impacts to date. Yeah. Project Ontario came together

00:05:24.680 earlier this year, coming out of the federal election. Um, I think one of the things that really

00:05:30.520 caught my attention last year, um, before, before the, the 2025 federal election is that like on any of

00:05:36.760 the major issues facing particularly the province of Ontario, but I think there's been similar issues

00:05:41.240 across the country. Uh, what we often heard out of our leadership was that it was the federal

00:05:46.200 government's fault, you know? So, you know, a big issue on housing, a big issue on, uh,

00:05:51.000 infrastructure spending, whatever it was. And it was always sort of the federal, you know,

00:05:54.360 crime is another one. It's always the federal government's fault. Um, and I had been watching

00:05:57.960 closely to say, Hey, what happens after you can't, you don't have Justin Trudeau around to blame

00:06:01.640 anymore? Cause it was, he was such a convenient punching bag. Uh, and, and people wanted to blame him for

00:06:07.080 issues at the end of his term. So, you know, Doug had this great, um, this great, great sort of

00:06:13.000 redirect as part of this communication strategy that I think worked well for a couple of years at

00:06:16.840 the end of the Trudeau era coming out of the federal election. We knew something was going to

00:06:20.680 change. It was either going to be a conservative government in Ottawa or a very different liberal

00:06:23.960 government under Mark Carney. Um, and that strategy of sort of constantly pointing the finger to the

00:06:29.080 federal government was probably going to get old. Um, and, you know, we were also coming into our

00:06:33.960 third majority government as a progressive conservative party, a party that I've supported

00:06:37.960 for a long time that I'm a member of. Um, and, uh, and we didn't have a lot to show for it.

00:06:43.160 And we just kept pointing the finger at other levels of government when we had problems facing

00:06:46.760 the province. And so I'd say the reason this started after the federal election is because

00:06:51.800 there's a lot of people who put a lot of energy under that federal election. And it would have been a

00:06:55.880 lot to try to have people dual focused on, on two different things at the same time.

00:06:59.800 Yeah. Um, but a group of people came together, yourself included Alex. And we, uh, I think with

00:07:05.560 a shared sort of view that, uh, we should be demanding more out of a third majority conservative

00:07:12.520 term in Ontario. And that started with a, you know, broadly policy focused criticism on let's

00:07:19.000 look at the things that they're not doing or the things that they're doing wrong. And let's write

00:07:23.000 about how we think they should course correct on major policy files. Uh, you mentioned my background

00:07:27.640 in housing. I've spent a lot of time thinking about housing policy and where the province has gotten

00:07:31.240 it wrong. Um, you know, my wife owns an early childhood education center. I've spent a lot

00:07:35.880 of time thinking about daycare policy and where the province has gotten it wrong. And then we had people

00:07:39.720 joining the mix that came from backgrounds of public safety and crime and immigration and, uh, economics

00:07:46.280 and unemployment. And, and so I think we brought together a really, uh, great sort of cast of

00:07:51.560 contributors that all shared this frustration, but with a different sort of starting point as to like

00:07:56.520 what particular policy file animated them. Um, and so we pulled this together pretty informally.

00:08:02.360 It's starting to take on a new form. I mean, we've, we've recently sort of pulled more of a formal

00:08:07.080 organization together behind the project, uh, that will allow us to do more writing, more, uh,

00:08:13.800 you know, activism, more boots on the ground, sort of like engagement with, with citizens across the

00:08:18.760 province. Um, but, but it is really a conservative grassroots organization intended to

00:08:25.160 be a voice of accountability to either a sitting conservative government today, or maybe in the

00:08:29.800 future, you know, a source of ideas for a would be conservative government if we ever find ourselves

00:08:34.360 in opposition again. So, uh, we don't have anything like that provincially in Ontario, almost like a

00:08:38.920 think tank of sorts or, or like a grassroots political movement that sits outside of the PC party

00:08:43.960 itself. Um, and it felt like it was time to get that going. So that's what we're up to.

00:08:47.960 Yeah. And, and, and that brings together influences from like the legacy conservative organizations

00:08:54.680 too. I'm the director of the national citizens coalition. I've been proud, proud to support it.

00:08:58.600 You have contributors from, from MLI. Like it, it, these are folks who didn't just wake up one day

00:09:04.520 and decide, you know, to toss bombs. They were in advocacy in the conservative space for a long time.

00:09:11.480 They have worked on key campaigns. They, they, you know, know all the folks behind the scenes.

00:09:15.960 They've got friendships there. They, they know there are good MPPs in, in Ontario, and they just

00:09:21.320 care about making a difference. And, and, you know, they're not just out to cause trouble. They just

00:09:27.080 want conservative change. They're not seeing, they want to see, as we would argue that this,

00:09:32.280 a change to this sort of incrementalism,

00:09:35.560 that the government and its supporters would argue is, is the only safe way forward that

00:09:41.560 maybe unless you're part of the skills development fund operation, that looks a lot like managed

00:09:47.720 decline. And so I think of the, the, the $75 million spend on the Reagan ad that, that landed

00:09:54.200 the country with an additional 10% tariff. I can appreciate not laying down and playing dead in trade

00:10:00.680 negotiations. One didn't even initiate, but there are reasonable criticisms that premier Ford is

00:10:06.040 serving as a, a similarly Trumpian figure here in my mind. And I, for one don't love an economy that

00:10:11.720 runs on stunts subsidies and astonishing expenses at the behest of taxpayers. What do you think of the

00:10:18.920 spot, the ad spot Ford's bragging about its effectiveness, his continued chiding of Alberta for

00:10:25.000 not being on board and, and Kearney apparently having final say in being in the room. Like what the

00:10:29.880 heck is going on there? Yeah. I mean, I think there's been a lot of mismanagement around that

00:10:35.480 particular file. Not, not only the Reagan ad itself, but everything leading up to it on our

00:10:40.200 approach to these tariff negotiations with the U S you know, I'll, I'll, I'll accept that, um, being a

00:10:46.840 leader either nationally or provincially in this environment with Donald Trump in the white house

00:10:51.720 is probably an incredibly difficult and unpredictable, you know, political, uh, environment to navigate.

00:10:57.960 Uh, but I think if we've sort of seen anything out of this, this, uh, this, the American leadership

00:11:03.560 is that, uh, you know, poking the hornet's nest is not leading to necessarily good outcomes for

00:11:07.960 people in the province. Um, you know, I would have much rather see the provincial government

00:11:13.240 focus on things that we have immediately within our control. I mean, I, I wrote a piece about this

00:11:18.520 a couple of weeks ago, specifically about the auto industry in Ontario, um, which is not only the,

00:11:23.960 the target of, of new tariffs since Donald Trump got elected. Uh, but also it was just an industry

00:11:28.840 that has been suffering for a long time and has been on a declining path for a long time. I mean,

00:11:33.400 irrespective of Donald Trump being in the white house, our auto industry is not what it once was

00:11:37.480 in the 1970s, you know, or 1980s. And I think we have this sort of like romantic idea as a province

00:11:42.760 that like, we're, you know, the, the, the manufacturing heartland of the country. And like,

00:11:47.320 our identity is tied to the success or failure of these like old school American auto giants that

00:11:52.600 manufacture in Ontario. Um, you know, put, put Donald Trump aside. These are, this is a dying

00:11:58.440 industry and these are dying companies in, in, in large to, in large parts. I mean, like, you know,

00:12:02.680 the companies that we have manufacturing in Canada are the same companies that are struggling to

00:12:07.640 compete with new automotive manufacturers popping up around the world, Tesla, BYD, you know, other

00:12:12.920 international, uh, automatic automotive manufacturing companies. So I think we, we consistently are trying to

00:12:19.400 kick, like kick the can down the road on an issue that is, uh, an existential issue in many parts

00:12:24.520 of the province that will eventually catch up to us. I think if Donald Trump has done anything,

00:12:28.520 he's accelerated, uh, a trend that was already playing out. We, we were seeing automotive plants

00:12:34.200 shutting down. I mean, the only answer we've had to that is throwing billions and billions of dollars

00:12:38.680 in subsidies at these companies in the form of like battery plants and other things of that nature.

00:12:43.080 But, you know, you can't subsidize an industry into being, you know, prosperous and, and, and

00:12:47.960 profitable. Uh, and so, you know, I, I look at that as something that is very well within our control.

00:12:54.120 We can, we can sort of change course on how we think about the growth and evolution of the Ontario

00:12:59.240 economy. Um, and increasingly so with these tariffs, you, the, you know, the urgency is even higher.

00:13:05.960 So stop picking fights with the U S start focusing on things. Like, I don't know if you saw today,

00:13:09.720 there was a headline, small, small headline, but there was a headline about a, um, a, a furniture

00:13:15.000 manufacturer in Lindsay, Ontario, shutting down operations after 60 plus years and 160 jobs being

00:13:21.880 lost. So, you know, not a massive number, like you see with these Jeep for these Jeep assembly plants.

00:13:26.920 Um, but that, you know, has a small part to do with tariffs has a much larger part to do with just

00:13:32.600 the fact that we have built an uncompetitive environment for businesses to operate in this

00:13:36.120 province. And that predates Donald Trump by a long shot. So, um, I'd, I'd much rather see the

00:13:40.840 province focusing there. I agree. And you, you suffer now or suffer later. And we keep just,

00:13:45.800 we keep just pushing it off. It, it, and he's always disappointed or upset with someone else,

00:13:50.600 which bothers me. Like he's, he's threatening to sue these automotive companies who want out of,

00:13:55.240 of, you know, it's a failing strategy when your only defense is to threaten lawsuits,

00:14:00.520 to threaten sort of like more bullying tactics. These are companies that, you know, I'm not going

00:14:05.320 to defend the decisions of GM or Stellantis or Ford when they decide to pull, you know,

00:14:10.520 massive numbers of jobs out of the province. These are real people with real jobs. And, and,

00:14:14.120 you know, I, I'm sympathetic to that. Um, but these companies are not going to respond to,

00:14:19.640 you know, threats by from, in their mind, a relatively irrelevant, uh, jurisdiction in the grand

00:14:25.080 scheme of their operations internationally. So, um, I, I think the approach has been completely

00:14:30.440 wrongheaded and, and it's probably left us in a worse position than, than we otherwise could be.

00:14:35.000 No, like the crown Royal stunt too. I, I keep, I keep waiting for the morning. I like open Twitter

00:14:39.800 and he's set a Jeep on fire. It's like, that's not going to be, that's not going to be the response.

00:14:44.600 And, and so much of this too, and what bothers me, and I've heard this from a political behind

00:14:49.400 the scenes, which is part of this approach that he has this communication strategy. And like,

00:14:53.560 he loves the microphone. He loves the camera. He gets excitable. Like you can tell he,

00:14:57.800 he goes in with notes and then he, he starts freelancing, but like he's playing Indian poker

00:15:03.720 with a two on his forehead and these companies see it. Americans see it. Brad wall pointed out

00:15:09.560 recently too, where it's just like, you don't, you don't have a lot to work with here. Even

00:15:14.280 Ford himself in, in his flippancy towards Alberta was, you know, you have accidentally was like,

00:15:20.120 well, Daniel Smith has something that people actually want, you know, and it's like, you're

00:15:23.960 admitting you have no hand here. And yet you're, it's all the bluster and

00:15:31.240 Ontario skills development fund, you know, Ontario.

00:15:33.880 You did this comment before, but this, this is, this is like the easy path in politics. The easy

00:15:38.840 path in politics is, is focusing on where there is the most animation right now. And right now people

00:15:44.600 are animated about Donald Trump. They're upset. They want to direct that frustration somewhere.

00:15:49.480 And Doug Ford has given them this convenient channel to like, to sort of capture that frustration.

00:15:54.840 And he loves it because it keeps them in the spotlight and allows them to sort of do the

00:15:58.600 rounds of American media. It turns them into this sort of captain Canada figure, but the hard job of

00:16:04.680 governing and the hard job of being premier is actually dealing with the structural inadequacies

00:16:09.480 that we have as a province that will take years, if not decades to fix. You don't get immediate

00:16:14.840 gratification from trying to reform the way businesses are welcomed into our province. That

00:16:20.440 takes a long time to see change. And so the tendency and the temptation is always to go for the, you know,

00:16:26.280 the clicks. It's, it's, you know, what's going to get the most reactions on Twitter and online. It's going

00:16:31.240 to be Doug Ford saying something obscene about the latest round of tariffs or the latest negotiations.

00:16:37.160 It's not going to be some like structural reform. That's going to take years for people to appreciate.

00:16:42.520 Yeah. It's, it's the deferral to the retail political. That's right.

00:16:47.080 They're always, they're very adept at that. You got to give that machine credit.

00:16:50.680 Now for all this tough talk then of, of standing up for Ontario, of being capped in Canada,

00:16:56.280 it's clearly been to the detriment of energy out west at present, or our great Canadian canola farmers.

00:17:03.320 You know, if we're standing up for Canada, surely we're standing up for housing,

00:17:06.840 because Canada has a housing crisis. How's the housing situation doing in Ontario? You know,

00:17:11.240 to me, that's still a central problem beyond that, you know, anemic economy. Where is Ontario

00:17:17.160 going with housing starts and is he fulfilling that domestic responsibility to help unlock it?

00:17:23.080 Yeah. I mean, this is, this is like a lose, lose, lose situation. And I say that because on the one hand,

00:17:29.080 from a housing perspective and like, and you know, where people need to live,

00:17:33.960 we are the worst performers in the country on a, on a proportionate basis. From an employment

00:17:40.760 perspective, the slower our housing industry is, the less jobs that are available to us. And from

00:17:45.800 an economic perspective, housing is a massive contributor to GDP, not only across the country,

00:17:49.960 but very specifically in Ontario. So, you know, if you're having economic issues on American exports,

00:17:56.200 and American, you know, related issues like steel and automotive and other, other industries like

00:18:01.640 that, one of the areas that we could absolutely see a huge boom is in our housing sector, if we allowed

00:18:08.040 for that boom to happen, if we were willing to make the policy changes. So, and this is partially

00:18:12.520 a national problem. The whole country has experienced a housing crisis over the last couple of years. But

00:18:16.200 I've always said, this is an, a made in Ontario problem that has been exported largely to the rest of the country.

00:18:22.200 The reason housing prices have gone up in Calgary is because Ontarians have fled the province looking

00:18:26.440 for homes in Calgary. And so all of a sudden you have new people in Calgary, bidding up the price

00:18:30.520 of homes and what otherwise wouldn't have been as competitive a market. Same thing in Halifax,

00:18:34.280 same thing in, you know, probably the only exception to that is really Vancouver that always had its own,

00:18:39.000 you know, housing supply issues. But outside of Toronto and Ontario, you know, you go to small

00:18:44.760 town Ontario today, housing prices have doubled, tripled over the last five, 10 years, because of this

00:18:50.360 exodus of people out of Toronto and then more broadly out of the province, we're seeing now

00:18:55.080 a net outward migration of people leaving Ontario for other parts of the province, which is a little

00:19:00.360 bit counterintuitive, because we always hear headlines of like, when immigrants arrive in Canada,

00:19:04.440 they disproportionately want to end up close to Toronto. And so they land in Southern Ontario

00:19:09.000 somewhere for the most part. But young families and young professionals are leaving for other parts

00:19:13.720 of the country. And so, you know, it's definitely not been a great thing where the provincial government

00:19:19.720 just recently announced, you know, as they defined it, this big, bold housing bill. And you read through

00:19:25.880 the policy prescriptions in this bill, and they're timid and incremental at best. And this is what they've

00:19:31.640 been working out to, they've been setting these massive expectations that we're going to see massive

00:19:35.160 change. And we read through the bill last week, and it's incredibly timid, and just does not live up to the

00:19:40.600 scale of the problem that we're facing. So I continue to be pessimistic about where housing

00:19:45.960 is going in Ontario. Yeah, same with like build Canada homes, where it's it's, you know, you start

00:19:50.840 with the Potemkin village, and like, this is all going to be well and great. And it's just like,

00:19:55.000 Oh, it's a catalogue of Soviet garden sheds. And they're really nice. But you're admitting immediately,

00:20:01.720 you're not going to come near your numbers, you campaigned on those magical numbers that we all know

00:20:05.400 were fake. And so like, what what to you would juice housing starts like you're, you're working

00:20:11.560 on some great projects right now, the one on Geary looks fantastic. Like, what is like a really simple

00:20:16.360 thing he could do right now as this protect Ontario premier, to make it easier for for guys like you,

00:20:22.600 and in your sector to build housing? Well, there's sort of two types of housing that people think

00:20:27.080 about, like, we're focused in Toronto. So you know, we tend to focus a lot more on density and sort of

00:20:31.400 infill urban housing, which is, you know, not everybody's cup of tea, but we're talking about,

00:20:36.040 you know, where people are going to live close or in downtown cores of cities, very different housing

00:20:40.920 type than let's say, you know, the white picket fence and the garage in the backyard. We've limited

00:20:45.960 both. I mean, in cities, we've made it nearly impossible to identify where density is permitted.

00:20:51.960 And so there's there's constant, you know, limitations as to what you can build and where.

00:20:56.280 And and that makes it difficult to add density into the cores of our cities. And so what that

00:21:01.800 means is people need to leave the cities to go into the suburbs or into the small towns surrounding

00:21:05.880 the cities. And in the suburbs, we've also limited where we allow for expansion. I mean, people know

00:21:11.480 very well that the at least in brand, they've heard of the Ontario Greenbelt. The Ontario Greenbelt is

00:21:17.480 like loosely speaking, this land, this this ring of protected land that wraps around the greater Toronto

00:21:22.200 area that is protected for, you know, conservation and agricultural reasons, which in, you know,

00:21:28.520 in principle and in messaging is very nice. It sounds very pleasant and beautiful. But what it really

00:21:36.840 has done is it's limited the ability for housing development to happen. And, you know, the Ford

00:21:41.560 government tried to address this a couple of years ago. And they, as with many things, they sort of

00:21:46.600 flirted with this line of like good policy where it meets corruption. And all of a sudden, it's like,

00:21:50.920 oh, you're only opening up the Greenbelt where, you know, the developers own the land.

00:21:55.400 And it led to a bunch of natural questions. But what we're going to walk back. Yeah. And then

00:22:00.680 a really quick walk back and they haven't come close to going back into it. Yeah.

00:22:05.080 And what's what's ironic about the Greenbelt is people people think how nice it would be to sort

00:22:09.160 of like protect this agricultural land. And what's actually happening now is if you can picture

00:22:12.840 Toronto as a big blob in the middle of, you know, Southern Ontario around it is this sort of

00:22:17.640 protected Greenbelt. And what you're seeing now is density is skipping over the Greenbelt and getting

00:22:23.400 built on the other side of the Greenbelt. So now you've got towns that are even further away from

00:22:26.920 Toronto that are experiencing massive amounts of demand for housing because you can't build in this,

00:22:32.600 like, you know, protected 50 to 100 kilometer ring around the city. I don't think that, you know,

00:22:39.080 I don't think it's politically viable to completely take away this concept. But it does need to be brought

00:22:43.640 back into question. If you want people to be able to afford the dream of the backyard, the, the local

00:22:49.400 park, the, you know, the pleasant neighborhoods, you're running out of space to do it. So it's, um,

00:22:54.280 yeah. Yeah. And there are parcels that you can open up. Like it's not all the spin has often been from

00:23:02.360 the left, um, that, you know, it's as if they're demolishing the Bruce trail and, and wonderful parks.

00:23:09.880 And it's no, there's, there's just like large patches of empty land that you're right because

00:23:14.760 now you're getting this super density in these, these odd pockets or in places that aren't

00:23:19.080 sustainable. Um, and so you have to, that's, that's sort of the one hand of your question

00:23:23.640 is like, we need, we need to know where we're allowed to build and what we're allowed to build.

00:23:27.160 The other hand, the other side of your question is it is incredibly expensive taxes and fees and

00:23:31.880 charges. Um, it's become obscene. I mean, there's parts of the province where you'll spend a quarter

00:23:36.600 of a million dollars to build a house on taxes before you build the house, you know, like it's,

00:23:42.200 uh, and then you wonder why you can't afford a house, why you can't buy a house that's less

00:23:45.640 than a million dollars. It's like, well, there's this massive line item. So, um, no shortage of

00:23:50.600 ways to, to accelerate housing development in the province. The Ontario skills development fund.

00:23:56.360 It's a big club and you ain't in it. Critics argue it's a, it's a circular economy akin to,

00:24:02.040 and perhaps beyond any level of cronyism we've seen from the federal liberals.

00:24:06.520 If Washington DC has K street, I guess we now have Bay street. You make a max donation,

00:24:11.800 allegedly, apparently you grab a lobbyist close to the premier who you think would be considered

00:24:16.440 in deep conflict, such as a campaign manager. Next thing you know, as it seems skills development fund

00:24:23.320 bucks come heading your way up to a hundred million in total for, for clients of a certain firm alone.

00:24:28.760 None of us are under any pretense that politics doesn't have an outsized lobbying issue,

00:24:34.840 but is this not on another level as a conservative in Ontario? Do you have concerns about this degree

00:24:41.320 of a, an arguable pay to play? What I see in the, in the skills development fund story is evidence of

00:24:49.640 entitlement in a government that does not feel like it is accountable to the people of the province

00:24:55.240 anymore. It feels like it is entitled to govern. It feels like it is entitled to power

00:25:00.200 on an indefinite basis. They do not see the end of their government anytime near term

00:25:05.640 as they look forward on the horizon. Part of that is because we have inept opposition in the

00:25:10.200 Ontario liberal party and the Ontario NDP, and it's created this sort of sense in PC circles that

00:25:15.720 they are unbeatable and therefore can do whatever they want. And they start treating the government as

00:25:20.440 sort of their private piggy bank to sort of advance their agenda. So I think the skills development

00:25:25.880 fund is not unique. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of examples of this over the course

00:25:29.400 of the last seven and a half years, including the green belt that we talked about where well-connected

00:25:33.320 families and landowners were able to get sort of preferential treatment as they were changing the

00:25:37.960 rules surrounding the green belt. This is more of a, this to me is evidence of like a mindset that has

00:25:45.880 changed inside of Queen's Park where there is no more humility in this government. You know, I think

00:25:51.160 I'll put aside the merits of the program itself. I question the merits of the program, even if it were

00:25:56.920 well administered. I think the moment you start hearing that the NDP and the liberals both agree with the

00:26:02.680 merits of the program, they just disagree with the way it's been managed, you sort of have to question the

00:26:08.360 policy itself. But putting that aside, this has been managed incredibly arrogantly by the people

00:26:15.000 around, you know, the cabinet table who think that they can sort of get away with almost anything.

00:26:20.280 You know, people will remember when Doug Ford first got elected in 2018, it was, this was after

00:26:25.160 15 years of Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGinty. A huge part of the narrative as to why we wanted change

00:26:30.680 was Doug Ford parading around saying, hey, we're going to clean up the mess of the Ontario liberals that

00:26:37.080 they left behind after 15 years. And the mess that he was often talking about was the scandals of that

00:26:42.120 government, the gas plant scandals, the e-health scandals, the, you know, we have the sort of wind

00:26:49.320 farm, you know, hydro ballooning costs, but you could get special contracts in the provincial

00:26:54.040 government to build wind farms around the province. And we came into power saying we're going to be

00:26:59.240 different. And we're going to treat tax dollars with respect. You know, now three majority elections

00:27:05.640 later, we've completely lost sight of what, why we got elected in the first place. And I think this is,

00:27:11.080 to me, this is like a real big cautionary tale for conservatives in general. I think we live,

00:27:16.760 broadly speaking, in a liberal country. And the way I have always seen it is that the job of

00:27:21.480 conservatives when they get elected is to fix the mess that was left behind by the liberals before us,

00:27:26.760 and to set a new standard for like, what does accountability look like in government? And if

00:27:30.440 we behave the same way that our liberal opponents behave, then it starts to beg the question, what's

00:27:36.040 the point of electing conservatives in the first place? If we're not more responsible with the public

00:27:40.120 purse, if we're not more transparent, if we're not more honest in government, I think a huge part of

00:27:46.200 the conservative brand is being the accountable stewards of government. And if we lose sight of that,

00:27:53.320 then people will start wondering what the hell's the point of electing these guys. And I think that's

00:27:56.840 true federally as much as it is provincially, so. It is. And so, Matt, what's next for Project

00:28:01.480 Ontario? Evidently, you've got your hands full with this because, you know, there's much to stand

00:28:06.120 athwart of. Yeah, I think a lot. I mean, there's a huge amount of potential, I'll say. And now it's

00:28:11.880 just a matter of sort of like executing on that potential. We've got an enormous amount of interest.

00:28:16.200 We've had a few thousand people around the province sign up to support. We're now starting to roll out

00:28:20.520 more events. We'll be doing events on key issues. We're hosting an event in November on safer supply

00:28:27.000 and sort of drug policy in the province. We're going to host an event on education reform and

00:28:31.480 school choice. We're hosting an event on, you know, broadly, we hosted an event in Toronto in September.

00:28:37.480 We want to host a similar event, but for people everywhere in the province, we're going to do a

00:28:40.840 big virtual event on let's take back control of sort of the principles that govern our province. So

00:28:46.760 I'd say there's a lot coming in the next six months. People can find out more, sign up at

00:28:50.360 projectontario.ca and stay tuned. We've just recently released a new website. We're just

00:28:57.560 recently announcing that we can start accepting donations from people that want to support the

00:29:01.320 cause. And so check us out at projectontario.ca to follow along. Matt Spoke, thanks for joining us.

00:29:07.560 Thanks, Alex.

Juno News - November 01, 2025

Doug Ford's crony 'conservatism' hurts us all

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