Juno News - Doug Ford's Failures

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juneau News. Welcome back for another episode of Not Sorry. I'm host Alexander

00:00:06.840 Brown, director of the National Citizens Coalition. While you are here, take advantage

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00:00:43.440 Matt Spoke joins us from Project Ontario. Matt, thanks for being here.

00:00:48.080 Thanks, Alex. Always fun.

00:00:49.280 Matt, Project Ontario. What are the main criticisms from this assembly of conservatives, conservative

00:00:58.420 groups that made a lot of noise this year, heading into the holidays? What's next for

00:01:07.200 the organization? Where are you seeing growth? And how can we all better hold the Ontario government

00:01:12.940 to account?

00:01:13.400 Well, I'll tell you, the timing of this, as coincidental as it is, this is us looking

00:01:19.840 back over almost eight years of progressive conservative governments at Queen's Park in

00:01:24.620 Ontario under Doug Ford's leadership, where we've had missed opportunities on a whole bunch

00:01:28.840 of files to reform things like healthcare and education, to sort of put a best foot forward

00:01:32.880 on the economy. But a lot of that also feels like the last seven and a half years, we've

00:01:38.140 been fortunate to live in an economic situation that was not dire. What worries me now is

00:01:43.380 looking forward over the next five to 10 years, it really does feel like we're entering a

00:01:47.700 really different outlook for the future of Ontario's economy. And the ripple effects that

00:01:53.380 that's going to have, you know, a lot of this has been catalyzed by the trade disputes with

00:01:56.820 the US and Donald Trump and these tariff policies. But it's also just exposing a lot of the vulnerabilities

00:02:02.820 that we've left bear in the way that we've designed the system in Ontario, both our economic

00:02:09.280 system, but also the social services that we all rely on, like education and healthcare and other

00:02:12.960 things. And so, you know, now this is not just a pet peeve where we say, hey, we'd really like

00:02:18.000 to see a government push forward our pet project agenda. I'm now increasingly concerned that we are

00:02:24.280 going to start feeling in a quantifiable way, a significant decline in our standard of living over

00:02:29.940 the next five years. And that's going to show up in our incomes, it's going to show up in our housing

00:02:34.240 costs, it's going to show up in the quality of our education system, accessibility of healthcare

00:02:38.420 services, etc. So we're trying to bang a drum on this. We've been at this for just over six months.

00:02:43.320 I mean, moving into next year, there's a couple of specific policies that we think need a lot of

00:02:48.300 attention. Obviously, the economy is getting hit incredibly hard. We've seen the beginnings of,

00:02:54.000 I think, a huge number of layoffs coming in manufacturing across the province, as recently as

00:03:00.080 Algoma Steel's announcement a week or two ago, because of the tariff, the steel tariffs, but also the

00:03:05.800 automotive manufacturing sector. And if we don't take a look at how we are managing our economy,

00:03:10.580 what our tax policies and regulatory policies look like from scratch and almost like redesign this

00:03:15.900 system from first principles, we're going to continue bleeding jobs and economic prosperity

00:03:20.400 very, very quickly. I'd say more top of mind today because of the changes happening in Ontario's

00:03:27.340 education system. Paul Calandra, our Minister of Education, is now opening discussions on certain

00:03:33.660 reforms within the public education system in Ontario. We don't think they're going to go far

00:03:38.700 enough. We think they've already taken some meaningful options off the table, including

00:03:42.600 school choice, competition, pluralism, as well as meaningful curriculum reform. It seems like a lot

00:03:49.420 of Paul Calandra's focus right now is really on governance and expense management, like our

00:03:55.000 school board trustees spending too much money, which obviously they shouldn't. But the fundamental

00:04:00.140 problem is we're not educating kids properly. They're leaving our schools. We had EQAO test

00:04:05.960 results, which are our standardized test results in Ontario, got published a couple of weeks ago.

00:04:11.220 We have 42% of grade six kids failing math in the province, 50% of grade three kids failing math in

00:04:18.020 the province. Across all metrics, we are not doing well. We are not producing kids that are ready for

00:04:24.220 the world. And I think that's like really, really concerning.

00:04:27.040 Yeah. Literacy, the literacy numbers look bad. The math scores are terrible. I mean,

00:04:31.240 I had terrible math scores, so I can't judge. And there is the woke factor. I know that it's

00:04:36.160 like maybe a pass day to bring up, but Melanie Bennett and Juno for Juno News through True North

00:04:40.960 has some reporting on how even embedded in some of this curriculum is maybe jihad is a spiritual

00:04:48.760 struggle. It's like kids should not be learning that or thinking that or believing that. There is this

00:04:54.220 sort of decolonial deconstructionist agenda that's in these schools as well. I think of housing

00:05:00.760 because Ontario is starting to see net migration, particularly from folks you'd want to stay there,

00:05:08.600 productive types who are feeling the shove. How would Project Ontario or you yourself sort of frame

00:05:16.600 the Ford government's accountability here for failing to address Ontario's housing shortage through

00:05:22.320 through any policies, principled conservative policies? What's lacking here and what can be

00:05:29.360 done quickly to help change that if these next few years are going to look so dire?

00:05:34.340 Well, I will say there's there's sort of, you know, there's two major factors impacting our housing

00:05:38.040 market. And one is the policies that we put in place to significantly restrict our ability to build

00:05:42.860 in the province. And so some might call these like the supply side issues. And the other is the

00:05:46.900 the recent history we've had of like significantly overblown immigration numbers that put, you know,

00:05:51.860 an unnatural amount of pressure and demand in our housing system. I think the Ford government's had

00:05:56.660 fault on both of those, you know, on the supply side, this is almost universally provincial jurisdiction

00:06:02.700 in terms of land use policy, tax policy, the types of things that decide how much will a developer pay

00:06:08.820 when they build a house and what are they allowed to build and where we have some of the most restrictive

00:06:13.280 land use policies in North America, in Ontario. And that is at the stroke of a pen, you know, in the

00:06:19.260 hands of the premier to make changes if you wanted to, I will concede to him and to other political

00:06:24.840 leaders that this is a really difficult policy file to get right to strike the right balance. This is

00:06:31.000 not a policy file that really finds its way cleanly on like the conservative or liberal divide,

00:06:36.620 because often this is a factor of more of older homeowners wanting things not to change, wanting

00:06:42.400 their neighborhoods to stay static versus younger would be homeowners saying, but we just need to 0.99

00:06:47.100 build more units of housing somewhere. They need to show up near somebody's backyard. You know,

00:06:51.740 if everybody says don't build near me, the reality is we won't build anywhere. Right. So,

00:06:56.040 and I think there's a, there's a tough dance to find the right balance, but you have to do something.

00:07:00.960 You're going to have, you know, this, this issue gets worse the longer we, we procrastinate on it.

00:07:05.580 And on the immigration side, I mean, this, this is the province that begged for higher levels of 0.99

00:07:10.620 immigration. This is the province that printed accreditations for these fraudulent career 0.92

00:07:15.300 colleges that were bringing in international students. Right. So it's easy to pass the blame

00:07:20.540 to Ottawa, but I think 80 to 90% of the fault lies with us in Ontario. And we're seeing the consequences

00:07:26.480 of that years later. So. It sure does. And then on the immigration front, what, how could the province

00:07:34.540 achieve a more sustainable growth? How could it, you, you write about and tweet about these sort

00:07:41.980 of pro natalist ideals and, and sometimes draw the ire of, of, of the left, but I think it's a great

00:07:47.100 idea. It's it, I think that surely there are incentives that, that we can provide to our people

00:07:52.900 to, instead of having to create all these fake schools or, or just hand out access to Canada,

00:08:00.040 like it's some buy one, get one free deal or a stocking stuffer that we could turn around to

00:08:04.600 families and incentivize, you know, the, Hey, you know, here's a tax break per kid or something.

00:08:10.120 Like, what do you, what would you want to see? Is it as a, as a young dad who, who, you know,

00:08:15.000 wants conservatives to, to sort of model that behavior of being family first and how could we

00:08:20.200 sustainably grow our population? You know, it's funny. I think, I think both on the immigration issue,

00:08:25.000 as well as on, on like domestic birth rates, I think the, the underlying cause and the underlying

00:08:30.600 solution are the same. You need to create a country. And in this case, a province that people

00:08:35.880 feel optimistic about. If people feel like the future will be better than the present and the

00:08:40.280 past, they are more likely to want to have children. They are more likely to think that,

00:08:45.000 Hey, even though it might be difficult to afford this today, I have enough confidence and optimism

00:08:49.880 about the future that I'll take that risk today. I'll take that short-term financial risk,

00:08:53.560 knowing that my economic prospects look better as I get older, as I, you know,

00:08:57.480 advance in my career or whatever the case might be. If you created a system where people are

00:09:02.200 inherently pessimistic because the economy is not doing well, because we don't have a strong

00:09:06.920 sense of culture or cohesion in our communities, then people start to feel the opposite. They say,

00:09:11.880 how could I possibly bring a child into this system when I don't think I'll be able to afford my

00:09:16.520 mortgage next month? Right? So these trade-offs become a lot more acute. I think the same could be said

00:09:21.000 on immigration. I mean, I think that the core underlying issue in our immigration system is we

00:09:25.320 need to make ourselves the most attractive destination in the world for the best people

00:09:29.560 in the world, how we define them. The highest producers, the people most likely to adhere and

00:09:34.680 find cohesion in our social norms and our common culture. You want these people to say, Hey, Canada

00:09:41.400 is the land of optimism. It's the land of opportunity. I want to go there. I think right now you have the

00:09:46.360 complete opposite. You've created a system where some of the lowest performers in the world want

00:09:50.520 to be here and our own people don't want to have children. Right? So we, we, we effectively compound

00:09:54.840 the problem. Uh, and it's, it's, you know, we're seeing the results of that. Yeah. And how are we

00:10:01.000 prepared to welcome the world's best if we don't have it together on housing, healthcare, education,

00:10:05.960 reform? Yeah. I'll say like, I've seen, I've heard this issue being discussed a lot. And I, I do

00:10:12.280 generally agree with the framing of like, Hey, we shouldn't be bringing in more people than we have the

00:10:15.800 services and infrastructure and houses to support. But I think I come, I shake out in a different

00:10:20.360 conclusion in the sense that like, I think that's the right framing. Don't bring more people than

00:10:24.200 you can house and ha and hospitalized and, and educate, for example. Uh, but one way to look at

00:10:29.640 that is just like dramatically slow down. The other way to look at that is why are we not building

00:10:33.400 faster? Why can't, why can we not get out of our own way so that we actually are not, you know,

00:10:38.120 self-imposing these limitations on our healthcare system and our housing system. Uh, so I think it's a

00:10:42.920 little bit on both sides of the equation where you need to look for solutions. Um, but we do need to

00:10:47.480 get back to some sort of like common sense immigration approach that actually prioritizes

00:10:52.280 who are the right people that add value as opposed to extract value from our system. So yeah. Right.

00:10:57.400 People who will stay, who will integrate, who will have a sense of buy-in and can we offer a sense of

00:11:03.720 buy-in to our own people? I mean, why do some conservatives argue like yourself that Doug Ford has strayed from

00:11:10.440 core principles and, and, and how is Project Ontario working to, to steer the party back on course, Matt?

00:11:19.480 Well, I mean, straight from core principles assumes that there was ever a clear understanding of what

00:11:24.280 those principles were. I think what, what happened in 2018 when Doug Ford was first elected as leader

00:11:29.320 is that there was a very strong group of people around, very strong principled conservatives that, that

00:11:34.040 formed his initial policy platform that got involved as advisors, campaign managers, et cetera, that helped put

00:11:39.800 him in the seat of premier. I think very quickly, once they started seeing his instincts bearing out

00:11:44.200 in policy, many of those early folks left other than the few that maybe saw opportunity to enrich

00:11:49.320 themselves by sticking around. A lot of the early Ford people, um, I would consider very strong

00:11:55.160 principled conservatives. And when they started seeing that the policy agenda was drifting away

00:11:59.800 from the things that they thought he would represent, they all sort of packed up and left. And so,

00:12:04.280 you know, I think Doug Ford is, is showing his true colors. I don't know that he's ever been able to

00:12:08.520 articulate why he's a conservative. I mean, I, I won't speak for him, but I heard this anecdotally

00:12:12.920 that, you know, this is the same guy that when he lived in the U S voted both for Barack Obama and

00:12:17.480 Donald Trump, or at least when Donald Trump was running the first time said he was, he was a fan of

00:12:20.920 Donald Trump. Anybody who can make that sort of like leap from being an Obama supporter to a Trump

00:12:26.200 supporter in a 10 year period probably doesn't understand what their core ideological principles

00:12:31.880 are. Uh, they're just populists, right? So they, they follow what are, what's popular and what do people

00:12:36.920 say they want. And, and they sort of morph themselves into what the polls are telling

00:12:41.080 them to become. So, um, you know, our, our mission at project Ontario, I think at minimum

00:12:46.280 is to frame conversations about the things that are not being done at Queens park that are conservative

00:12:51.160 in nature. I don't have strong hopes that that's going to influence this government or this leader to

00:12:57.240 course correct. But I do think we can play a strong role in framing what, what should the next

00:13:02.280 chapter in the parties, um, the parties evolution look like one day, Doug Ford's not going to be

00:13:06.680 leader of this party anymore. When that day comes, there's going to be an opportunity to reinvent.

00:13:11.400 What does this party stand for? What are the principles we care about and what policy should

00:13:15.160 we be championing? Uh, you know, I hope that that day comes sooner rather than later, but that I think

00:13:19.640 is probably our stated mission. And I hear that all the time from conservatives behind the scenes,

00:13:25.080 campaigners, uh, politicians themselves that he's not going to be premier forever. And that there are those

00:13:32.280 lining up and having these conversations now because they want to be able to fill that void

00:13:37.480 when it goes, cause it's going to be one heck of a void. Cause we are seeing levels of abdication.

00:13:42.200 We are seeing, uh, some dubious, uh, uh, processes, the skills development fund, for example, and I'm not

00:13:49.800 going to get you in trouble, but it's before Ontario's anti-racketeering division right now. I mean,

00:13:55.240 without casting judgment, um, at the very least, is this indicative of, of, of these principles that

00:14:01.400 have been left behind or is, does Ontario have a model of lobbying that isn't serving the province

00:14:06.600 well? I think the lobbying rules in Ontario dramatically need to be reformed. I, you know,

00:14:11.960 I, when this, this has always been, I think most conservatives in this country would use this as a

00:14:16.680 very standard criticism of liberal parties across the country where liberal parties historically have

00:14:21.560 been known to not necessarily have an identifiable set of principles, but really are just malleable to

00:14:26.520 the current times and the current population sort of like hot topics of the day. It's the reason that

00:14:31.960 the same liberal party that elected Justin Trudeau to be, you know, captain environment and captain

00:14:36.440 feminism is now the liberal party supporting Mark Carney, who's seemingly unwinding a lot of these

00:14:41.240 Trudeau era policies. But this is what we're seeing at the provincial level. And I think in an absence,

00:14:45.720 you know, this idea of corruption or soft corruption, or just unethical behavior, however you want to

00:14:51.080 frame it to me in a vacuum of defined principles, you people will, will, will drift towards opportunism.

00:14:58.760 They'll drift towards, Hey, we don't know what the right answer is because we don't actually have a

00:15:02.120 guiding set of principles that tell us what the right answer is. So I'm going to do what's in my

00:15:06.040 best interest in that vacuum of principles. And so I think this is normal human behavior, but it's

00:15:11.160 typically what we expect to see out of our liberal friends and cousins as opposed to out of our own

00:15:15.480 conservatives. And I think it's a big problem. And it probably starts with revisiting the lobbying

00:15:20.040 rules in Ontario. Cause as I understand it, I won't profess to be an expert, but the way lobbyists

00:15:25.400 operate at Queens park would be unheard of on parliament hill. The rules are so different

00:15:30.520 federally than they are in the province. And I think it's probably time to revisit them.

00:15:34.040 No, I think we've all heard. I don't even want to put this on tape about how some of those things

00:15:39.400 go on and how you're kind of, you've given your donation and then like, well, come on and join us.

00:15:44.200 Let's start, let's, let's start a conversation. And it, that strikes me as, as just brazenly

00:15:49.560 wrong and abuse of the system. One, one area that I think Ontario has skated on when it comes to

00:15:56.280 responsibility, broader responsibility, we talk a lot about like, say the diploma mills or housing

00:16:01.720 or healthcare education reform, but, but the safer supply drug program, like they, they, there are so

00:16:07.640 many levers the province could be pulling on right now. And in some ways they're now falling behind

00:16:11.800 British Columbia in, in cleaning up the streets and, and, you know, pulling these programs down

00:16:17.160 that didn't work. I mean, how is project Ontario helping or facilitating that issue?

00:16:22.520 Yeah, this is one that's like relatively new to me in terms of my education on the issue,

00:16:26.520 but the deeper I dive into this with folks like Adam Zivo, who's been a contributor of ours. And,

00:16:30.600 and I recently watched a great documentary by Harrison Faulkner, um, on this issue in London,

00:16:35.960 Ontario. I mean, Ontario now is, is developing the reputation of being the worst province in Canada

00:16:41.160 issue of safer supply. I mean, we're even seeing the NDP premier of Manitoba starting to take a lot

00:16:46.200 stronger positions on this issue. David Eby has started to reverse some of the policies that made

00:16:50.760 BC, um, you know, such an acute problem, not to say that the problem is gone in British Columbia,

00:16:55.640 but there's at least a recognition that we need to unwind some of these damaging policies. Ontario has

00:17:01.160 been doubling down. I mean, I got, I got this message from somebody in, in Ford's inner circle

00:17:05.160 recently that, oh, you're blaming the wrong level of government. This is a federal problem,

00:17:08.680 which is a complete misunderstanding of the issue. The federal government has defunded this program

00:17:12.680 as of a couple of years ago. Anything remaining in our streets from a safer supply, uh, perspective

00:17:17.880 is being funded by OHIP, a provincially funded, you know, health insurance program where literally

00:17:23.320 people are lining the streets outside of pharmacies to pick up their free drugs from the government and

00:17:28.120 turn around and sell it, uh, and lining their pockets to then go buy fentanyl or go buy heroin or go

00:17:33.560 buy whatever the case might be. So, um, you know, it's, we, we definitely need to be talking more

00:17:38.200 about this. I think Adam Zevo has been an incredible champion on this issue. And I, I do think he's going

00:17:42.840 to start making a difference because it's hard to ignore this when you see it in homeless encampments

00:17:46.680 and, you know, drugged up people outside of elementary schools and things that we're seeing in too many

00:17:50.760 communities across the province. Yeah. Matt, what's next for project Ontario, uh, in the event space and,

00:17:56.760 and where can folks learn more about the project? Yeah. Our next big event that we're hosting,

00:18:01.000 um, sometime in the new year, it'll likely be in February. We're still starting to, to, to line up,

00:18:06.120 uh, logistics is going to be on education reform. Um, likely in Toronto, we were trying to host the

00:18:11.880 event at OISE, the Ontario teachers college, uh, but we're having some pushback that they don't want

00:18:16.600 to give us their event space for some odd reason. Um, but, uh, we are, we are, we are bringing together

00:18:23.000 both the, the conversation is really going to be framed around both. What does pluralism and competition

00:18:27.800 look like in our education system, as well as what does meaningful and common sense reform of our

00:18:33.400 public education system need to include? Uh, so stay tuned for that. You can find out more at

00:18:38.120 projectontario.ca. Uh, would love to have people show up. We'll probably record the event, make it

00:18:43.080 available online as well. Um, so more to come on that topic. Terrific, Matt, thanks for your leadership

00:18:48.120 on that and, uh, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Thanks a lot, Alex. You too.

Juno News - January 02, 2026

Doug Ford's Failures

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