Juno News - FORD FALLOUT： Premier targets Conservatives amid backroom rumours

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juno News. Alexander Brown here back for another episode. I am a host of Not Sorry. I'm

00:00:08.340 the director of the National Citizens Coalition. I'm a writer, communicator, campaigner. Great to

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00:00:16.860 so many great show hosts. It's great to have Candace's show back in full swing. While you're

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00:00:33.940 More on Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the three-term progressive conservative of undeniable success

00:00:39.680 at the ballot box, but of dubious scruples and allegiances. Reports have emerged that Ontario

00:00:45.940 Premier Doug Ford has backroom discussions with Prime Minister Mark Carney about holding a spring

00:00:50.100 election. That could potentially, obviously, secure a liberal majority government. Further

00:00:55.660 indicators that an election may be looming are massive numbers of poll tally sheets are reported

00:01:00.980 to be being prepared by Elections Canada. The Globe and Mail reported that sources who remained

00:01:06.720 unnamed because they were unauthorized to speak publicly about private discussions say Ford and

00:01:11.800 Carney have discussed calling an early federal election multiple times. And if you cast your mind

00:01:17.540 back to the spring, Ford was seemingly an unofficial campaigner for Carney on multiple occasions.

00:01:23.320 There were frequent media salvos from some in his camp that sought to publicly distract a campaign

00:01:28.880 run by Jenny Byrne at the time. There was and is, I believe, some legitimacy to their criticisms.

00:01:37.000 The conservatives, the federal conservatives, could have perhaps pivoted earlier, perhaps better

00:01:42.480 understood where voters were headed, particularly of a certain age, as opposed to to just staying on

00:01:49.840 axe the tax. But there's also sort of little accounting for what ended up being the power of the rally

00:01:56.000 around the flag effect, the total collapse of the NDP and a portion of the electorate that dusted off their

00:02:01.480 Canadian flags for the first time in years to ignore much needed reform at a time of such uncertainty.

00:02:07.520 And yet, for all his ability to opine and to give lessons to others, Doug Ford doesn't have the policy

00:02:17.040 success to back up his electoral success. Ontario, still considered the sick man of North America

00:02:22.540 economically, has been mired in years of Trudeau-esque policies of subsidy and non-competitiveness.

00:02:30.160 Its housing crisis is unprecedented. Its transit boondoggles are those of legend. Its business

00:02:37.860 closures during COVID were legion. It was allowed to become the fake school, illegal trucking academy,

00:02:45.920 mass immigration capital of Canada, to the tremendous detriment of public safety, traffic, cohesion, 1.00

00:02:53.340 the job and housing market, and a healthcare crunch. Despite those failures, and those are a lot of

00:02:58.860 failures, despite the weekly updates to the Skills Development Fund graft and criticisms of Ontario's

00:03:05.700 supposed circular economy of lobbyists and influence, folks who get to benefit from a three-term

00:03:10.860 majority that everyday Canadians and Ontarians don't appear to share in, Ford was back in the

00:03:16.700 news on Tuesday, twisting the knife with federal conservatives. Take a look.

00:03:21.040 Have you given any advice to Pierre Paulyab? Have you given any advice to Pierre Paulyab about

00:03:25.380 the possible election? No, no. I saw Pierre, I saw Pierre at the portrait hanging of Prime Minister

00:03:32.180 Harper. Sir Cairns, said hello, congratulated him, and for getting a convention, 80 some odd percent.

00:03:40.960 But anyways, you don't win elections at conventions. You win elections across the country. So let's see

00:03:49.140 what happens if the Prime Minister decides to call elections.

00:03:53.180 Ford's not wrong about elections not being won at conventions. Ford's recent convention, deliberately

00:03:58.680 booked at the same time as the federal parties, included a media ban up until the week of. It's a small

00:04:04.720 tent they've built in Ontario. It's an impressive machine, but there isn't an insider in our line of

00:04:09.920 work who doesn't have concerns or questions about it from behind the scenes. Doug Ford is not a

00:04:17.200 conservative, not in any traditional sense, and he doesn't care that you or I know it. Let's talk to

00:04:24.240 recurring guest, collaborator, and friend Matt Spoke. He's the co-founder of Project Ontario,

00:04:29.360 which seeks to better hold the Premier of Ontario to conservative account. Matt and I have been called

00:04:34.880 Yahoo's and Radical Rights together by the Premier himself. Matt Spoke joins us, co-founder of Project

00:04:40.800 Ontario. Matt, thanks for coming back on. Thanks, Alex. Always a pleasure.

00:04:44.400 Yeah, you and I have been called Yahoo's and Radical Rights before by Ontario's Premier, so I figured,

00:04:50.720 you know, we should just keep going through this together. Matt, to start, what do you make of the

00:04:56.080 reports that Ford is, Ontario's Premier is seemingly campaigning behind the scenes? This Globe report

00:05:03.120 came out this week with Mark Carney, sort of asking him to solidify a Liberal majority. I know that would

00:05:09.360 strike many in this audience as a little strange, given the party that Doug Ford represents.

00:05:14.720 Yeah, I mean, I think for those of your listeners who follow Doug Ford, it's not too surprising of a

00:05:22.720 headline. I think if I could summarize the leadership of our party in Ontario today, it's really,

00:05:29.120 you know, political calculations that drive the agenda. And I think the political calculation right

00:05:34.080 now is that there are two things that are very favorable to this government and to this leader.

00:05:38.880 One is that the Donald Trump issues stay front and center as long as possible. And two is he plays

00:05:46.720 well with a Liberal government in Ottawa. And I think he's shown that not only under Mark Carney,

00:05:52.240 but under the previous leadership of Justin Trudeau. And I think, you know, this is maybe

00:05:58.640 my cynical take, but I think he's sort of like proven this out over and over and over again,

00:06:03.360 that if the political calculation is favorable, even if it's not necessarily the right thing,

00:06:08.640 according to the principles of the party he governs or the right thing for the people of Ontario,

00:06:13.600 I think he's more likely to take that direction than the alternative. So not surprised.

00:06:18.320 It is true. And there's often a kind of push pull when it comes to a, if there's a conservative in

00:06:26.640 office in Ontario, there's a, there's a liberal in office as prime minister or vice versa. And so

00:06:32.240 it, it certainly, they give him more favorable like wins where you don't just wear

00:06:37.360 all the problems of incumbency, even though he's an incumbent, he's a three-term majority conservative.

00:06:42.000 And in that time has done a similar amount of damage as one could argue as to the previous

00:06:48.800 prime minister, Matt, in your recent article for the hub, Ontario's progressive conservatives need

00:06:54.160 a wake up call. You posit that electoral success alone, isn't a governing philosophy and that the

00:07:00.080 party risks drifting from its core values. Where do you see this drift occurring right now? And what

00:07:06.080 principles should the party recommit to ahead of, you know, what could be an election season? What,

00:07:12.960 what, what could be, you know, a difficult year ahead?

00:07:15.520 Yeah. I mean, I think if people remember back to when Doug Ford ran, uh, not only for his first

00:07:22.320 term as premier, but for the leadership of the PC party, um, at the time, a big part of his brand

00:07:27.520 was being Rob Ford's brother. Right. And he was still a relatively unknown candidate. I mean,

00:07:32.640 people knew him by name, but we did, we knew what Rob stood for. Um, you know, Rob was not a deeply

00:07:38.240 philosophical or ideological guy, but he was a very simple matter of fact guy. You know,

00:07:43.840 we spent too much money at city hall. Let's stop spending all this money, you know, cut the gravy

00:07:48.320 train. And, and, and I think Doug brought a very similar flair to his provincial run. Um, you know,

00:07:55.360 his, his messaging was pretty simple. I'm going to look out for the little guy. I'm going to cut all this,

00:07:58.960 this wasteful scandalous spending that our predecessors, the liberals sort of like oversaw.

00:08:04.720 Um, and I'm going to get back to just like basics and common sense at Queens park. I don't think

00:08:08.960 every, anybody ever expected like an ideologue in Doug Ford, you know, a deeply principled or

00:08:14.400 ideological guy, but I think they expected somebody who just like got back to those basic common sense

00:08:18.800 things. Um, and so even in his version of the PC party, I think those are the principles. Those,

00:08:23.920 you know, I think you could redefine the principles depending on the leader more ideologically or less.

00:08:28.640 I don't think he's a reformist. I don't think he was sort of a slash and burn conservative, but he

00:08:32.720 was the type of guy that you'd expect to say, Hey, if I look at a program and it doesn't make any

00:08:37.280 sense to me, I'm going to cut it because that's just common sense. I think we've seen the complete

00:08:41.680 opposite. And I think for, if people actually took the time to think about what it was about Doug that

00:08:47.360 got them excited in 2018. And then ask the question, has he lived up to that excitement or those

00:08:52.720 reasons for being excited? I think he falls short across the board. I mean, has he looked out for the

00:08:56.880 little guy? Has he cut taxes? Has he shrunk the size of government? Has he gotten the government

00:09:00.880 back to like common sense, you know, basics? And I don't, across most of those metrics or

00:09:06.160 questions, I think the answer is no. Um, and I think ultimately that's, that's his, you know,

00:09:11.200 that's the big risk that faces this party going into the next couple of years. So, you know, I'd like,

00:09:16.080 I'd like a deeper, um, a, a deeper reflection on like, what should we stand for? What are these

00:09:22.640 beliefs that we, we hold as conservatives in the province? What, how do we want to tackle problems

00:09:27.600 in education and healthcare and the economy? And, um, but I almost think that's too much to expect

00:09:32.560 out of this leader. I think if we can hold him to any standard, it should be his own standard in 2018.

00:09:37.600 You said you were going to be that guy who looked up for the little guy. Why are you not doing that?

00:09:41.040 Um, and I think that alone would be a massive improvement. Yeah. I think of in some ways,

00:09:46.880 I suppose the irony being that he almost counts on president Trump at this point to, to serve as a,

00:09:53.040 a useful foil and distraction. But I think there, there are those in conservative circles in the

00:09:57.840 United States right now, especially after say the last month or two of, of policy, uh, going on there

00:10:04.240 who are going like, what's the Republican party going to look like after Donald Trump? Because we are

00:10:08.240 potentially in big trouble, you know, based on, uh, some of the winds we're seeing early in the polls,

00:10:14.240 based on what's actually going to be left behind. Is it just a cult of personality? Is it just insiders

00:10:20.160 when it comes to Ontario's premier? I just think of, we see this apathy in the polls, right? Where it's

00:10:25.760 like, oh, his number is still okay. It's still in majority territory, but then you look at it and

00:10:30.000 it's like 49% of the voters are telling you within that number. Yeah, it is what it is. You know,

00:10:35.680 there's no one better. I don't feel great about this. It's an exercise in diminished returns and

00:10:41.280 expectations. And it even, they're even celebrating, you know, the Eglinton Crosstown right now actually

00:10:46.560 opening when this was Toronto's big dig. This was, you know, we built, our pioneers built railways and

00:10:54.640 highways across Canada, you know, two or three years, you know, for, for far less money adjusted by inflation.

00:11:01.440 And so, yeah, like how could, how is this going to impact public trust in, in his supposedly

00:11:09.360 conservative leadership? Like if you were the party right now, what steps would you potentially

00:11:15.360 take knowing, and you and I have talked about this on stage before at a Project Ontario event,

00:11:20.080 knowing that he's not going to be premier forever. Like if you were, you know, part of the Ontario PC

00:11:24.800 party right now, and you really gave a darn about the future of Ontario conservatism,

00:11:28.400 where would you try to steer them? Where would you even start?

00:11:33.600 I think one of the challenges that plagues a government after eight years in office is this

00:11:38.240 inability to like take intelligent risks. And I think, you know, and ultimately that's

00:11:44.240 seems to be the story of most governments and why they ultimately lose is that they stop putting

00:11:48.320 forward a vision that feels optimistic and ambitious and growth oriented. And it really just

00:11:54.720 becomes about managing the current state of affairs. And right now I think the perception

00:11:59.280 among Ontarians is that the current state of affairs is bad. It's going to get worse because

00:12:03.840 every, every headline we see is, is just negative news about tariffs, about trade disputes, about layoffs

00:12:10.000 and plant closures. And so I think people have internalized this idea that we're in for

00:12:14.480 a hard period of time coming up. And I think there's two choices to make as a political leader.

00:12:19.600 There's the choice to say, Hey, it's going to be bad, but I'm the guy to like, hold your hand

00:12:24.160 through that bad period. Or we can make it better. You know, like, let's actually start swinging for

00:12:31.120 the fences. Let's actually start trying things that maybe in a different context would have sounded

00:12:36.320 radical, you know, like massive reforms in various aspects of public policy that, you know, if it weren't

00:12:42.480 for all this dispute going on and all these bad headlines, you know, people might not have the appetite

00:12:47.200 to take those risks. But I think if you feel that you're backed into a corner, like we, we really

00:12:51.360 are right now, not only as a province, but, you know, increasingly across the country, even though

00:12:56.880 I'll say that Ontario, I think will be the disproportionate recipient of bad outcomes in

00:13:01.760 the coming years. I think that's the opportunity to actually like, you know, take that risk, you know,

00:13:08.320 stick your head out there and swing for something. And that's where I would try to direct the party.

00:13:13.600 I'm hearing like, you know, we've talked about this in the past. There's, we're at the beginnings

00:13:18.000 now of a leadership race in the Ontario Liberal Party. Very, very early innings. It's going to be

00:13:23.600 long and drawn out. The Liberal Party here, we have every reason to believe that they're going to screw

00:13:26.720 it up because they've screwed it up every time in the past, you know, eight years. But, you know,

00:13:32.080 being in third place gives you this unique opportunity as a political party to have nothing to lose,

00:13:37.120 but risk it on big ideas, big ideas, big reforms, big messaging. And so you're going to see that.

00:13:42.640 I don't know from who, I don't know which candidates are going to stand out, but I do know

00:13:46.720 that we should expect to see like really, really bold language coming out of what I think is

00:13:51.920 continues to be the natural opposition in Ontario, even though they're the third party

00:13:56.080 as opposed to the NDP. And if you don't have like your version of that to respond,

00:14:00.800 I think people are going to be hungry for positivity and optimism. And they're just not

00:14:05.360 getting that out of this government. So, you know, that'll catch up to them.

00:14:08.400 Yeah. And I think of like, I'll name a guy like Eric Lombardi is exploring Iran. He's, you know,

00:14:16.800 of the Build Canada network. He's an urbanist and a bright guy and has forward thinking ideas about

00:14:23.600 housing and cities and how they work. And if you're just running up against the same old,

00:14:29.120 same old, same old and, and are, I can appreciate the, the NIMBY perspective, but if, if that is

00:14:36.080 countered to young people with a message of like, Oh, we have like the worst housing starts in North

00:14:40.880 America. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Or, you know, our, our one bedroom dog crate condos can't move.

00:14:46.400 And I mean, you're building purpose-built rentals, which look awesome, but not enough people are,

00:14:50.400 are, are building homes that families could actually live in. Yeah. What a potential

00:14:55.520 vulnerability that could be if you're not going to, to adapt. And so what would be if you were them?

00:15:01.280 Well, I want to pull on this before we, we move on, which is what would be something radical to you

00:15:08.000 as a principled conservative? What, what kind of policy change would you share with our audience

00:15:14.400 right now? Would you advise them to, you know, here's one that, you know, it, it might, it might

00:15:19.360 take a little bit more effort than pouring out ground Royal and, and, and, and doing the, the song

00:15:24.400 and dance, but what could be something that they would do right now that would actually benefit

00:15:28.320 everyday Canadians that, that might be perceived as by their modern standard revolutionary?

00:15:33.760 Well, you mentioned the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in Toronto, big, big transit project that was

00:15:39.840 massively behind schedule and massively over budget, even though it's complete and that's a win, you know,

00:15:44.160 people can ride it to work now. I do think there's a massive story in infrastructure that could be,

00:15:49.600 you know, instead of always constantly being the negative headline of why the project didn't get

00:15:53.360 delivered on time, didn't get delivered on budget. I do think there's a way to actually deliver

00:15:58.400 infrastructure at scale in a way that is done well and within reasonable targets. And there are

00:16:06.000 countries around the world that do this. I think there could be significant reforms in the way the

00:16:10.240 province manages these infrastructure projects. For one, I'll say like what we tend to do, and this is not

00:16:17.520 unique to Ontario, it tends to be sort of a Canadian ailment that we all have, is we tend to look at these

00:16:21.920 things as one off investments that we don't have the expertise for, we don't have prior, you know, history

00:16:27.440 doing something like that. So the ramp up period to take on a new project, whether it's an LRT or the Alto high

00:16:32.320 speed rail train or a pipeline, always feels like this cold start because nobody in the country knows

00:16:36.800 how to do it because nobody's done it in 20 or 30 or 50 years, you know.

00:16:40.000 It somehow requires a foreign subsidy to make it happen.

00:16:42.720 Totally. So the idea that we could just get better at this constant infrastructure build,

00:16:48.240 you know, actually like sort of systematizing and operationalizing infrastructure as a core,

00:16:54.560 you know, a core strength of government, because I do think it's a place where government can uniquely

00:16:58.480 do things. It's also worth mentioning that like we have massive institutional investors in this

00:17:03.200 country, pension funds, et cetera, that own major infrastructure projects in every other country,

00:17:07.680 but they don't own any in Canada because they own rail stations, they own airports, they own ports,

00:17:11.840 they own, you know, and for whatever reason, they can't find projects that work in their economic

00:17:17.600 model in Canada because it's too politically risky, it's too over budget, it's too politically fraught.

00:17:22.640 So we sort of create an environment where like we can't get anything done and it's policy that sort of

00:17:27.040 impedes these things. So that would be one. Obviously, we've talked about housing a ton

00:17:31.120 before in terms of like the obvious reforms they can make to just like get shovels in the ground. 0.99

00:17:35.680 Ontario continues to lag every other province in the country by every metric on housing.

00:17:40.800 I'd love to see pretty significant tax reform as it relates to at minimum, you know, families,

00:17:47.760 you know, income splitting, things in that direction, but probably more broadly,

00:17:51.280 like a massive tax reform across the board. We're seeing huge percentages of

00:17:55.280 certain towns and cities getting laid off and manufacturing, you know, plant closures and

00:17:59.840 things like that. And I think you need to create an environment where people want to take risks

00:18:03.600 again to start new businesses to try becoming employers, you know, so yeah, we need to catalyze

00:18:10.080 some sort of like moment of like, you know, industrial activity. And it's not going to happen if we don't

00:18:16.960 change anything.

00:18:17.600 Yeah, speaking of catalyzing change a moment, sounding like Carney speak there, Carney GPT speak,

00:18:26.080 but education reform, another no brainer in Ontario obviously has a curriculum issue, a deployment issue,

00:18:36.240 a lack of variability. The Project Ontario to the uninitiated has taken on a real leadership role there.

00:18:43.440 You have an event coming up. You have one coming up in March. Tell us about it because, you know,

00:18:48.640 surely the parents in the audience and in the province understand that they want school choice.

00:18:53.520 They want, you know, options in the curriculum and the delivery just hasn't been there provincially either.

00:19:00.080 Yeah. I mean, like one of the things I'll say on education, being a dad of a few kids in the

00:19:05.360 system today is that like, you know, the solution to our education woes is not putting more money into

00:19:09.840 the system as it currently exists. Yeah. The incentives are completely misaligned. And, you know,

00:19:14.960 it's worth saying there's two ways to think about education reform in the province of Ontario.

00:19:19.200 On the one hand is like, how do we make a public system that functions and delivers the outcomes that

00:19:24.160 average everyday people expect, which I think is, is my kid learning that? Are they learning how to read?

00:19:29.840 Are they going to get accepted into whatever post-secondary field of study they want to go into,

00:19:34.240 whether it be a trade or a university degree or whatever the case might be? And so, you know,

00:19:39.360 how do we deeply reform the way the public systems work? But I think in parallel to that, you have to

00:19:44.560 look at, at a broader reform that allows for pluralism and competition in education. It's worth

00:19:52.480 noting that like, I think in any version of this, Canadian education will always be disproportionately

00:19:58.560 publicly funded education, 80 to 90% of kids are going to go through a public school. But the fact

00:20:03.920 that 10 to 20% may choose an alternative, their families may choose an alternative at homeschooling,

00:20:08.880 a religious school, a STEM school, a classical school, I think that the existence of that

00:20:15.040 alternative system actually puts pressure on the public system to perform at a certain standard.

00:20:19.040 Because if you know that a kid could pick up and leave and take their tax dollars with them,

00:20:24.480 because in British Columbia, as an example, you can get up to 50% of your kid's education

00:20:28.640 cost back as a tax rebate. If you choose to put your kid into an approved private or alternative

00:20:34.960 school, that doesn't exist in Ontario. This is not an American notion. There are three,

00:20:38.960 four major provinces in the country that have versions of this, Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec.

00:20:43.520 And so, and I think there's a smaller one in the Maritimes that I'm forgetting, but

00:20:47.760 so this idea that like parents should be at the forefront of making choices for their kids' education.

00:20:52.640 And because of that existence, you know, the public system is sort of held accountable to a higher

00:20:57.520 standard. We hear lots of like, you know, bell curving of grades and now universities are looking

00:21:04.800 at applicants saying it doesn't really matter if you got a 95% in high school. I don't believe

00:21:08.560 the 95% is really 95%. I just think your teachers are, you know, making up big grades. So, you know,

00:21:15.120 all of that, I think there's, we're going to be talking about the event you mentioned is on March

00:21:19.120 10th at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto, the RCMI. We've got a great slate of

00:21:24.880 speakers that come from both of these worlds, like performing public education and introducing

00:21:30.480 alternative styles of education. You know, and I think not, I don't want to diminish also that a

00:21:36.080 huge part of the problem in education is getting ideology out of the classroom. Like this idea that

00:21:40.880 our teachers have become these sort of like ideologues that are trying to indoctrinate our kids.

00:21:46.160 We've seen it firsthand. I mean, we saw kids getting pulled to like pro-Palestinian protests

00:21:50.480 in the middle of 2024 in grade three, you know, like, so there's, there's a lot of layers to this,

00:21:57.040 including how teachers are educated, the teachers colleges, you know, the incentives in the system

00:22:02.800 and the idea of, of competition outside of the system. I know Mike Harris, former Ontario

00:22:07.200 premier would not have stood for that. Matt, you're a true blue principal conservative,

00:22:11.920 even when it gets you in trouble, which we're, we're greatly appreciative. Where can folks

00:22:16.400 get tickets for that event? ProjectOntario.ca. You'll find the event

00:22:20.240 information there. It's called Our Kids Deserve Better. And again, it's on March 10th in Toronto.

00:22:24.160 We'd love to have you there. It's going to be a great event.

00:22:26.240 And they sure do deserve better. Matt Spoke. Thanks for joining us again.

00:22:29.280 Thanks a lot, Alex.

Juno News - February 15, 2026

FORD FALLOUT： Premier targets Conservatives amid backroom rumours

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