Juno News - Ford loses cabinet minister as Mulroney announces resignation

00:00:00.000 Ontario Premier Doug Ford is losing a key member of his cabinet.

00:00:08.780 Caroline Mulroney is leaving her post as Treasury Board President on June 5th

00:00:13.940 and resigning her seat in the Ontario Legislature.

00:00:16.600 That will trigger a by-election in the riding of York Simcoe.

00:00:20.960 In her letter to constituents, Mulroney said,

00:00:23.400 Two years ago, I lost my father.

00:00:26.040 Last year, my husband Andrew and I became empty nesters.

00:00:31.660 These are the kinds of moments that clarify what matters.

00:00:35.120 Together, they have led me to the conclusion that now is the right time to step back from

00:00:41.660 elected life and begin a new chapter, one I am genuinely excited about.

00:00:47.700 Here's Ford talking about it.

00:00:49.580 Caroline is a champion for fiscal responsibility and for Francophone communities across the

00:00:55.200 province, and I just want to thank her for her hard work and for carrying on her legacy of public

00:01:00.820 service that her father, Brian, began. I want to wish Caroline and her family all the very best

00:01:06.760 as she moves on to the next chapter. She came over to the house yesterday. We had a great

00:01:11.920 conversation. What people don't realize, our families were very good friends. I'm a very good

00:01:17.700 friend of Caroline and her dad, and she wants to just focus on her family moving forward, but

00:01:24.720 I think the world of Caroline.

00:01:27.140 Well, for the Premier, this comes amidst sinking poll numbers,

00:01:30.840 the embarrassing sell-off of a government plane,

00:01:33.700 and a legal setback in his bid not to release private records.

00:01:39.520 Conservative Party leader Pierre Polyev has restated his position on sex change operations for kids.

00:01:46.620 He says his party came out against the idea three years ago and nothing has changed.

00:01:51.120 The policy of the Conservative Party as adopted by our national convention in Quebec City three years ago is that there should be no irreversible sex changes for kids, period. That is our policy. And I support that policy.

00:02:06.500 Polyev has also come out against biological males competing in women's sports. He says it's a matter of fairness.

00:02:13.060 MP Nate Erskine-Smith has lost his bid for an appeal following a failed bid for a provincial

00:02:20.440 nomination in the riding of Scarborough Southwest, that's in Ontario. In a letter,

00:02:26.220 the Liberal Party of Ontario dismissed a complaint, his complaint, alleging voting irregularities

00:02:32.740 during the nominating meeting earlier this month. Erskine-Smith lost to pizza entrepreneur

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00:03:42.600 and thank you so much to unsmoke for sponsoring this episode our guest today is toronto sun

00:03:47.220 columnist brian lilly who can also be found on substack at brianlilly.com check it out today

00:03:53.760 welcome once again brian oh thanks for having me mark all right premier ford losing a key member

00:03:59.260 of his cabinet caroline mulrooney announcing that she's going to be leaving her post as a treasury

00:04:05.420 board president. That's going to happen on June the 5th. There's going to be a by-election, I guess,

00:04:11.440 in the writing of York Simcoe. What can we read in there about her departure at this particular

00:04:18.760 time? Well, I could be a dupe once again, which I have been in the past. Often you hear politicians

00:04:24.440 saying they want to leave because they want to spend more time with their family. And I'll admit

00:04:28.800 I was duped by Sean Fraser when he said that, you know, when he was leaving the Trudeau government,

00:04:33.880 then he suddenly decided he didn't like his family and was running again. But, you know,

00:04:38.300 I looked at Fraser and he had a couple of young kids and it's hard being far away. 0.90

00:04:42.620 In the case of Caroline Mulroney, I don't think this is a woman that has leadership ambitions at

00:04:48.040 the moment or at all. She ran for the leadership with some pressure on her back in 2018 for the

00:04:55.280 Ontario PCs. But since then and since the election, she has just been content to be a quiet team

00:05:02.520 player inside the Ford government. She is regarded as one of the most competent ministers.

00:05:08.800 She is incredibly well-read on her files and everyone else's. When I talk to, you know, fellow

00:05:15.880 caucus or cabinet members, when I talk to bureaucrats or political staffers about her,

00:05:21.680 they've always said the same thing. This goes back years. She will be the most well-read,

00:05:26.360 well-briefed minister in the room. And that's really important for Treasury Board because most

00:05:32.660 people who don't work in government don't know what Treasury Board is. You know you've got the

00:05:37.020 finance department that puts out the budget, but to get something in the budget, you've got to take

00:05:40.820 it to Treasury Board. And Treasury Board is literally a board, so she's the president of

00:05:45.380 the board, and there's other members of cabinet and caucus in there, and they will examine things.

00:05:50.540 And if you show up with a half-baked idea while Carolyn Mulroney is chairing a Treasury Board

00:05:55.320 meeting. Good luck. You're going to get grilled and you're going to get bounced back. You're going

00:05:59.320 to be told no or come back when it's ready. So in that sense, Doug Ford is facing a big loss here.

00:06:06.080 This is one of the more competent people on his team, very loyal to him, also very loyal to Pierre

00:06:12.900 Polyev and the Federal Conservatives, despite that rift between the Ford team and the Polyev team.

00:06:17.460 so it's a big loss for her but I don't believe that she's you know exiting to you know go on

00:06:25.360 people keep saying that you know it's either going to be Ben Mulroney or Mark Mulroney or

00:06:29.200 Caroline Mulroney is going to try and run to take out Pierre Polyev all three of them are extremely

00:06:33.920 loyal to Pierre Polyev to the federal party Mark Mulroney was one of the biggest fundraisers on

00:06:39.260 Bay Street for him. So will one of them run if the job's open one day? Maybe. But she said in

00:06:47.320 her statement that, you know, her dad died two years ago. Her kids have left the house. Her and

00:06:52.040 her husband are empty nesters. Her mother's moved from Montreal to Toronto. And my understanding,

00:06:57.560 you know, I haven't talked to her about this. I haven't talked to her siblings about this.

00:07:00.860 My understanding is that she's looking after her mother a lot more. She's in her 80s.

00:07:04.540 um we all know what that's like right we all we all deal with this uh as your parents get older

00:07:10.680 so i i truly do think that she is leaving to spend time with family she told reporters at

00:07:16.400 queens park earlier today maybe she'll be back in a few years but right now she wants to go and

00:07:22.060 spend some time she had a good eight year run i'm going to take her at her word on this

00:07:26.900 right maybe i need some clarity here however and i take your point about her mom coming to live

00:07:33.640 there but she says that her and her husband just became empty nesters isn't that when you have time

00:07:39.640 on your hands i mean you want to spend time with your family and you know this is apparent when

00:07:45.240 your kids are home because of course you have access to those people not when they're away

00:07:50.360 living their lives so i i found that sort of interesting but but but i think it's more on

00:07:57.240 the side of looking after her mother okay so you know that that that's how i'm reading it um i

00:08:06.280 haven't seen any public statements no one's been whispering about oh she's organizing and i know

00:08:11.560 all of her team who helped organize her 2018 campaign and none of them are saying hey we're

00:08:16.200 getting the band back together but the premier is having his difficulties right now so if people

00:08:23.160 are going to start leaving you know it's not hard to read certain things into it i mean he's got

00:08:29.240 sinking full numbers numbers are not that great haven't been good for a while now maybe you've

00:08:34.760 seen some better ones recently but i haven't you've got the embarrassing sell-off of the

00:08:39.560 government plane you've got his uh this legal setback uh not to release private records and i

00:08:46.600 realize that's a global news uh issue which i know you want to address but the premier himself is not

00:08:52.680 going through a great time right now and he's undoubtedly facing some pressure from inside his

00:08:58.040 own party is that fair or not so here's what i'll say about this he has had some really rough weeks

00:09:05.480 the whole plane fiasco uh was not good and yet i'm just pulling up 338 canada.com the polling

00:09:12.760 aggregator and you know the fact is if an election were held today doug ford would most likely win

00:09:19.080 another majority. So yes, his poll numbers are down, but he is three to five points ahead of

00:09:26.720 the other guys. And that's the leaderless liberals. Once the liberals get a leader,

00:09:31.340 that changes everything. We saw this. We've seen this in the past with during the Harper years,

00:09:36.540 when the federal liberals didn't have a leader, they become more popular suddenly. Oh, you don't

00:09:40.900 have that Stefan Dion Bozo in there anymore. We like you again. You don't have Michael Ignatiev

00:09:45.720 in there? We like you again. You get another leader? We're not so sure. So this is a fairly

00:09:51.220 common phenomenon in politics that I've never fully been able to understand, but it happens.

00:09:57.540 I thought Doug Ford's poll numbers would have taken a bigger hit. These problems with freedom

00:10:04.540 of information, FOI, being a drip, drip, drip, I wonder if that's going to wear on him eventually,

00:10:10.700 but it hasn't so far. He's down from 44% in polls earlier to 39% now, and 39% still gets you

00:10:24.080 a majority. He seems adamant on running for a fourth majority for a fourth term.

00:10:29.860 I would advise against it, but Doug Ford doesn't listen to me. His wife reads my columns all the

00:10:36.740 time and leaves them on the kitchen table for him, especially the ones where I criticize him.

00:10:41.800 But, you know, Ford's not listening to me. Well, 41% didn't get your Polly Eva victory.

00:10:50.700 You know, I mean, the NDP went down to 5% in Ontario in that election. The NDP in Ontario

00:10:56.420 right now is at about 17%. And the Liberals are in the low to mid 30s. And if they elect

00:11:03.460 Nathaniel Erskine-Smith as their leader, they will fall further.

00:11:09.200 There is a matter of people just getting tired of you. And you know this, having watched

00:11:12.960 politics for decades, people just, it's like what happened with Harper, right? I mean,

00:11:19.420 he wasn't doing a bad job as prime minister, but people wanted a fresh face in there and they moved

00:11:24.740 on. And so maybe that's a factor. And there are some conservatives, some PCs who feel that Doug

00:11:32.680 Ford could be more conservative. I mean, he hasn't run a balanced budget since he's been in there,

00:11:37.520 and he's had opportunities to do so. It's just the overall state of the finances in the province

00:11:43.260 is a concern amongst some people. I'm just wondering if there isn't an element of

00:11:47.960 disgruntlement amongst people who would like Doug Ford to be, quote, more conservative.

00:11:53.840 So there's kind of two factions on that. There's this group called Project Ontario,

00:11:57.380 and they keep saying doug ford isn't conservative enough and yet the issues that uh they tend to be

00:12:04.400 very libertarian leaning and the issues that a lot of people that i hear from that want doug ford to

00:12:09.720 be more conservative on like getting the woke out of the education system um they wouldn't want that

00:12:16.480 they they just want like give us pure housing policy that allows a six-story building in my

00:12:22.540 laneway. You know, so Ford's benefiting because the people that want him out or want him to be

00:12:30.180 more conservative aren't united. His opposition is fractured. You know, there's no united

00:12:39.680 progressive front against him. You know, you use the Stephen Harper analogy. By 2013, Stephen

00:12:45.700 Harper was effectively done. We can see that in hindsight. And maybe we should have seen it at

00:12:52.320 the time and didn't, the Manitoba by-election in Brandon Suras back in, it was late 2013 or early

00:13:01.200 2014, the conservatives had to pour so much money into that just to hold on to a seat that should

00:13:07.260 have been an easy one for them. That should have been a warning sign for Stephen Harper. So look,

00:13:13.560 Doug Ford is one year into a four or five-year mandate. He got rid of the fixed election date

00:13:18.740 law that, well, no government had to follow anyway, because it's not worth the paper it's

00:13:24.040 printed on, doesn't matter who's in charge. Those, you know, the first line of them actually says

00:13:29.140 that none of this changes the Constitution, which says you can go five years. So if in one or two

00:13:35.660 years time, the warning signs are there, if he's not able to turn this around, then he should really

00:13:42.580 seriously think about leaving. As I said, I don't advise going to a four-year term, another fourth

00:13:48.640 mandate. I don't think it's wise. Leave on a high note, but he seems determined. So does it

00:13:56.240 continue to wear? The Greenbelt scandal had him down at about 31, 32%. The plane and the FOY stuff

00:14:06.360 has got him down to 39 in the most recent polls. I think the most recent Leger poll,

00:14:12.280 and that's Postmedia's polling company, 39%.

00:14:15.480 So again, still winning a majority.

00:14:20.100 But what I've been saying for a while is this seems and feels like a government without a purpose.

00:14:27.620 And if he's going to turn it around, he has to find a purpose again.

00:14:32.140 When he was first elected, he was for the people.

00:14:34.200 Then he, you know, last election, he won on Protect Ontario during the height of mania over Donald Trump and the tariffs.

00:14:44.240 That's still there to a good degree. And we see that in the federal numbers, like Mark Carney with a 12 point lead over Pierre Paulyov and the conservatives.

00:14:51.080 What's driving that? Donald Trump. So, you know, can he ride that horse again?

00:14:57.580 I wouldn't think so, but Carney's finding a way to do it.

00:15:00.320 there's just so much uh influx in politics at the moment including the fact that merit styles

00:15:07.920 has been the lead on this plane issue and on the foi she has been the lead prosecutor

00:15:13.120 and there's some viewers right now saying who's merit styles she's the leader of the ndp she's

00:15:20.480 the leader of the official opposition and you wouldn't know it we talk more about prospective

00:15:24.960 candidates for the Ontario Liberal leadership. So she, despite being the lead on prosecuting

00:15:30.960 Ford on these things that have brought him down in the polls, is stuck at 17%. And we don't know

00:15:37.480 who the Liberals are going to add. Could it be Nathaniel Erskine-Smith? He's a maverick. He's

00:15:42.460 more left than the NDP. Could it be Navdeep Bains? He's a good organizer, I'm told, but he would

00:15:50.300 also wear some of the Justin Trudeau legacy. He was the innovation minister in charge of super

00:15:55.420 clusters that were going to transform the economy. Mark, can you find me a super cluster, please?

00:16:01.300 So there's, you know, Jean Chrétien benefited. He had a very long run because he had weak opposition.

00:16:08.400 Doug Ford has had very weak opposition. That's not going to last forever. And eventually he'll

00:16:14.140 face someone real. And there's a great line that our old friend, Corey tonight, who has been Doug

00:16:20.920 Ford's campaign manager gave to me. He was talking about Justin Trudeau, not about his guy, but he

00:16:26.360 said, every day you're in government, you're wearing a backpack and every day you get up and

00:16:30.680 there's another stone dropped in your backpack. And eventually the backpack becomes too heavy.

00:16:36.940 Eventually Ford will get to that point. Is that now? Is that in two years? Is that after the next

00:16:42.780 mandate? We just don't know. Well, if he waits too long, then it'll be to the detriment of his

00:16:48.820 party. But I also want to ask you, Ford, you can make the case, has kind of hitched his wagon to

00:16:55.360 Kearney. You know, he's always talking about a great working relationship. He'll occasionally

00:17:00.120 take the odd shot at him. But I mean, if Kearney goes on to fail in his bid to turn the economy

00:17:06.320 around to, he's already broken his promise to have a deal with the Trump administration like

00:17:13.020 last July, and we've got the Kuzma negotiations coming up. If all of this fails, if it blows up

00:17:19.460 in his face and we're not able really to live in a new world order where maybe the Americans don't

00:17:27.260 matter as much to us, could Ford's cozy relationship with Carney hurt him politically?

00:17:33.480 well it hurts him with part of the right-wing base but not with middle-of-the-road voters

00:17:42.220 and to win as a conservative in ontario you need those middle-of-the-road voters

00:17:46.540 and those folks are still in love with carney they think carney's doing a great job they think that

00:17:51.780 he's actually building new trading relationships i hear about it every time i write something that

00:17:56.720 says well this isn't working out oh no it's great didn't you see we have got a great deal with india

00:18:00.900 what did the india deal get us nothing but um you know this uh just continues on with people

00:18:09.300 thinking that carney's doing a great job and some i was at an event recently and somebody said well

00:18:14.860 when will people clue in that carney's not doing a great job i said look this is like trying to

00:18:20.680 convince your 17 year old daughter that her boyfriend's no good for her but she's in love

00:18:25.160 with them. And she's not going to listen to you until she wakes up one day and says,

00:18:30.200 meh, this guy's not working for me. So good chunk of the Canadian public, you look at the

00:18:35.380 abacus data numbers, 59% think the country's heading in the right direction, or 57% think

00:18:41.000 country's heading in the right direction. 59% have a positive approval of Mark Carney. So that's not

00:18:47.720 hurting Doug Ford at the moment, except maybe those Ontario liberal numbers. Again, Ontario

00:18:53.600 liberals have no leader, but they're up in the polls, most likely because of the Kearney effect.

00:18:58.480 Just like when Trudeau was still in power, that was hammering. You can talk to Bonnie Crombie or

00:19:04.380 any of the Ontario liberals. Trudeau was dragging them down. Well, now Kearney's boosting them up.

00:19:11.720 But if they, well, just before I get into if things go sour, Ford, this isn't getting much

00:19:17.940 attention yet, but Ford has joined the lawsuit. Ontario is now an intervener in the lawsuit

00:19:24.420 to shut down the so-called gun buyback program, joining, I believe, the other two are Alberta and

00:19:32.440 Saskatchewan. This is the Canadian Coalition for Firearms' Right lawsuit that the Supreme Court

00:19:38.200 has agreed to hear. So that's a shot against Carney. And last week, he's standing next to

00:19:43.680 Melanie Jolie in Sault Ste. Marie, and he says, protect your guns. Don't give them up.

00:19:48.540 I couldn't stop laughing at that. But if Carney is no longer useful to him, you'll throw him

00:19:55.400 overboard. You know, he's, he can be a pretty ruthless politician. So can Mark Carney. Mark

00:20:02.860 Carney's adapted to politics far better than I ever expected. And, but if Carney's no longer

00:20:09.120 useful. You'll throw them overboard. The push last October to get a deal by Carney did not

00:20:19.520 include autos. Doug Ford fought against that deal being accepted because it was just going to lift

00:20:24.880 tariffs on aluminum and steel, but not autos. He went to the mattresses against Carney over that.

00:20:32.020 I don't believe that the ad was actually the reason that the Americans called off trade talks.

00:20:35.880 that's a bit of a red herring in my view um as i've reported and as politico recently reported

00:20:42.000 had a lot more to do with the feds imposing tariffs on gm and stalantis products coming

00:20:47.940 into canada and threatening to sue them um dumb moves to make in the middle of tense negotiations

00:20:54.320 but yeah for you know ford will he'll shiv them interesting brian thank you so much for coming

00:21:02.880 the show how do people find you online uh at brian lily on x at brian lily on facebook or

00:21:09.040 brianlily.com thank you so much sir thank you jo consider supporting independent journalism

00:21:15.920 by becoming a premier member of juno news please go to junonews.com backslash straight up you can

00:21:22.800 can find the link below. It helps us do what we do. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.

Juno News - May 26, 2026

Ford loses cabinet minister as Mulroney announces resignation

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