Juno News - What can conservatives expect from Doug Ford in the next 4 years？

00:00:00.000 Ontario Premier Doug Ford has just been re-elected with a strong four-year majority mandate.

00:00:10.280 Stronger than the one he got in 2018, he's only increased his seat count.

00:00:14.240 And I know the haters are saying, oh no, four more years of conservative governance.

00:00:18.680 But I think the question that a few people are asking, that maybe conservatives should

00:00:22.360 ask a bit more, is are you going to get four more years of conservative governance out

00:00:27.160 of Doug Ford? Or is it going to be a bit more centrist? Is it going to be mushy middle?

00:00:32.000 Is it going to appeal to liberal voters more? Which way is he going to go?

00:00:35.740 I have been told by a number of Mike Harris-era cabinet ministers that if they have one regret

00:00:40.180 about that time, they wish they had done more sooner. And what they mean by that is when you

00:00:44.580 have majority mandates, well, four years can still go by very fast. And you might find yourself at

00:00:49.440 year two, year three, kind of regretting not having done more. You know, usually year four,

00:00:54.020 that's actually when you want to go back to voters and kind of make appeals to them and do

00:00:58.720 those vote-buying things that happen in cynical politics. And one wonders, okay, Doug Ford, he's

00:01:03.460 got four years. All these things conservatives have been talking about in the past, when Dalton

00:01:08.040 McGinty and Kathleen Wynne were in government and they said, we really want to bring in this policy

00:01:12.080 and that policy when they meet at places like different conferences, like the Manning Networking

00:01:16.940 Conference and say, we have to bring in this or that policy. Well, you'd think now is the time,

00:01:21.460 the first year or two of a majority conservative government. But is that actually going to happen

00:01:26.860 right now with the Doug Ford government? And right now the indications are, I don't know,

00:01:32.060 not so much. For instance, the deficit right now for this year, the election budget that they put out

00:01:39.160 for 2022, that's a higher deficit than they had in 2020 and 2021. They're COVID deficits. You go,

00:01:46.640 okay, well, those were COVID deficits that kind of get that, but it's even higher now. What's going

00:01:50.260 on? Tax relief, Doug Ford, he's a guy known for saying, respect for taxpayers, get off the gravy

00:01:55.720 train. We haven't seen a lot along those lines either. So I think a lot of people should be

00:02:01.060 asking, what are we going to see from four years of a Doug Ford government? Maybe the haters will

00:02:06.220 actually be happy because they're afraid of having this four-year conservative government, but

00:02:09.960 is that actually what we're going to get? Time will tell, we shall see, but right now it remains unclear.

00:02:20.260 Thank you.

Juno News - June 06, 2022