By Chad Ingram 

Published June 14, 2018

 

Despite
the troubles facing it earlier this year, the Ontario PC party quickly
and easily swept its way to a majority government last week. 

 

In
a massive swing of the political pendulum, the provincial Liberals were
decimated so badly that they lost official party status, and will now
hold just seven seats in Queen’s Park. 

 

Congratulations
to Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Laurie Scott on her fifth
electoral victory, which was a commanding one. Scott took nearly 57 per
cent of all ballots cast in the riding, a total of nearly 33,000, more
than twice as many as her nearest competitor. 

Scott
has become an effective legislator as a member of the Opposition – the
province’s Anti-Human Trafficking Act was based largely on a private
member’s bill by Scott, for which she was credited – so she should
certainly be able to leverage her new status within the government for
the betterment of the riding. 

 

Then
there’s the matter of Scott’s leader, premier-elect Doug Ford. Ford is a
populist and an opportunist. This is a guy who was going to run for
mayor of Toronto in the fall municipal elections, before the opportunity
to lead the PC party presented itself. 

 

Ford
says things that are outlandish and demonstrably untrue, such as his
pledge to scrap the CBC, which falls under the mandate of the federal
government.  

He’s made a whack of
promises that to the rational mind cannot all be accomplished, the
foremost among them trimming $4 billion from the budget, without a
single job loss. Last week, Ford went even beyond that, saying that once
the economy is booming, the province will be hiring more doctors,
nurses and health-care workers. 

 

We’re also all getting 10 cents a litre off gas, 12 per cent off our hydro bills and one-dollar beers. Can’t wait. 

 

Ford’s
populist rhetoric and businessman-for-the-everyman persona have of
course earned him numerous comparisons to the American president, and
monikers such as “Trump North” and “Trump Lite.” His record as a Toronto
city councillor shows a tendency to vote against things like arts
funding, social programming and transit, and he’s said in the past he’d
cut public library funding “in a heartbeat.” 

 

With
a majority government, there is effectively no way for the opposition
parties to keep Ford in check. That responsibility will fall to the PCs
themselves. 

 

While he has zero
provincial political experience himself, Ford is surrounded by a number
of veteran provincial leaders within the PC caucus. If he earnestly
listens to some of the more experienced and levelheaded members of the
party, our own MPP among them, and largely lets them steer the ship,
there’s no need for this government to be the Trump-like train wreck
some fear it will be.