Ontario Reset: Ford, Del Duca, And Who We Really Are

A Motif For The Asking

“He said, I'm gonna buy this place and burn it down/I'm gonna put it six feet underground
He said, I'm gonna buy this place and watch it fall/Stand here beside me baby in the crumbling walls”

On June 7th, 2018, Doug Ford was elected Premier of Ontario, after a campaign which saw the PCs almost lose the 5th straight election, before finally beating the deeply unpopular incumbent Liberals and functionally useless NDP. And then, he burned Ontario to the ground.

For the next 18 months, Ford was Ontario’s Arsonist-In-Chief, burning down supports for university students, autistic children, nurses, doctors, and teachers, all in the name of fiscal discipline after 15 years of Liberal government. It was his driving force, and then, when the pandemic hit, all bets were off. Ford went from the deeply unpopular Premier who was screwing up everything to Premier Dad 2.0, who reassured Ontarians that everything would be okay as COVID hit.

The record of COVID policy is one of consistent failure – Ford locked down too late every time, he reopened too early, and then there was a further increase in cases. Yes, compared to America or England, Ford did fine – but a large part of why that’s true is the generous federal spending that enabled the Tories to make lockdowns not be completely economically disastrous. It was a middle of the road performance – not as disastrous as Kenney or Moe, not as good as the Atlantic provinces – for a Premier whose best argument is “I didn’t do that bad”, and now Ontario has to decide if “good enough” is actually good enough.

If the pandemic had never happened, this election would be a rout for the non-Ford parties, but here we are, in a race with the campaign starting. The state of the polling is a bit odd – Nanos and Mainstreet would represent the PCs being right on the border of majority government, Abacus and Ipsos would both see the PCs a dozen seats away from another term, given the Liberals and NDP have promised there will be no PC minority government – but on average, a PC plurality, but no majority, is my projection. That projection will inevitably change over the coming days and weeks, but right now, that’s where I am.

But as we remember where we are now, and talk about where we’re going, let’s not forget where this all began – and what Doug Ford came to Ontario to do.

…

“Meet me on the road/Meet me where I said/Blame it all upon/A rush of blood to the head”

So many Ontarians wanted to think of the Ford Government and that election as a failure of the electorate, and as, plainly, an act of exuberance, the consequence of a rush of blood to the head that impaired the electorate’s ability to realize Ford is a charlatan and a fraud. The Buck A Beer Premier, as he was derisively called by big city elites, had found popularity for his populist stances, as if the basic concept of doing things that people like is bad. Yes, was the price of beer this province’s biggest concern? No, but governments are big institutions that can do big things and small things at the same time, and sneering at the populist Premier is a large part of the reason the PCs won last time.

The other big reason Doug Ford won last time was Christine Elliott, his leadership foe turned Deputy Premier. Elliott was his guarantor to the centre, the one who ensured he would never go too far or run too fast. For all the criticisms of the early Ford era, it’s probably fair to say it would have been worse without Elliott, not that that is a high bar by any means. Elliott is now gone, and what we’re left with is a province where Ford 2.0 will be without its only high profile moderate anchor.

Can the Liberals pull off another third to Government transition in one term, after doing so federally in 2015? Yes, even if the notion of a majority Liberal government is but an absurdist pipe dream, they’re still the most likely governing party right now, mostly because the NDP have failed this province when it needed an effective, intelligent opposition most. The rise of the Liberals is really the story of the NDP’s failures, well documented in these pages, and the failure of them to find and articulate a proper, coherent message when this province really needed them. As an NDP 2018-Liberal 2022 voter, I vote for the Liberals out of deep sadness, because I have to, not because I am greatly enthused to. Be in no doubt - this is a Dipper failure, above all.

What this also is is an object lesson in the idea there are not always good or great outcomes. Are the Liberals a great option? To some, sure, to others they will be the lesser of two evils. To those unenthused about the Liberals, and who might be tempted to claim to care about your fellow citizens while not prioritizing beating Doug Ford, I have one simple message: go fuck yourself.

If you think Doug Ford is a good Premier, then vote for him, whatever. But if you think Ford is a bad Premier, and that his government has been bad, and you’re not doing whatever you can to beat him, then you are neither a liberal nor progressive, and you’re outright an asshole. There’s no other words to describe a Government who has declared war on the nursing profession while finding $8-10B for a fucking highway nobody wants. This is a government that decided that corporate welfare was not only necessary but actively good, but fucking over the chances in life for autistic children was the price for it.

There is this desire to think that there is always a perfect outcome, and there isn’t. Of all weeks to remember this, the fact that 5 psychotic nutters are going to fuck over the right to choose in America and there’s not really much that can be done is proof. Good outcomes have to be cherished when they exist, and bad outcomes have to be avoided. “Del Duca is better than Ford but not great” isn’t an argument to give up, it’s an argument to minimize downside. The absolute privilege who cannot see that stopping bad things is a good unto itself is both nauseating and also much too frequent, and the notion that if Del Duca doesn’t wear a mask, then, well, I’m just not gonna vote for him is both too common and completely reprehensible.

Del Duca has a chance to make wide gains in the Greater bits of Greater Toronto – a Mississauga and Halton sweep is very possible, a Brampton sweep less so but not out of the picture, and 5 gains between Etobicoke and Scarborough is right within the realm of possibility. For the Liberals to make these broad of gains – plus pushing the NDP in Hamilton, Kitchener, Toronto, and Kingston – shows that the Liberals have the room to create a provincial government that is representative of the whole province. The NDP are going to be pushed back to a party of inner city elites and Northern reserves, plus London, and the Tories will sink or swim on their ability to hold back the Liberal tide in the parts of Ontario dependent on downtown Toronto that aren’t downtown.

It's the election of Toronto-ish, in a sense – all the places in Toronto and just outside of it that aren’t what a tourist thinks of when they think of Toronto. It’s the election of Halton and the Horseshoe, Milton and Mississauga, Brampton and Burlington, Scarborough and Etobicoke. It’s an election of choices, and there’s a huge choice in front of the province right now.

Was 2018 a rush of blood to the head, an impulsive act of anger at a Liberal Party in office too long? Or was it who we were, and what we actually wanted? To elect Doug Ford once could be considered a mistake – to elect him twice, that’s what we are.

Will Ford win a majority? I have my doubts, but it’s certainly possible. Now it’s time to learn who we really are, and whether 2018 was truly a rush of blood to the head or not.