The pandemic entente between Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau is over. Susan Delacourt writes:
This back-and-forth is a sign that the 2020 entente between the Ford and Trudeau governments is probably over. Gone are the days when Ford and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland held late-night “therapy” calls and when the Ontario premier lavished daily praise on all Ottawa was doing to help out with the pandemic.
Ford has recently released an ad demanding that Trudeau close Canada's borders to international travel. This week, at one of his daily briefings, Trudeau responded:
Trudeau . . . betrayed some frustration with Ford’s government on the same score on Friday when he spoke to reporters and was asked about the ad.
“Doug Ford asked me to restrict international students. There’s been about 30,000 international students come into Ontario over the past months because they were approved by the Ontario government,” Trudeau said.
“If the Ontario government wants to do more to restrict the volume of people coming into Ontario, we are more than happy to work with them on it, but it’s been a week since we’ve received that request directly from the premier (and) they haven’t followed up, except with personal attacks which doesn’t make sense and quite frankly won’t help Ontarians.”
That response was followed up by a letter from Inter-Governmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc:
“We welcome your specific requests for further refinements to the mutually agreed list of acceptable international travellers,” LeBlanc writes in the letter, sent formally to Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor-General Sylvia Jones, in reply to a missive they dispatched to Ottawa in the last week of April.
“The federal government stands ready, however to date we have not received such a request.”
Ford's strategy is pretty transparent:
Most political observers have recognized Ford’s anti-Ottawa salvos for what they are: an attempt to shift blame away from himself as Ontarians grow weary, frustrated and angry with the never-endemic.
The latest polling from EKOS shows that Trudeau’s Liberals now enjoy 42 per cent support in Ontario, while approval for Ford’s handling of the pandemic has dropped from 80 per cent last year to just 19 per cent this month. In a post on Twitter highlighting the tumble, EKOS chief pollster Frank Graves said: “That is unimaginably low. Biggest issue of last 80 years. Worst marks ever.”
We're back to the way we were.
Image: CTV Toronto News
8 comments:
.. 'Shoot the Messenger' or send him back with ears cut off (Europe tried that with messengers & envoys from Ghengis Khan) 'hey look over there !' 'Flood the zone with shit' (Steve Bannon - now indicted for State fraud - despite his Trump pardon) so let's consider..
It may seem Warren Kinsella has convinced Doug Ford et al (Christine Elliott) to adhere to the strategic brilliance of Nick Kouvalis and mount a frontal deflection assault re Pandemic Response. This while 90% of federal supplied rapid test units remain unused, vaccine pours into every Province & Territory.. Zero Contact Tracing anymore & the staggering numbers of LTC dead.. remain dead. The 'iron ring of protection' was single ply toilet paper
Doug Ford is circling the toilet, as is Jason Kenney. They are cratering buffoons, just like their 'team'. But hey ! Fling some mud, bluff & bluster, screech 'walk a mile in my shoes' (this from his late mom's home or his Muskoka cottage) Like Kenney, his Federal aspirations or desperations are burnt toast cinder. If he ever crosses my path again in person I may stumble and accidently take out one of his medial collateral ligaments and kneecap. In my view, he's one half a collision seeking the other half.. and bound to find it. What a completely disgusting partisan glory seeker posturer.. an epic alpha failure
There have been problems on Justin's end, sal. But they pail in contrast to Ford's failure.
The big question is whether we'll avoid a fourth wave of Covid and I'm guessing that we won't.
Doctors on Ford's Covid round table have said that the third wave was entirely avoidable had Ford shut things down two weeks earlier. But Ford is unable to delay gratification, and his instinct will be to lift the stay-at-home order well before the province hits daily single digits. His current poll numbers make it even more likely that Ford will reopen to "let everyone enjoy summer." He'll also want to make his annual pilgrimage to the cottage to avoid the Pride parade. We're doomed.
Cap
We should have known -- in fact, we did know -- who Ford was when we elected him, Cap.
Did you elect him, Owen???...I thought not and neither did Sal or Cap, or 99% of your readers.
However, there had to be whole lotta dupes who bought the Kool-Aid and, even if some are a bit miffed today, they will do it all over again, given the chance.
When ya gets vaccinated with a conservative needle at birth, there's no hope for all those common sense thinkers who truly believe that education has to help.
No, I didn't elect him, Lulymay. But, unfortunately, I was in a minority.
You weren't in a minority, Owen. Remember that Ford got 61% of the house with 40% of the votes. And that's without a major gerrymandering issue at the Federal level. If not some form of PR, then maybe two-round runoff. Forget it. We wouldn't have the patience.
Of course, I doubt that Canadians would have the stomach for any change at all were a serious discussion to begin. They would realize that with two major contenders and a third that has sufficient draw to elect consistently at least as few as a dozen members, minority governments would be the norm. Despite the ill-considered policy that has been dictated by majority governments as they proceeded unchecked by effective opposition, many Canadians continue to believe that they're the only way to go; and fear, as Liberal strategists and apologists have recently and successfully continued to warn, that we would be controlled by fringe and single-issue parties that could appear on the scene and elect one or two members.
Lots of other countries have PR, John. And it works. We simply refuse to believe what is right in front of us.
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