This week, Doug Ford showed us how a government which has adopted the motto "for the people" operates. Martin Regg Cohn writes:
The news this week that Ford has rewarded one of his closest campaign cronies with a plum patronage posting to Washington isn’t especially surprising. What is appalling is that he has doubled down on partisan enrichment.
With curious hubris, Ford proclaimed Friday, “I am so happy to announce” that Progressive Conservative loyalist Ian Todd will be Ontario’s new trade representative in the U.S.
What Ford neglected to say is that Todd’s annual salary will be $350,000 a year — $75,000 more than the annual pay of his predecessor, Monique Smith, a former Liberal cabinet minister appointed by ex-premier Kathleen Wynne.
What Ford also failed to explain is that Todd’s salary will far exceed the salary of the Canadian ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, whose pay band is $248,000 to $292,000 annually.
Patronage appointments are nothing new. They date all the way back to Sir John A., who made shrewd use of them. The problem for Ford is his blatant hypocrisy:
There is no great shame in appointing trusted advisers to sensitive positions, but this is one of the biggest displays of patronage pigginess in recent memory, adding up to $1 million over three years.
That’s the same amount Ford quietly awarded to his health-care czar, Dr. Reuben Devlin, last summer. But Devlin, a former president of the Progressive Conservative party, is no political hack — he headed Humber River Hospital for years, and he has the premier’s confidence. (What’s harder to understand is why the retired Devlin couldn’t follow the admirable example of Wynne’s former business czar, Ed Clark, who worked as a dollar-a-year-man for the Liberals.)
Embarrassed by the publicity over his new Washington envoy, Ford’s staff rushed out a news release Thursday saying that Todd would forgo pension and severance payments.
It's just one more example of the painfully obvious. Doug's bulb does not burn very brightly.
Image: Toronto Sun
