Nothing --That's The Policy

A recent report concludes that the Government of Ontario has done almost nothing to achieve the goals set out in its environmental policy. Mike Crawley writes:

Premier Doug Ford's government has done almost nothing on the bulk of the promises in the greenhouse-gas reduction plan it introduced last November, according to a new report by an environmental watchdog group. 

The report published Thursday by the group Environmental Defence examines the seven key actions pledged by the government to cut Ontario's carbon emissions, and finds that little or no progress has been made on all but one.  

The actions were laid out in the Ford government's plan called "Preserving and Protecting our Environment for Future Generations," unveiled after the Progressive Conservatives scrapped the Wynne Liberal government's cap-and-trade program.

Ford borrowed a line from Donald Trump. He was going to "repeal and replace" Wynne's environmental policy. However, all he did was repeal that policy:

The Environmental Defence report says the government is already "not on track" to achieve its own emission reduction targets, in part because of decisions that have slowed the pace of electric vehicle sales and delayed a push for more renewable content in fuel.  

"So far, we haven't seen any meaningful steps to reduce carbon pollution and fight climate change in Ontario," said Sarah Buchanan, the clean economy program manager for Environmental Defence. 

The signature piece of the government's plan — an emission performance standard for large industrial polluters — will actually increase greenhouse gas emissions rather than decrease them, according to the report.

It says the system is too lenient and offers too many exemptions to big polluters, and there's no evidence to support the government's forecast that the standard will contribute 15 per cent of the province's overall target for cutting greenhouse gases.  

The report says the government has taken no action on two programs that together account for one-third of its emission-reduction target:

Expanding conservation programs to reduce natural gas consumption.
Supporting innovation, such as energy storage and low-carbon heating fuels.
The report says the government has taken minimal action on programs that account for another 40 per cent of the greenhouse gas (GHG) target, such as: 

Increased use of green vehicles.
Cleaner fuels.
Establishing an emission-reduction fund for businesses.

Electric vehicle sales in Ontario during the first quarter of 2019 were down 55 per cent from the same time period the previous year, after the government scrapped all rebates for purchasing electric cars.

The government's plan relies on greater adoption of low-carbon vehicles for one-sixth of the province's overall target for cutting GHGs. Without incentives that help cover the higher cost of electric vehicles, the report says it's "extremely unlikely" that enough such cars will be on Ontario's roads to significantly reduce emissions. 

The government is proposing to boost the minimum ethanol content of fuel at the gas pumps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But the timeline is slow, with no changes proposed until 2025, and a gradual phase-in after that.

But all of this doesn't surprise you, does it?

Image: North99

More Fordian Folly

Today is the day that support staff in Ontario's schools begin work to rule. Doug Ford's mouth always gets him in trouble.  Martin Regg Cohn writes that, if Doug Ford were smart, he would have learned a lesson from past school strikes:

School strikes are the perennial conflict that bedevils premiers, as Ford’s predecessors can attest. We have seen this movie before, no matter the party in power.

Bob Rae’s NDP launched the prequel in the early 90s; Mike Harris and his Tories headlined the main event later that decade; Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals produced their own unhappy sequel in 2012.

Ahead of this year’s contract negotiations, the Tories have set the stage for confrontation:

The government announced a one per cent cap on all public sector pay raises; raised the student-teacher classroom ratio from 22 to 28 (an increase of 27 per cent in average class sizes over the next four years); and mandated four online courses for each high school student ⸺ an adventure in e-learning unmatched (and untested) across the continent.

The PCs argue that higher teacher-student ratios will be painless for union members, thanks to the magic of attrition. But that is small consolation for students left behind after those retired teachers are long gone.

For Ford, all of this has always been about numbers, not students. And Ford's numbers were wrong:

The stated reason for the higher class sizes, when announced earlier this year, was Ford’s claim that the budget deficit was out of control — after supposedly soaring to $15 billion for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Last month, the Tories acknowledged that the true deficit number was closer to $7.4 billion after all ⸺ less than half of the initial projection that served as the pretext for education cuts.

That inflated deficit scenario was also the impetus for a salary freeze of one per cent to be applied to all public servants. It is a recipe for unfairness that will only stoke confrontation.

All of this incompetence has led the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation -- of which I was a member -- to make their bargaining position public:

The OSSTF wants a return to last year’s class ratios; a pause on the unprecedented e-learning plan; and a cost-of-living increase tied to inflation, without any other salary hike.

Given the fact that there is no research to support Ford's e-learning plan, that seems like a pretty reasonable offer. But one wonders if Ford is smart enough to take it.

Image: The Toronto Star

Ignorance Incarnate

Ontario's Financial Accountability Office has crunched the numbers. And Victoria Gibson reports that:

Ontario is set to lose more than 10,000 teaching positions over the next five years, due to the Ford government’s changes in class sizes and new requirement that students take a number of their courses online, the legislature’s financial watchdog has found.

In a new report published Thursday, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario estimated that 994 elementary positions and 9,060 secondary positions will be eliminated from Ontario’s publicly-funded education system by the 2023-24 school year.

The report also estimated that there will be 2,826 fewer teachers in Ontario’s education system this year — 967 fewer elementary teachers and 1,859 fewer secondary teachers.

The FAO also concluded that:

the province’s assertion that the reduction in teaching positions could be achieved without layoffs, saying that Ontario’s new $1.6 billion Teacher Job Protection Fund “should provide sufficient funding” to allow the new class sizes to be achieved without dismissals. News of teacher layoffs have sent tremors through the education system as recently as early September, when in Toronto alone, a local union told several media outlets that more than 150 high-school teachers were without full-time contracts due to what they billed as provincial cuts to education funding.

It's easy to lose sight of what was behind these cutbacks. When he came to office, Doug Ford claimed that the province's deficit was $15 billion. He has recently revised those numbers down to $7.4 billion -- not far from the deficit of $6.7 billion Kathleen Wynne was projecting in her last budget. Ford used the inflated figures to radically restructure the education system. There has been a deluge of criticism:

The FAO report Thursday was followed by swift criticism from Ford’s opposition. Marit Stiles, education critic for the provincial NDP, said the loss of more than 10,000 teachers would “hurt students in every region of our province.” “Parents and educators are sounding alarm bells about the negative impact these cuts will have on our education system – damage that will only get worse as our population grows over time,” Stiles wrote in a statement, urging Ford to reverse the changes that she billed as “deep cuts.”

Michael Coteau, the Don Valley East MPP who has announced his bid for leadership of the provincial Liberal Party, also framed the changes as ‘deep cuts’ in a statement released Thursday. “This will lead to class sizes increasing by up to 27%, on average. In some schools, the damage will be much worse,” Coteau wrote. “This is not what parents want. This is not what students want. This is an irresponsible decision by a government that has shown time and time again that it puts ideology above evidence.”

Another Liberal leadership hopeful, education critic Mitzie Hunter, later called the cuts “short-sighted” and “callous,” citing an Ontario Student Trustees Association report that showed 95 per cent of student respondents disapproving of the new e-learning requirements. “Other reports have indicated that students are struggling to get into classes they need to graduate or for post-secondary programs because they’re full,” Hunter said.

And Mr. Ford wonders why he is booed at public events. The reason is simple: He's Ignorance Incarnate.

Image: twitter

Political Honesty

It's better to be honest than to say -- as Doug Ford has -- that you "believe in honest conversations." Martin Regg Cohn writes:

A year ago, Ford told Ontarians he wanted to “follow the money” —code for criminality. An accounting dispute between the previous Liberal government and the auditor general amounted to “the biggest government scandal in a generation,” he claimed.

Ford pointed an accusing finger at his predecessor, Kathleen Wynne: “If you lie on your taxes … there are consequences.”

Her crime? In her last budget, for the 2018-19 fiscal year, Wynne projected a budget deficit of $6.7 billion.

Impossible, cried Ford. After taking power, he assembled an outside panel that alleged the deficit had somehow soared to an outsized $15 billion — more than double Wynne’s figure.

But, after a year, Ford's numbers have changed -- radically:

This month, Ford’s Tories announced the final numbers for that disputed fiscal year. Let us try to uncover the coverup — in all honesty.

Turns out the 2018-19 deficit was $7.4 billion after all. Not the $15 billion that Ford alleged (by mischievously counting a number of Liberal campaign promises that never came to pass).

Compare that final figure to the original $6.7 billion estimate from Wynne’s government in their original budget. That’s a difference of roughly 10 per cent, versus Ford’s post-election allegation that overstated the deficit by 100 per cent.

Ford has been cutting programs ever since he came to office -- because, he said, that $15 billion deficit was unsustainable. However,

no one will be surprised when Ford’s government quietly restates the deficit numbers downwards yet again. Expect the final — truly final — deficit figure to align even more closely with the original projections from that disputed Liberal budget, the one that Ford claimed in so many words was criminally corrupt.

Political Honesty? Where should we look for it?

Image: St. Catherines Standard

Empty Hot Air

Having announced earlier cuts to teaching jobs and course options, last week -- two weeks before the start of school -- Doug Ford announced that those cuts would not take place this year. His back tracking leaves school boards in chaos. This week, having repealed Kathleen Wynne's revised sex education program, he introduced his "new" sex ed curriculum -- which looks remarkably like the curriculum he trashed. Martin Regg Cohn writes:

Politics, like sex, is about positioning. After whipping up people’s passions, Ford is now repositioning himself as the soul of sweet reason.

Despite the high hopes of socially conservative parents that Ford would ride to their rescue, he was always going to take them — and us — for a ride. The only question was how far Ford would bend himself out of shape to score political points along the way.

Who knew Ford would summon his inner Buddha, charting the virtuous middle path to avoid intemperate extremes. But unlike the Buddha who never forgets his scriptures, Ford has forsaken his old political lines:

“We`re going to repeal the sex-ed curriculum,” he huffed during the 2018 election. “The days of Liberal ideology indoctrinating our kids, they're done.”

He did indeed repeal, only to repent. Never mind all that ideology and idolatry, on the question of human sexuality Ford is suddenly mindful of the second coming.

When he inserted himself into the PC leadership campaign, after the sudden withdrawal of Patrick Brown from provincial politics, Ford made common cause with anti-sex-ed zealots. He embraced rival leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen — who couldn’t stop talking about anal sex during the debates — until he won the race and cancelled her candidacy over her homophobic online rants.

The truth is painfully clear. Ford has no core beliefs. All the rhetoric is empty hot air.

Image: The Toronto Star

Fundamental Incompetence

All those boos this summer have gotten to Doug Ford. His government has gone back to the drawing board and is revamping its funding strategy for autistic children. And yesterday Ford's new education minister, Stephen Lecce, announced that plans to increase class sizes and to lay off teachers would not be implemented this year. The result -- two week's before the beginning of school -- is chaos. Rob Benzie and Rob Ferguson report that:

Ontario’s education system has been plunged into “chaos and confusion” days before school resumes after Premier Doug Ford’s government tried to go back to the drawing board on increasing class sizes to save $250 million in the coming year.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Thursday he’s “open” to suggestions from school boards and teachers’ unions to stop average class sizes from rising to 28 students over the next four years — from 22 in the last school year — insisting they will only increase marginally next month in Grades 4 and above.

“We should not be dogmatic about this,” Lecce told reporters in Scarborough, calling for “innovative ideas” as the government negotiates new contracts with teacher unions to replace ones that expire at the end of August.

In the wake of Lecce's announcement, there is plenty of fury:

Education unions and school boards were left scratching their heads, given that teachers have already been laid off and course offerings pared for the coming school year after the changes were announced in March and confirmed when the province released the school funding formula last spring.

“This is the basis on which school boards have been planning for this year, resulting in courses and programs being cancelled, supports being lost, and teachers’ and education workers’ jobs being eliminated,” said Liz Stuart, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association.

“If the government was planning a different course of action, they could have told Ontarians about it months ago. Instead, they have been content to allow chaos and confusion to unfold.”

This chaos rhymes with Doug Ford's decision to cut the size of Toronto City Council -- in the middle of a municipal election:

A York board teacher, who contacted the Star and asked to remain anonymous, questioned how the Progressive Conservative government now expects school systems to meet the averages.

“Assuming the boards did their hiring and scheduling based on a higher (average class size) number, how in the world are they going to get it down to 22.5 in 12 days? It would take new hiring, and it would take a very significant rescheduling of courses. It’s impossible to imagine this getting done before Labour Day,” the high school teacher wrote in an email.

“But let’s say they could do it. A percentage of teachers will be told on day one that they have a different set of courses. How are they going to create all-new course plans then?”

“The Ford government is framing this as a ‘good news’ announcement, but this does nothing to mitigate the damage that will be wrought by the removal of a full quarter of Ontario’s high school teachers from the system,” said Harvey Bischof.

The Fordians know how to use blistering rhetoric. But look behind the rhetoric. What you see is fundamental incompetence.

A Ship Of Fools

Rob Benzie and May Warren report in The Toronto Star that:

The cash-strapped Progressive Conservative government is hoping to conserve money by winding down some conservation programs.

But local conservation authorities say the province doesn’t actually pay for many of those activities, and some, like maple syrup festivals, can actually be money makers.

Conservation Ontario said local municipalities and conservation authorities were told in a letter last Friday from Premier Doug Ford’s administration to shut down any initiatives that are not related to their “core mandate.”

The push to hog tie conservation authorities is part of the "More Homes, More Choice Act," which the Ford government passed earlier this year. The legislation was designed to make it easier to build new homes. Anything that gets in the way of building more homes is anathema. Conservation authorities across the province are outraged:

Deborah Martin-Downs, chief administrative officer with the Credit Valley Conservation Authority, which covers parts of Mississauga and Brampton, said winding down activities like maple syrup festivals “will not save them a penny.”

Martin-Downs calls the letter “premature” and “incorrect.” She said while the authorities are in the process of negotiating what’s in their core mandates with the province, the Conservation Act allows activities that fall outside of them to be funded by municipalities, which already provide most of the funding.

Hassaan Basit, head of Conservation Halton, agrees that winding down maple syrup festivals and other recreational activities doesn’t make sense.

“It will not save money,” he said. “It will result in millions of dollars of lost revenue.”

Kelsey Scarfone, water programs manager with Environmental Defence, said the language referring to a “core mandate” is an avenue to cut essential programs that conservation authorities provide, from water monitoring to research on algae blooms.

“It really is a way to limit the types of work that conservation authorities can do on the ground, which is extremely negative because it adds so much value in terms of environmental protection in the regions that they operate in,” Scarfone said.

All of this is yet more confirmation that the Progressive Conservative Party is a ship of fools. And the captain of the ship is the biggest fool of all.

Image: conservationontario.ca

Distributing The Pork

Doug Ford came to power proclaiming that he would slash unnecessary spending. Martin Regg Cohn writes that he has done the opposite -- he's building an empire:

Quite apart from the patronage angle, why are we dispatching new envoys — to the U.S. and U.K., of all places — to hold the hands of entrepreneurs and investors? After all, Americans and Britons speak our language — not just English, but economic openness.

After all, Canada has ambassadors in both capitals. But there was a time when provinces had missions to major countries:

Ontario once bankrolled a network of 17 international offices around the world, including Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Frankfurt and Milan. In the 1980s, one could stroll in London’s high-rent district past Ontario House, Maison du Quebec, Nova Scotia House and offices from the Prairie provinces — all competing for attention and, allegedly, business. There were six rival provincial offices in Hong Kong, and five separate posts in Tokyo.

Isn’t that why we have federal embassies and high commissions abroad?

Our last premier, Kathleen Wynne, appointed ex-Liberal minister Monique Smith to be Ontario’s representative in Washington, at the very time that our federal government had sent David MacNaughton — a former principal secretary to Wynne’s predecessor, Dalton McGuinty — to be our ambassador to the U.S. Surely MacNaughton could simultaneously safeguard Canadian and Ontario’s interests?

Not to be outdone, Ford personally appointed PC loyalist Ian Todd last year to be Ontario’s own man in Washington at $350,000 a year — $75,000 more than Smith under the Liberals, and a fair bit more than MacNaughton (whose ambassadorial pay band is $248,000 to $292,000).

Back in 1993, the NDP government of the day did the right thing — the very thing Ford should be doing today: It closed all 17 of Ontario’s international posts, saving $17 million from the annual budget (worth about $27 million in today’s dollars).

That's a move you'd expect from a Conservative government, not an NDP government:

Our then-minister of economic and trade development, Frances Lankin, argued that Ontario no longer needed “an outdated network of offices” in the era of the fax machine and something new called “electronic mail.”

That’s the kind of language one might have expected from Ford’s Tories today, not just the New Democrats of a quarter-century ago. Instead, the premier who promised to cut waste is building a bigger empire, at greater expense, with worse patronage than his predecessors.

The Ford government is all about distributing the pork -- more than ever before.

Image: Change.org

Corrupt And Incompetent

It's been a tough year for Doug Ford. He used to rail about Kathleen Wynne's government. Bob Hepburn writes:

Ford called the former premier’s handling of Ontario’s finances “the biggest government scandal in a generation,” accused her of “shady tricks” and suggested she and others in her government should be jailed for how they had run the province, which led to chants by his supporters during the election to “Lock Her Up.”

Now Ontarians are railing against Ford:

Now, barely a year into power, it’s Ford and his team who are at the centre of a major scandal and whose mishandling of day-to-day governing is so profound that it raises serious doubts about their competence.

Are Ford and his team corrupt or just incredibly incompetent? Or worse, are they a bit of both?

Clearly, the answer appears to be "both:"

The blame for much of the charges of patronage and incompetence lies at Ford’s feet.

To date, seven people have been dumped from their jobs in the current cronyism scandal, including Ford’s chief of staff Dean French. More to come? Stay tuned.

On the incompetence side, embarrassing examples emerge almost daily. This week alone Health Minister Christine Elliott was forced to set the record straight on Ford’s pledge last week that hallway medicine would be over within a year. Not so fast, Elliott said on Monday, it will take many more years than just one.

And a spokesperson in Ford’s own office on Tuesday had to “clarify” Ford’s comments last week that the Treasury Board will now review new political appointments. Not so fast, the spokesperson suggested, the premier’s office will still review the appointments while the Treasury Board will only look at whether the process can be improved.

And, Hepburn reports, Caroline Mulroney hasn't been getting along well with her boss and his minions:

One minister high on Ford’s inner circle’s “bad list” is Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney, who they apparently feel is no longer playing ball with them. Mulroney reportedly had some difficult interactions with French before he resigned, which Ford ignored when they were brought to his attention.

Some have suggested that there will be a mutiny in the caucus. Stay tuned.

Image: The Toronto Star

He Doesn't Know What He's Talking About

Doug Ford continues to rail at the carbon tax. But the truth is that gas today is still cheaper than it was a year ago. Josh Rubin reports in The Toronto Star:

It is now more than three months since carbon pricing came into effect in Ontario — but prices are lower today than they were one year ago.

In fact, the sharp drop in gas prices has been widely cited as one of the key reasons that Canada’s national inflation rate has slowed, according to new figures from Statistics Canada.

According to a fuel price analyst with pump-watching firm GasBuddy.com, the average price of gas at Ontario pumps did indeed rise when the new carbon pricing came into effect. Prices rose from 114.3 cents per litre on March 31 to 117.9 cents on April 1, the first day of the new tax.

And since then, prices have continued to rise to 125.3 cents. However, that subsequent increase has nothing to do with the tax, according to Patrick DeHaan.

“New taxes generally have a one-day impact on change, so the increase since April 1 is more fundamental stuff. Supply and demand, really. So it looks like the impact of the carbon tax is three cents and a bit per litre,” said DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

However, despite the recent rise, gas prices in Ontario are still lower than they were one year ago.

On July 17, 2018, the average price at Ontario pumps was 130.1, DeHaan said. Since then, prices have dropped across the country.

The reason for the price drop is outside Ontario's borders:

DeHaan suggested one of the biggest factors in the national decline in the price of gasoline has nothing to do with carbon pricing. Instead, he thinks it’s likely due to the U.S. trade war with China. That trade war has slowed the growth of the Chinese economy, and caused a global slump in demand for oil.

The effect of the oil price slump has shown up at the pumps. Barring a sudden resolution, the relatively low prices won’t go away, DeHaan said. In fact, he expects the price of gasoline to drop back down to $1.20 a litre by the end of the summer.

When Ford came to office, he publicized his cell phone number, saying that if they had concerns, Ontarians could call him personally. Yesterday, he deactivated that number. It appears he didn't like the calls he was getting. Obviously, he has been getting a lot of calls with the same message: Whether it's the carbon tax -- or a myriad of other issues  -- Doug Ford doesn't know what he's talking about.

Image: You Tube

Getting Nasty

If you were wondering how Doug Ford is faring, a new poll has some answers. Kristin Rushowy reports in The Toronto Star that:

The patronage scandal that continues to batter the premier’s office has hit home for voters, with almost 60 per cent believing the Ford government is corrupt and even more saying too many “cronies” have been hired, a new poll suggests.

The Corbett Communications survey also found that just 10 per cent of respondents think the departure of chief of staff Dean French — whose friends and family members received plum postings — will undo the damage.

The survey of 936 voters taken July 9 and 10 — a little over two weeks after French left as Premier Doug Ford’s chief of staff — saw 63 per cent say the government has doled out appointments to too many cronies, with 57 per cent agreeing with the statement that the Ford government is corrupt. Among PC voters, 10 per cent believe that to be true, the poll found; almost 30 per cent of PC voters “agree too many cronies have been hired” and “disagree the departure of French has solved the problem.”

Ontarians now believe they have Ford's number and they're mightily displeased:

Corbett described Ford’s unpopularity — with 20 per cent of those polled approving of the job he is doing and 69 per disapproving — as “in the dumper” and “unsustainable” for him to remain as leader.

PCs support has dropped again, putting the governing party in a tie with the NDP and the Liberals, despite the Liberals’ decimation to just seven seats in the election a year ago, the poll found.

In addition, the government’s “for the people” slogan doesn’t sit well with voters, with just one in five polled agreeing with a statement that “Ford cares about people like them.”

His government’s budget has proved deeply unpopular, with almost 70 per cent saying Ontario has the money and should not be cutting back on services that help the vulnerable, the poll found. Among PC voters, about 40 per cent feel the same.

“There are enough indications to really demonstrate that his whole shtick is starting to ring hollow,” about having to rein in the deficit and cut services, Corbett added. “The public is not buying it anymore.”

When people discover they've been conned, the fallout can get very nasty.

Image: Niagara At Large

Ford The Businessman?

When Doug Ford came to power, he promised to run Ontario like a business and cut outrageous costs. As an illustration of his philosophy, he vowed to fire Mayo Schmidt -- Hydro One's CEO -- who Ford labelled "the six million dollar man." One of the first things Ford did when he assumed office was show Schmidt the door. But, Martin Regg Cohn writes, there were financial consequences that accompanied Schmidt's departure:

First, Schmidt walked away with a handsome $10.7 million in severance and stock options, despite the premier’s assurances that it would be essentially costless.

Second, Ford’s intervention caused catastrophic harm to the utility’s takeover of U.S.-based Avista Corp., because local state regulators concluded that the Ontario government was calling the shots rather than Hydro One management. When they overruled the transaction, it triggered a “kill fee” that cost Hydro One about $139 million, on top of Schmidt’s severance.

Add it all up: Ford upbraided the Six Million Dollar Man but upgraded him to the One Hundred Fifty Million Dollar Man — or a $150 million mess.

Third, Ford’s intervention paralyzed management and divided the board in the aftermath. The only way to fire the CEO was to dump Hydro One’s directors (the board instead offered to resign in a seamless transition).

Besides his promise to fire Schmidt, Ford declared that Ontario was "Open For Business." Sounds a little like the story of the businessman who became president of the United States -- and declared bankruptcy six times before he got there.

Image: TVO

He's Running Out Of Scapegoats

In another two days, Doug Ford will have been premier of Ontario for a year. And, after a year, the Ford operation is beginning to smell. But Ford blames others for that smell. Martin Regg Cohn writes:

First, he fired Vic Fedeli — faulting his finance minister for the worst budget rollout in recent memory. Leaving the premier faultless as usual.

Next, he parted ways with Dean French — blaming his once-powerful chief of staff for the most pungent patronage appointments in recent memory. Leaving the premier blameless as usual.

Those appointments were particularly egregious:

Never mind the bizarre appointment of a 26-year-old French family friend to be Ontario’s handsomely paid envoy in New York — a posting shut down decades ago but revived by the supposedly parsimonious PC government.

Never mind the New York posting that Ford belatedly cancelled when word got out. Former PC party president Jag Badwal, a realtor, is still being rewarded with a sinecure in Dallas as a new trade representative to promote investment in Ontario. If that patronage plum — a pretend job — still passes Ford’s smell test, he needs new nostrils.

And have we forgotten the Washington patronage pigginess that the premier proclaimed with evident pride last October? “I am so happy to announce,” Ford boasted back then, that PC loyalist Ian Todd would be Ontario’s new trade representative at an annual salary of $350,000 a year — a hefty $75,000 more than his predecessor Monique Smith, a former cabinet minister appointed by Wynne, and considerably more than Canada’s full-fledged ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton (whose pay band is $248,000 to $292,000).

Emboldened by his own hubris, Ford arranged for a job to be created specially for his longtime Etobicoke crony Ron Taverner, a 72-year-old cop, at the Ontario Cannabis Store for $270,000 a year plus bonus — a pay hike of nearly $90,000 over his police job. When Taverner had second thoughts, the premier’s office paved the way for him to become commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police at $275,000 (the original job qualifications were lowered, allowing him to apply despite lacking the required rank).

The uproar prompted a three-month probe by the legislature’s integrity commissioner, laying bare the shamelessness in the premier’s office that scandalized the province. A chastened Taverner withdrew his name, but Ford remained unrepentant, insisting that the final report amounted to “complete — I repeat a complete — vindication.”

This is the same premier who once thundered against “Liberal insiders getting rich off your taxes,” while solemnly promising to “put the people ahead of insiders and elites.” What about Tory insiders getting rich off our taxes?

Ford claims that none of this was his fault because, Cohn writes, "Ford doesn’t do introspection nor retrospection, not even recognition of where he’s gone wrong."

However, he's running out of scapegoats.

Image: twitter

Children Looking For Applause

Doug Ford shuffled his cabinet yesterday. He believes that what he needs is a change of faces, not policy -- because he has been changing his own policies ever since he entered office. The problem isn't the faces of the Ford government. It's Ford himself. And, Bob Hepburn writes, the root of it all is Ford's insatiable need to be loved. These days he's not being shown much love:

Doug Ford smiled weakly as loud boos rained down on him on Monday from many of the 80,000 people at the Raptors’ victory celebration at Toronto City Hall.

The Ontario premier maintained his stoic grin a minute later as huge cheers greeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who Ford despises.

It was the third time in recent weeks that Ford has been the target of widespread booing. The first occurred at the opening of the Special Olympics at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, an event filled with children, and the second at the Collision international high-tech conference, an event filled with entrepreneurs and business people

Ford's personal insecurity mirrors Donald Trump's insecurity:

Ford’s need to be liked is strikingly similar to the personality of U.S. President Donald Trump, who seeks the love of the crowd, especially at his political rallies, and seeks the blessing of major media and New York society, much of which can’t stand him.

Like Trump, Ford’s hunger to be liked is a defining element of his personality. That can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing when times get tough, which they clearly are now for Ford.

In an article in Psychology Today magazine, Ryne Sherman, a former professor of psychology at Florida University, analyzed Trump’s personality and behaviours, which closely mirror those of Ford. Sherman looked at the bright and dark sides of Trump’s personality and described how they play out in day-to-day interactions.

For Trump, it means he can appear calm under pressure and won't take criticism personally, but actually is reluctant to listen to criticism. He likes to be the centre of attention and to talk a lot, but is also unwilling to listen and is overbearing. He has lots of ideas, but has trouble implementing them and can be unpredictable.

Already Ford is displaying such signs of unpredictability. His flip-flops on issues ranging from housing on the Green Belt to autism funding, safe injection sites and immediate cuts to public health funding are indications of a politician not so much as listening to public criticism of his policies, but rather to criticism of him personally.

Sherman also says people with this type of personality are impulsive, are self-promoting, easily angered, intimidate others and overestimate their abilities. Describes Ford, don’t you think?

Like Trump, Ford’s political rallies are critical for him. He thrives on the love of the crowd, as he will at “Ford Fest” on Saturday at the Markham fairgrounds.

His hunger for applause contributes to his need to believe that while his poll numbers are down — and they show his popularity plunging and now lower than even those of former premier Kathleen Wynne on the eve of last June’s election — he still rules a huge, loving base of followers, namely Ford Nation.

That’s why Ford’s office is “urging” all Conservative MPPs to promote the event widely so it will be packed with adoring Ford fans — and become a safe space for the man who hungers to be loved.

Men like Ford and Trump think of themselves as leaders. The truth is that they are children looking for applause.

Image: healingforthefamily.com

Doug's Way

Since being elected, Doug Ford has plastered "Open For Business" signs throughout Ontario. But his actions in office undercut that slogan. Alan Freeman writes:

Sure, companies love reduced corporate income taxes and lower minimum wages but what they want above all is a rules-based system where you can make long-term business decisions, in the firm knowledge that you won’t be subject to the changing partisan political will of the folks in power.

That’s what distinguishes investing in a first-world industrial nation from investing in a banana republic, where the autocratic ruler in charge may grant you a permit to build a cell-phone network and the next year, yank it from you arbitrarily and give it to a political crony.

In an advanced democratic country, that makes governments reluctant to cancel the contracts signed by their predecessors even if they don’t like them. It’s not really a good message to investors to rip up contracts and when you have a system of laws and independent courts, breaking contracts can also prove to be very expensive.

Ford complains about expenses. But ripping up contracts doesn't bother him. Consider The Beer Store:

The Beer Store, established in 1927 to control the drinking habits of Ontarians in a society that was still deeply suspicious of demon alcohol, is clearly an anachronism. It’s anti-competitive and doesn’t reflect contemporary society and modern commerce.

Yet the three brewing companies that own The Beer Store signed a 10-year contract with the Ontario government in 2015 to renew this arrangement in perfectly good faith. It allowed for a broadening of sales in supermarkets but fundamentally allowed the near-monopoly to stand. Ford calls it a “sweetheart deal” for the Beer Store’s 450 outlets that he wants to end and fully open up the market.

But instead of waiting until the contract ends in six years, Ford is acting now. It’s good politics, he figures, and a great distraction from his lousy poll numbers and the pushback he’s getting from voters over cuts to education, health and municipalities.

The beer companies claim they have the right to claim billions of dollars in damages from Ontario if the province breaks the terms of the contract. The Ontario legislature, however, has powers to overrule that agreement and even escape the need to pay compensation, although the courts may feel differently.

In running roughshod over a legal contract, Ford is saying Ontario is open for business, provided they do business his way. 

And that's the message.  You can do things in Ontario -- as long as you do them Doug's way.

Image: Narcity

Utter Incompetence

If you take a close look at Doug Ford's first budget, Martin Regg Cohn argues, you begin to understand how incompetent he and his government are:

By rejecting the bureaucracy’s best advice — dismissing the non-partisan professionals as know-nothings — Ontario’s self-styled “Government For the People” shortchanged the people. Now we are all paying the price for a budget built on a foundation of false assumptions.

And flawed accounting.

On paper, the budget purports to spend a record $163.4-billion — a hefty $4.9 billion more than the last Liberal budget delivered some 12 months earlier.

But those additional billions are not all going toward front line services, nor allocated to future infrastructure. Social services, for example, will be cut by $892 million, reaching $1 billion the year after.

Instead, the money is being misallocated to a fiscal chimera, born of an obsession to redo the province’s books.

Controversial accounting changes would render worthless, for the first time, a hefty $11 billion surplus from a jointly-held pension plan long listed on the province’s books as an asset. By blowing a hole in the budget, the Tories suddenly displaced billions of dollars from regular spending that had to be found — and ultimately defunded — elsewhere.

A note in the government’s financial statements shows $2.7 billion added to the budget deficit in order to “provisionally adopt auditor general’s accounting treatment of pension expenses.” That’s a reference to auditor Bonnie Lysyk’s surprise demand that Ontario stop counting any such pension surplus as an asset — unless the fund fell into deficit (in which case, with utter inconsistency, she’d count it as a liability).

Under the last Liberal government, top civil servants had pushed back against Lysyk, noting that she and her predecessors had fully endorsed treating it as an asset since 2002 (not to be confused with raiding a pension fund, which remains illegal). Ultimately, the previous government heeded the advice of an outside panel of accounting experts who found Lysyk’s analysis fatally flawed — akin to claiming that merely because depreciation is an abstraction, it’s an imaginary number.

Interestingly, another panel appointed by the Tories landed on a similar actuarial analysis, noting that a pension surplus could not logically be worth nothing (as Lysyk had insisted). Yet in their zeal to dismiss and demonize anything that came before them, the PCs ignored all outside advice in adopting the auditor’s audacious demands.

And the damage will not just occur this year, it will be ongoing:

Another $2.4 billion in indebtedness was added to our budgetary burden, thanks to the auditor’s criticism of a 2017 hydro discount plan enacted by the Liberals under public pressure. Lysyk had argued the refinancing scheme would get lower interest rates if the borrowing went on the province’s books — underwritten by taxpayers rather than ratepayers (via OPG). Cheaper, but not fairer — henceforth the hydro bills of cottagers and affluent customers with outsized properties will be subsided by all Ontarians, rich or poor.

Another $1.5 billion in revenues were forfeited by the Tories in the last fiscal year after they killed the cap-and-trade program that required polluters to pay a price for carbon (with the proceeds going to transit investments and subsidies to schools and hospitals for energy retrofits). A further $308 million in scheduled tax increases were also cancelled.

Together, those tax and accounting changes add up to roughly $7 billion in recurring revenues that must be found elsewhere. Every year.

The Fordians did what conservatives have done for decades. They fled from expertise. Is it any wonder that Ford's support has crashed among Ontarians? They know incompetence when they see it.

Image: Times Higher Education

Democracy Is Dying

In Ontario, democracy is dying. The signs are everywhere. Martin Regg Cohn writes:

Judge for yourself, based on this day in the life of our legislature:

It begins with the morning question period. In fairness, it is not called “answer period,” but the premier of the day is expected to make a pretence of debate — perhaps resorting to self-deprecating humour or self-righteous anger to diss the questioner, dismiss the question, diminish the opposition, buttress his own government, but at least address the topic (or in rare instances, reply to a serious question with a serious answer).

Not today. The Official Opposition NDP asks about budget cuts, but Premier Doug Ford has a better idea.

Not only will he not answer their questions, but he will ignore the topics entirely, instead reading from a list — literally — of unrelated government announcements.

When the NDP asks about the future of ambulance services, the premier replies by boasting about his “buck-a-beer” strategy, bemoans “illegal border-crossers,” and decries the “job-killing carbon tax.” On cue, his majority Tories jump to their feet with standing ovations.

The loyal opposition shall be forever stonewalled. But whenever more faithful Progressive Conservative backbenchers ask their prepared questions, Ford’s cabinet replies with exquisitely and obsequiously scripted answers.

Ontario’s so-called First Government For the People has turned parliamentary democracy upside down: It shall be answerable only to its own members, but unaccountable to elected MPPs from opposition parties who captured more than 58 per cent of the vote.

And, outside the legislature, it's more of the same:

While the politicians talk past each other inside the chamber, anti-abortion protestors are outside on the front lawn. Progressive Conservative MPP Sam Oosterhoff slips out to address the crowd, vowing to make a woman’s right to abortion “unthinkable in our lifetime.”

Oosterhoff clearly feels strongly about the right to protest when the topic is abortion. But when a group of seniors walked into his Niagara constituency office for an unannounced book reading, days before, in protest against budget cuts to libraries and book clubs, his staff called police — and the MPP backed them up. (Beware seniors-cum-bookworms who stage sit-ins, let alone read-ins.)

Behold the Conservative Wave in Canada. It's not about the people. It's about power -- the people be damned!

Image: Dreamstime

For The People?

The man who claims that his government is "for the people" appears not to be listening to "the people." Robert Benzie reports in The Toronto Star that Ford's proposed changes to education are a definite dud:

Premier Doug Ford’s classroom changes appear to be getting a failing grade from Ontarians, according to a new public-opinion survey.

The Corbett Communications poll suggests there is opposition to larger class sizes and to forcing students to take online high school courses, and indicates there is concern with Ford’s plan to eliminate thousands of teaching positions.

“Teachers are everywhere. It’s not the union that you really want to try to bust,” veteran pollster John Corbett said Monday.

“It becomes a real problem,” said Corbett, noting the effects could be felt in Progressive Conservative ridings across Ontario.

Using Maru/Blue’s Maru Voice Canada online panel, Corbett Communications surveyed 1,836 Ontario voters last Thursday and Friday. A sample of this size would have a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points, 19 time out of 20.

Consider what the pollster found:

Increasing class sizes from Grade 4 to Grade 8 from an average of around 23 students to 24 students was opposed by 47 per cent of respondents, with 30 per cent in favour and 23 per cent neither supporting or opposing or unsure.

But when those surveyed were asked about increasing high school class sizes from an average of 22 students to 28, 59 per cent were opposed, compared with 25 per cent in supporting and 16 per cent neither supporting or opposing or unsure.

“They do get the quantitative difference,” Corbett said of the respondents’ concern at larger class sizes.

Similarly, those polled were not enthusiastic about the government’s plan to have high school students take four online classes over four years, with 57 per cent opposed, 21 per cent supportive, and 22 per cent neither supporting or opposing or unsure.

“That’s because they see exactly where the Conservatives are going with that. They want to eliminate teachers. They’re trying to diminish the role of teachers,” the pollster said.

“I think people really look at that and say, ‘Wait a minute, I’m paying my taxes to have good teachers educate my child and they want him to learn from the internet?’ They understand what’s going on.”

As for Ford's plan to allow corner stores to sell beer, Ontarians are not against beer. But they are opposed to the way Ford plans to accomplish his goal:

Ford’s plan to allow beer and wine to be sold in corner stores was more popular, with 42 per cent in favour, 34 per cent opposed and 24 per cent neither supporting or opposing or unsure.

But support plunges if liberalizing sales came with a cost of up to $1 billion in financial penalties for breaking the government’s 10-year agreement with the Beer Store.

If there is a payout to the brewers’ retailer, only 33 per cent would favour expanded sales, with 59 per cent opposed and 17 per cent neither supporting or opposing or unsure.

Who knows? There may be a lot of Howard Beales out there.

Image: Dana Roc

A Confirmed Knuckle-Dragger

Doug Ford announced this week that his government would no longer cover the cost of health insurance for Ontarians who travel abroad. The coverage, as of now, is pretty flimsy. Tom Walkom writes:

An Ontarian requiring emergency outpatient hospital care while travelling outside Canada, for instance, is entitled to be reimbursed by OHIP at the rate of only $50 a day. That figure hasn’t increased in 20 years.

Overall, the current out-of-country rates paid by OHIP are chintzy. An Ontarian requiring hospitalization abroad can receive up to $200 a day ($400 in intensive care). Manitoba, Nova Scotia and the three territories are more generous. So is Prince Edward Island. It will pay up to $1,423 per day for a citizen needing emergency hospital care outside of Canada.

None of this suffices to cover U.S. hospital costs, which can amount to $4,000 a day or more. That’s why so many Canadians who travel in the U.S. choose to buy supplementary private insurance.

As a result, the proportion paid by public insurance — by OHIP — continues to decline. It now represents only five per cent of the cost of a typical medical emergency abroad.

But the issue isn't payments. It's portability:

Canadian medicare is, in essence, an insurance plan. Those who live in this country are automatically covered by their provincial medicare programs when they use physician or hospital services anywhere inside or outside of Canada.

This is known as portability. In the case of those who are “temporarily absent” from the country, the Canada Health Act reads as follows:

“Where the insured services are provided out of Canada, payment is made on the basis of the amount that would have been paid by the province for similar services rendered in the province.”

So Ford is attacking -- directly -- the Canada Health Act. Will he invoke the Not Withstanding Clause? Who knows? But his latest move confirms that, rather than being what he claims -- a Progressive Conservative -- he's  a confirmed knuckle-dragger.

Image: Wiktionary

Libraries? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Libraries!

Doug Ford is slashing funding wherever he can find it. He just announced that he is cutting funding for the Ontario Library Service Budget by 50%. Edward Keenan writes:

While this cut was unexpected and unheralded — I cannot recall any campaign promises pledging to fight Big Book or stick it to those fat-cat librarians — it’s hard to say it’s exactly surprising, coming from this premier. Doug Ford, when his brother was mayor of Toronto, made his pathological disregard for public repositories of knowledge well known.

Asked if he would close library branches then, he said, “Absolutely I would, in a heartbeat.” He said anyone who reacted negatively to that suggestion was simply taking their cues from self-interested “library groups.” The city was lousy with libraries, he suggested, complaining that there were more branches in his area than Tim Hortons franchises — which there were not — and suggesting that was a bad thing.

He felt the same way eight years ago when Ford and his brother Rob took an axe to the funding of Toronto's libraries. That decision brought on the wrath of Margaret Atwood, who complained loudly.

Ford was not impressed:

Councillor Doug Ford has fired back at world-renowned author Margaret Atwood for her criticism of suggested library cuts, telling reporters: “I don’t even know her. If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is.”

Ford also said that the literary icon and activist — who took him to task on Twitter for saying, erroneously, that his Etobicoke ward has more libraries than Tim Hortons — should get herself elected to office or pipe down.

“Well good luck to Margaret Atwood. I don’t even know her. If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is,” said the councillor and advisor to his brother, Mayor Rob Ford, after a committee meeting on proposed cuts.

“She’s not down here, she’s not dealing with the problem. Tell her to go run in the next election and get democratically elected. And we’d be more than happy to sit down and listen to Margaret Atwood.”

Sound familiar? But more than that, Ford's ignorance is gobsmaking.

Image: Toronto Public Library Workers Union