Doug Ford needs to remind himself of the bigger picture.
Council size is becoming an odd obsession
Premier Doug Ford is pursuing the issue of Toronto city council’s size with all the judgment and enthusiasm of a dog chasing a ball into traffic. That’s not good news for fans of rational government, Progressive Conservative supporters or people in the rest of Ontario who wonder when the new premier will return his attention to things relevant to them.
There was a brief moment when it looked like the new Ford government would endorse fact-based decision making. For example, its plan to cancel cap and trade was supported by a devastating critique of the climate plan prepared by the province’s auditor general. Altering the prescription drug plan for youth so government didn’t pay for services already covered made sense, too.
Then came the out-of-the-blue decision to shrink the size of Toronto city council in the middle of the municipal election campaign. There was no compelling reason to do it, other than Ford’s belief that a smaller council would work better. Does Toronto need 47 councillors, or only 25? Who could say? Maybe the smaller council would be more effective, but that would depend almost entirely on who Toronto voters elect.
A reasonable person would have to wonder how this hypothetical improvement in the functioning of Toronto city council got to be one of Ford’s first priorities, given that the budget, the deficit and health care seem a little more important to the majority of Ontarians, who don’t live in Toronto.
Ford endlessly reminds us that everything he does is “for the people,” but for the people who live outside of Toronto, the size of that city’s council is less relevant than the price of cod. His fixation on a purely local Toronto matter creates the uneasy feeling that this government is going to be all about Toronto, just like the last one.
PC supporters are the ones who should be most concerned about how their guy has gotten off the rails. The party spent 15 years in the political wilderness, in part because the last PC premier couldn’t resist the desire to pick fights. Now Ford is showing the same tendency. It’s the kind of thing PCs who voted for the other leadership contenders feared would happen.
The Ontario PCs have a golden opportunity to set themselves up for a good long run as the government. The Liberals are in an extremely weak position, and will be for years. The NDP couldn’t win with their current leader, even when the Liberals collapsed. There isn’t much that stands between Doug Ford and a second term, except himself.
Part of what ought to worry PCs is Ford’s lack of political skill in handling the Toronto city council issue. His plan was hasty and didn’t involve any consultation. That’s not a good start, but when his gambit unravelled in court he unravelled, too. Ford’s defence of his council-shrinking plan has been weak and his actions to ram it through disproportionate to the importance of the issue.
The best way to undermine Judge Edward Belobaba’s ruling was to point to its lack of a legal or logical underpinning. It’s a long stretch to determine, as the judge did, that reducing the number of seats on city council reduces people’s right to free speech and effective political representation. His ruling has the feeling of the work of a person who has decided that Ford made a stupid move and then tried to find some legal reason to kill it.
Instead, Ford chose to attack the foundation of our judicial system. Sure, Ford was elected and Belobaba was appointed, but all Canadian judges are appointed. Should we just ignore the courts because of that?
Then Ford hauled out the notwithstanding clause to overrule the court. That’s a tool you save for something really big and important, not this.
As a political leader, Doug Ford has some strengths and determination is one of them. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between determination and acting like an autocrat who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. On the Toronto city council matter, Ford is on the line, and probably over it. That just plays into the stereotype his opponents keep pushing.
Ford needs to step back and remind himself of the big picture. People elected him to do serious, important things, not get tangled up in trivial fights. No doubt he will get to those big things, but when it comes to public perception, the style in which he handles change is important as the substance.
If Ford doubts that, he can ask Stephen Harper.
If Ford wants to be a success as premier, he needs to learn to keep his eye on the ball, not chase it into traffic.
ALL ABOUT TORONTO, JUST LIKE THE LAST (GOVERNMENT).