The doublespeak world of man who would be premier

Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford is offering up a confused and contradictory approach to helping Ontario’s corporate sector.

He has vowed to end what he calls corporate welfare. Yet he would grant tax incentives to keep existing companies here or attract new ones.

Either way, David Reevely explains, it’s about surrendering public money into private hands — companies with the best lobbyists to apply the most leverage.

Meantime, Ford is grappling with the Patrick Brown problem.

Tom Blackwell reports that whether he bows out or is forced to do it, Brown will almost certainly not be running as a Tory candidate under Ford — who might also overturn some nominations where results are in dispute.

Polls show the party, for all its internal turmoil, still far ahead of the governing Liberals. This gives Ford every chance to prove himself as leader.

Whether the public will be so forgiving is another matter,

Andrew Coyne writes.

With just three months until the next provincial election, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party is going back to square one on its policy platform.

While some parts of the platform developed by former leader Patrick Brown may survive, new chief Doug Ford is more or less starting from scratch, a source on his team said Monday.

Out the window is the People’s Guarantee, the centre-right manifesto released by Brown last year. It promised a 22-per-cent income tax cut, more funding for mental health and child care, and a tax on carbon emissions.

“That platform was crafted for a very different candidate ... with some very different views of what the role of government in people’s lives should be,” the Ford adviser said.

The Toronto businessman’s will be a “different document,” though possibly with some portions of the People’s Guarantee retained.

The platform will focus on a few key areas Ford wants to emphasize.

“He’s more of a five-big-things kind of guy than a laundry list of a thousand commitments,” said the Ford confidant. “In terms of how he likes to campaign, it’s a shorter and clearer list.”

During his bid for the PC leadership, Ford did provide a flavour of the policies he might push in the June 7 general election. They ranged from making almost $6 billion in budget cuts, to offering tax incentives to attract new business and scrapping the Liberals’ costly program for encouraging alternative-energy sources.

Ford pledged to repeal and rewrite a sex-education curriculum, and mused it might make sense to require parental consent before underage girls get abortions.

But on Monday, he played down social-conservative issues.

“Our focus will be on straightening out the finances of this province,” Ford said. “We’re going to reduce hydro rates, start attracting high-paying jobs … and make this the most prosperous region of North America.”