What sort of Ford government will we get next?

Most Ontarians, probably most Hamiltonians, too, would agree the Ford government has done a competent job piloting Ontario through this pandemic. Not perfect, to be sure, but these are unprecedented times in modern memory.

But now that our city and the rest of the province (with the notable exception of the GTA) are coming out of this round of COVID-19, what sort of government will emerge from the pandemic gloom?

Will it be one focused on the future, on the threat of the next wave, on fixing at least some of the cracks COVID-19 has exposed in our social safety net, on learning from the mistakes this very government made in its earlier incarnation?

Or will it be another version of the pre-pandemic conservative government, short on consultation, short on the rights of workers and vulnerable citizens, long on free market ideology and short on accepting responsibility for its own mistakes?

It probably won’t be Ford heavy. The premier and his brain trust must know a return to the pre-COVID status quo will not fly. Why? First, because Ford really does seem to have learned some things through his pandemic trials and tribulations. Second, there is less than two years until the next election. Prior to the pandemic Ford’s ratings and shot at a second term were not great. Now, with COVIDinspired popularity, Ford has a better than even chance at another term. But not if the Conservatives revert to pre-pandemic form. In that case, two years is lots of time for Ontarians to forget Ford’s pandemic leadership.

So will it be Ford lite, or a brand new Ford government altogether? Here are some things to watch.

This week, consumer services minister Lisa Thompson put forward changes to the Retail Business Holidays Act that would have reduced the number of mandatory statutory holidays from nine to three. (Yes, the same minister who argued larger classes would toughen up students and who oversaw the disastrous licence-plate mess.)

She said the change would help retailers recover from the pandemic shutdown. In reality, it’s a mean spirited idea that would hurt low-wage workers most and reduce their already battered quality of life.

The good news is that Ford shot the idea down cold. That’s encouraging.

Less encouraging is news that the government is considering legislation that would protect long-term care operators from civil litigation over COVID-19. On the surface, the idea that the government would offer legal immunity to LTC operators (like, say, the Martino family who operated the Rossyln residential care facility in Hamilton) is horrible.

But there’s more to it. Similar legislation in B.C. is aimed at protecting operators and staff who acted in good faith but still had infections and outbreaks. It doesn’t protect operators who displayed negligence. The belief is any Ontario policy would be the same.

The government needs to be very careful here. If it does anything that appears to protect all private LTC operators (like the one where former Conservative Premier Mike Harris is board chair), without regard for their management of this crisis, there will be hell to pay.

Ultimately, how the government conducts itself through the various probes and inquiries into what went wrong in Ontario’s eldercare facilities will speak volumes.

Will it go into defensive posture, seeking to limit political damage? Or will it stand up and be accountable, and stick to Doug Ford’s promise that this broken system will be fixed? That, more than anything else, will tell us what sort of post-pandemic provincial government we have.