Doug Ford fails his first big transparency test

If Doug Ford expects Ontarians to trust him with their votes, he’d better be ready to trust them with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. However unpleasant it may be.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative leader’s mishandling of a scandal involving one of his own MPPs, however, raises serious doubts he’s capable of doing this.

Late last week, the party quietly told Michael Harris, who represents the Kitchener-Conestoga riding, that he could not run for the Tories in the June 7 provincial election.

The reason? The party had received allegations that in 2013 Harris sent text messages of an inappropriate sexual nature to a woman who had worked as a party intern.

Despite this decision, Ford and the rest of the caucus were more than happy to keep what they had done secret and let the public think Harris was stepping down voluntarily, not because he was accused of wrongdoing.

Indeed, last Saturday and after being told he could no longer be an Ontario PC candidate, Harris announced he was not seeking re-election because he needed treatment for a chronic eye disease.

At the same time, his wife, Sarah Harris, announced she would seek the nomination to run for the PCs in the riding and, hopefully, take her husband’s seat at Queen’s Park.

It was a touching story and duly reported. Many Ontarians likely felt sympathy for Harris, a man who by all previous indications had served the public faithfully since first being elected in 2011.

Except, of course, these kind thoughts were largely based on fiction. Michael Harris fabricated a story that misled the public. He should be ashamed of that.

On Monday, Harris was still sitting in the legislature with his Tory colleagues as if they were all buddies. But that afternoon, things suddenly changed.

After PC leader Ford received pointed questions from a reporter, the party announced it had expelled Harris from its caucus and provided, in general terms, the reason.

Had the Tories been forthright and transparent a few days earlier, they would have deserved credit.

As it is, fair minds will wonder if the party levelled with the public only after dogged media questions made it inevitable that the truth would come out.

After all, the party was deeply embarrassed in January when it dumped its previous leader, Patrick Brown, as he faced allegations of sexual misconduct. The Tories had reasons to want to avoid another humiliation.

Fair minds will also wonder if the party would have been content to let Sarah Harris run for — and possibly win — her husband’s old seat without voters knowing why he had really left.

Finally, there are unanswered questions about the sexting allegations. Harris told a Waterloo Region Record journalist that, while he accepts the text messages were inappropriate, the woman he texted never worked for him and was not then working for the PCs. He also says there was never physical contact between them.

If a democratically elected politician is sacked by his party, the public has a right to know more about what he supposedly did wrong.

Let’s hope, even now, the PCs can be more helpful. As it stands, Ford seems to be acting like the old, self-serving political elites he wants to replace.