Ford curtains off Queen’s Park media
Ontario party leaders hold scrums, while Ford remains behind a rope
Not since former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty invoked his “five-foot rule” — banning traditional scrums to keep reporters at a distance while asking questions — has the Queen’s Park press corps been so vexed a and perplexed.
At his news conferences, typically in nondescript hotel meeting rooms, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford doubles or triples the McGuinty gap, standing well behind a rope partition stretching wall-to-wall, creating a noman’s land between politician and press.
Aphalanx of TV cameras populates the line with a teleprompter below lens level so Ford can read his remarks. He then takes a handful of ques- tions through an aide flexing a microphone. Quickly exiting through a side curtain, Ford of- ten leaves journalists exasperated aexasperated and hungry for more in- f formation to provide their au- diences. Often, his entourage breaks into applause after the last answer to muffle the sound of reporters shouting additional questions.
It’s a marked departure from the norm in Ontario politics, where leaders from all three major parties traditionally hold longer scrums with the media before handlers shut things down.
“What’s up with the control here?” CityNews television reporter Cynthia Mulligan, who hosted Monday night’s leadership debate, asked Ford on Thursday at a Mississauga hotel where he announced tax cuts.
“There’s a person holding the mic — I’m not allowed to hold the mic — we’re all behind a stanchion, you’re several feet away, your sign says ‘for the people,’ but you seem to be carefully controlling this message and not really being that accessible.”
The PC leader bristled at the query, which has been on the minds of reporters in the two months since he was elected to replace the ousted leader Patrick Brown.
“I think I’ve been pretty open with the the media. I was out in RRRenfrew the other day, we had t the media right in my face. We went to another town, Kanata, we had the media right in front of my face,” replied Ford, the frontrunner for premier in the June 7 election.
Comparisons are being made to Stephen Harper’s campaigns — often noted for not being media-friendly — given that several of Ford’s officials worked with the former prime minister.
“That’s a little bit of a stretch … If you want to get closer to me we can always work that out, but I think this is pretty good,” Ford added Thursday, when he took questions for more than the previous double the day’s five minutes subway of announcement. That announcement resulted in media coverage criticizing a lack of detail as to when new transit lines would be built and where the money would come from.
“It’s not a free-for-all scrum,” added the brother of late Toronto mayor Rob Ford. “I think I’ve given the press all the access. I meet with the press three times a day, I’m on the radio, talking to newspapers, so I don’t know how much more you want from me. We’re always here, we’re always open. You can still ask the questions eight feet away rather than two feet. I know the media likes getting close to me.”
The Ford election team has also been using one of its staffers to do TV news-style online videos about the leader’s campaign for the FordNation Facebook page, prompting the Liberals to file a complaint with Elections Ontario about a possible violation of election financing rules for advertising.
Despite Ford’s protestations, rivals say his campaign — which is not providing a media bus on which news organizations buy seats, unlike the Liberals and NDP — could be more accessible. New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, who is in her third provincial election since winning the post in 2009, said many voters rely on news coverage to make their ballot-box decisions.
“Mr. Ford is going to have to decide how he is going to engage the Ontario voters,” she told reporters at a campaign stop in Toronto. “My opinion is the best way to do that is to be as open as possible, and provide as many opportunities as possible for dialogue to happen … that’s how people get to know you, that’s how people get to understand what makes you tick and what kind of a premier you w would make.
“It is disappointing that Mr. Ford doesn’t seem to want to do that.”
The Liberal campaign said the Conservatives have been prickly about allowing its observers into campaign events, something that has traditionally been done between parties.
In the 1995 campaign, for example, then-PC leader and later premier, Mike Harris, used to lightheartedly welcome the “Liberal spy” in remarks at events.
That spy followed the Conservative campaign buses in a rent- a al car, and was occasionally in- vited on board to snack and so- cialize at rest stops.
In this campaign, Ford’s handlers have kept some information under wraps, such as his appearance Wednesday for a noon speech to a construction trades convention across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Que.
The event was not on the Ford itinerary provided to the media, with his office arguing it was not an official campaign stop de- spite the fact he made campaign promises in his remarks. With files from Kristin Rushowy