Less trash talk, please

After watching the start of a rare summer session of parliamentary debate at Queen’s Park, it doesn’t seem impertinent to ask: Just how hot were those microphones? Blusteringly hot, it seems. Which begs the question, is Premier Doug Ford locked in a cognitive loop called campaign mode? Ford’s performance in the house has so far exposed his predilection for the harsh response, when a simple answer would do.

It’s not just the premier. Tory cabinet ministers are fistpumping each other after answering basic questions and worse, after each response, give each other a standing ovation. That’s up to 20 ovations for each question period — a waste of time and money, all paid for by the public. So much for taxpayer respect. As one political observer said, “They look like lottery winners.”

We can only hope Ford chilled among Canadian leaders, bonding in the ocean breeze off Passamaquoddy Bay, at his first premiers’ meeting in New Brunswick last week.

When Ford returns to legislature Monday, the premier should take his chair with a mind to govern, not talk trash.

Ford clearly relishes his role in the house and stands with confidence, to answer low-hanging questions. Complex queries are generally shuffled off to cabinet ministers. Fair enough. The problem is that until Ford switches into governing mode, he’s lowering the bar for everyone by reacting to opposition efforts to trigger his worst impulses.

Last week, when NDP leader Andrea Horwath questioned Ford’s decision to stall impending police oversight legislation, the new premier fell back on the talking points from his spring campaign.

“We support our police,” he thundered, “unlike the leader of the opposition and unlike their party that are police-haters, military-haters, veteranhaters, poppy-haters and ...”

Mercifully, he was cut off by Speaker Ted Arnott. We may never know which allegedly-hated-group-in-a-uniform came next. Parking Enforcement officers? Brownies?

The shouting continued, this time from the opposition side of the floor when NDP MPP Gilles Bisson yelled out, “I served. Just so you know.” Bisson was a pilot and flight sergeant with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets.

The Speaker, Arnott, is new to the job. He tried to stop the quarrelling, with limited success. It can’t be easy to corral Ford’s energy, so with curbed sympathy (Arnott knew what he’d face) we recommend the Speaker act immediately to instill respect for the parliamentary tradition of asking questions. It’s not the warm-up to a cage fight.

Here is how it works. There is a time set aside in the legislature for questions. As the leader of the opposition, Horwath has the right to make those queries, and if she chooses, to ask them of the premier. Ford is expected to respond and while he may, as have others before him, not say anything of value, a premier in control doesn’t get led so far off course.

Last week, Horwath controlled the narrative so easily by poking the bear.

At one point, during a grilling on the Tories’ controversial return to the 1998 sex education curriculum, Horwath asked the premier why he listened to “radical extremists” instead of his own cabinet, accusing him of “putting the safety of our young people at risk.”

And again, Ford took the bait. “… I find it pretty rich that the Leader of the Opposition would call us radical … (interrupted by shouting from MPPs) … You want to talk extremist; you want to talk radical (more shouting from MPPs) … “worked so good in the campaign and the Leader of the Opposition had to steal a couple of our lines.”

Let’s get this straight: The premier is using parliamentary time to accuse Horwath of stealing his election slogans?

Ford must be very proud of his campaign indeed. He might try remembering that the election is over. He won. That means it’s time to stop campaigning and start governing.

Tory cabinet ministers are fist-pumping each other after answering basic questions and worse, after each response, give each other a standing ovation. That’s up to 20 ovations for each question period — a waste of time and money, all paid for by the public. So much for taxpayer respect.