There’s a lesson in Ford’s change of tack
A year has passed since a ball bounced four times around a basket, teetered on its edge, fell through and launched a city and its team to exceptional heights.
But we’re nearing the oneyear anniversary of another epic sports moment, too — one of exceptional lows: the day thousands of otherwise jubilant people booed Premier Doug Ford in the hot sun at the Toronto Raptors championship parade.
What’s wild about the facts of that scenario is that today they are reversed: today it’s freezing outside, the streets are empty, and Ford is a source of applause.
The premier’s approval rating skyrocketed recently, according to an Ipsos poll from last month, most likely the result of his calm, straightforward presence throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Once focused on several issues Ontarians don’t really care about (cheap beer, tailgating parties, licence plates), he is now focused on the only thing we do care about: getting through this God awful pandemic.
Even screw-ups that would be characterized as meteoric in the past (for example, the premier’s recent admission that he drove up to his cottage to check on the pipes and potentially flouted public health guidelines on Mother’s Day) feel like a blip today. Flouting those guidelines is a really bad look, no doubt, but will it be top of anyone’s mind next week when a fresh set of virus questions is on the table? Probably not. In an emergency, the problem of the moment takes precedence.
Many pundits believe Ford’s favourable reviews are no big deal. After all, the same poll revealed that approval ratings for politicians’ handling of the virus were favourable across the country. And who knows how Ontarians will feel about the premier weeks from now if it turns out we acted much too soon in attempting to reopen the economy.
Besides, some might counter, nothing is new about Ford. What’s new, rather, is that his critics (this one, for example) are choosing to highlight skills he always had, but which they chose to ignore.
To this I say: yes Ford was always a folksy straight-talker, a style we tend to mock in normal times and praise in a crisis. But he wasn’t always a good sport.
That is what’s different about our Ford at present: his sportsmanship. Even his most stalwart haters have to admit it’s remarkable that a leader who once sought to rebrand Ontario in his party’s image (remember those Tory blue licence plates?) has emerged as a model of bipartisanship co-operation.
In March, he praised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for banning non-essential travel across the U.S. border. Last month, he and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland told the Star’s Susan Delacourt that they provide “therapy” to one another on the phone. “Some of the daily struggles that we go through are quite similar and so sometimes when we talk we’ll just say, ‘this is our therapy session,’ ” Freeland told Delacourt. This week during a press conference, the premier said he was not in the
“mood” for partisanship.
Perhaps few are. I know I’m not. I don’t have the energy to summon anger for people I disagree with about things not currently relevant to my safety and the safety of my family. A pandemic has a way of dwarfing differences that once felt large. I wouldn’t be surprised if a recent uptick in popularity for political leaders is linked directly to their willingness for co-operation. When leaders give credit where credit is due, they look like honest brokers who desire change more than personal or party gain.
Imagine if hopefuls for the leadership of the federal Conservative party tried this method on for size instead of their recent tactics: xenophobic accusations of dual loyalty, email blast blunders and other cartoonish negative messaging about the opposition.
To assume the goodwill of your opponents even if you vehemently disagree with their ideas might be a hard thing to do. But what do you know: it’s actually popular. If our politicians — on both sides — take any lesson from leading in a pandemic let it be this: it’s OK to give the other guy a boost now and then.