Reality check for Ontario

Premier Doug Ford: that’ll take some getting used to.

But the people have spoken and in a democracy the people are always right, by definition. Vox populi, vox dei.

Their verdict is that Ford and his Progressive Conservatives will have a solid majority at Queen’s Park. It’s not the outcome we wanted to see, but it has to be said that Ford has delivered for his party barely three months after becoming leader. The PCS’ victory will silence the doubters in his party, at least for now.

Still, it’s important to note a few things right off the bat. First, the PCS have won their majority with just over 40 per cent of the votes cast. That’s perfectly legitimate, and not even unusual, under our voting system.

But it’s also true that some 58 per cent of voters chose more progressive options – NDP, Liberal and Green. There was no big swing to the right among Ontario voters, and the PCS will quickly go astray if they mistake their electoral victory for a mandate to make sweeping, ideologically motivated changes.

Second, this was much more a vote against the Liberal status quo than it was a positive vote for what the PCS were putting forward. Ontarians knew what they didn’t want – more of the Liberals after 15 years of having them running the show. They were less sure of what they wanted to see in their place.

Third, Ford never bothered to spell out anything like a proper program for governing. He promised to be “upfront and honest about what I’m going to do,” but he was anything but.

His “Plan for the People” is a paper-thin compendium of headline promises with no accounting of how they’ll be paid for or what trade-offs (i.e., cuts) will have to be made.

That will only become apparent once the new Ford government gets to grips with the province’s finances and starts to put together its first budget.

That’s when the rubber will hit the road, and the PCS will have to move from campaign rhetoric to the hard choices involved in governing.