Liberals leading in the polls, with no one as leader

No one is polling better than Ontario Premier Doug Ford. That’s not to say Ford is more popular than his political opponents, but that quite literally, no one is polling better than him.

According to a new survey released this week by Pollara Strategic Insights, the provincial Liberal party is polling four points ahead of the provincial PCs, even though at present the Liberals don’t have an official leader.

In other words, Ford is losing the province’s popularity contest to a party, not a person: i.e. to no one. Or, to be fair, you could say he’s losing it to Liberal interim leader John Fraser.

Either way, he’s losing, and a leaderless party is in the lead. This is not only a bad sign for Ontario’s struggling premier; it’s a bad sign for the province itself as it suggests Ontarians aren’t keen on any of their province’s official leaders.

The poll’s result, I suspect, isn’t so much an indication that many love the provincial Liberal party, but that they don’t love Ford (or any of his contemporaries).

This is ironic because when Ford was elected premier, he found himself in a very similar position, only in reverse. Ford’s win wasn’t so much a testament to his popularity as it was a testament to Kathleen Wynne’s unpopularity.

Some pundits argued at the time that anyone could have beaten Wynne. If an election were held today, they might say anyone could beat Ford. What’s interesting is that despite the leaders’ vast differences they would come under scrutiny for like reasons: the mismanagement of taxpayer money.

Wynne was seen as a big spender full of big promises. Ford was supposed to be the opposite: the Scrooge to her Santa Claus. It turns out however, that he’s more of a Scrooge and a Santa Claus rolled into one.

He’s the guy who makes massive cuts to vital services only to turn around with public handouts.

Remember in 2013, when Ford, then a city councillor, gave out $20 bills to residents in a public housing complex? (He later apologized and promised to switch to Tim Hortons gift cards.)

It appears that in his current role as premier, Ford has elevated this handout scheme.

We recently learned that Ontario’s Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, is offering parents money (up to $60 a day) for child care expenses incurred during the province’s teachers’ strikes.

Lecce told media he wants to put money back into the pockets of Ontarians and that unions must “accept the premise that there’s a cost when a child is staying home.”

However, such a statement comes off as insincere when the government itself doesn’t take seriously the cost of its own education policies.

If it did, it would put the money where it belongs: into the pockets of teachers and into the coffers of education. It might also rethink lecturing anybody about the cost of child care, when just last year it announced plans of massive cuts to child care (plans it was forced to walk back after public outcry).

This two-faced persona of the Ford government is even more pronounced when you consider the fact that Ford is no less a big spender than his predecessors and no less of an empty promise maker.

He promised jobs would not be lost as a result of his government’s belt tightening. But when you promise the impossible — cuts absent pain — you’re going to disappoint a lot of people. You’re going to get booed at a Raptors parade.

It’s fiction that Conservatives are constitutionally better at handling money than their rivals.

When politicians of any stripe are elected on the promise to clean up the last guy’s mess, you can almost guarantee they’re about to make an even bigger one.

Meanwhile the provincial Liberals should reconsider choosing a new leader in March. “No one” is the most promising candidate they’ve had in years.