The Liberals’ election gift to Doug Ford

There’s a lot of time left until Ontario’s scheduled vote this June, but right now, every opinion poll shows that Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives have a clear path to victory. The only question at this point is whether they can win a majority — and most of the polls are signalling that yes, they can. Barring any unforeseen events that knock the campaign into chaos, the only hope the opposition parties have is to run flawless campaigns, avoid splitting the centre-left vote and actually convince Covid-weary Ontarians that they have a superior plan to what Ford is offering. That will likely prove to be a pretty tall order. And the Liberals, for their part, are not off to a great start.

Though the campaign hasn’t officially begun, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca made what he touted as a “historic” announcement on Tuesday. In a province facing continued pressure on its hospitals due to COVID, skyhigh housing costs, infrastructure woes, a broken long-term-care system and now inflation, Del Duca announced ... a ban on handguns.

It’s a fairly routine ploy by the Liberals, who exploit the public’s ignorance of Canada’s gun-control system to pretend that what they’re proposing would be in any way effective. It wouldn’t be, as most handguns used to commit crimes in Canada are smuggled in from the United States, and any loss of domestic supply would be offset by more smuggled guns. Disarming law-abiding citizens will not stop criminals from using illegal firearms, but the Liberals sure like acting like it would. It’s normally a good political move for them, especially in their urban fortresses, even though it’s bad policy. This time, though, it’s not even clear it’s good politics. Doug Ford isn’t Erin O’toole, who stumbled badly over gun issues in the last federal election. The circumstances are different in this election. So are the issues.

That the Liberals would essentially kick off their campaign with an issue that is not front-and-centre for most Ontarians makes them seem wildly out of touch, and certainly seems like a missed opportunity.

Ford has spent four years carefully laying down a path of rakes so that he can merrily skip along the entire route, stepping on every one and taking the handle full in the face each time. This is not a man lacking in political vulnerabilities. What could have possibly possessed the Liberals to pick the gun issue, given the incredible bounty of everything else that Ford has offered them?

It’s not just a weird move for the Liberals. It’s a gift for Ford. Gun control is an issue with political symbolism that extends much further than the relatively small number of Ontarians who own a handgun (myself included).

Senior federal Liberals have long since learned to approach gun control with caution because it does a really, really good job of motivating small-c conservatives, who view the Liberal proposals, at best, as theatrical symbolism that comes at the expense of law-abiding Canadians instead of the gangs that are actually doing the killing; or, at worst, chilling examples of draconian government overreach. Gun control may not be the perfect way to fire up a right-leaning base, but it’s gotta make any shortlist of leading contenders.

Ford’s time in office, even before the various unforced errors of the pandemic years, left many Ontario conservatives feeling cold. He’s erratic, too eager to please whomever has yelled at him most recently and is prone to frittering away his political capital on silly fights he either doesn’t need to fight, or doesn’t have the spine to see through before dramatically flip-flopping.

There are still some people out there who embody that old Ford Nation spirit, but the man has

IT’S A FAIRLY ROUTINE PLOY BY THE LIBERALS, WHO EXPLOIT THE PUBLIC’S IGNORANCE OF CANADA’S GUN-CONTROL SYSTEM.

never been nearly as beloved as his late brother, and there’s been a shocking amount of whispering even among pretty true-blue Tories that they were considering just staying home this June, or even — gasp — parking their vote with the Greens this time around.

Del Duca’s proposal won’t be enough to wipe away the frustration many conservatives have with the Ford government, but it will have an effect. The proposed gun ban is a gift to a Progressive Conservative campaign that needs some help firing up its base. It won’t win Del Duca votes in any places the Liberals aren’t already competitive, and will help Ford get his voters out.

Maybe the only thing that makes sense is that Del Duca is trying to avoid talking about COVID-19. The Liberals seem happy to let Ford wear his failures on the pandemic file, but haven’t had much to say about what they’d do differently, if anything. Or maybe the strategy is aimed at taking the NDP down a few pegs, with Del Duca hoping to flip a few urban ridings and make the Liberals the second-place party in order to set up a future race against Ford.

If not those two things, it’s a strange way to start a campaign, when so many vastly easier and more relevant moves were possible.