Ford era promises rocky road ahead for all

On Thursday night, just as outgoing Premier Kathleen Wynne took the stage to make a speech ending her political career, congratulating her opponents, conceding the stomping Ontario voters had laid on her party, all the TV cameras cut away. Doug Ford, the man who had won, and who would replace her as premier, was going to deliver his victory speech at the same time. The long tradition of grace in victory dictates you let your defeated opponents concede first before taking the stage to close the show.

Ford didn’t do that, and it wasn’t immediately obvious whether this was an intended insult or an innocent scheduling screw-up.

Incompetence or malice? As the question was delicately discussed by the TV panel I was watching, it brought on a sense of déjà vu.

During the Ford years at City Hall, that question came up again and again among analysts and political junkies. Whenever the latest scandal or sideshow or recklessly, shamelessly broken promise came along, it was sometimes hard to know if the mayor and his brother were lying or just didn’t understand the issue; if they had a master plan to sow chaos, or just bumbled into that result.

Incompetence or malice? In the end, it often became obvious, this was more a question of interest to the great auditorgeneral in the sky than to average citizens dealing with the consequences.

Because whichever was the case, the effect on the ground was the same.

In the case of stepping on Wynne’s concession speech, Ford’s campaign clarified later that it was a mix-up. But it was made clear while he was talking that a vocal portion of his supporters maybe would have preferred the other scenario.

When it came time for Ford to make the gracious-winner gesture of offering his congratulations to Wynne and Horwath, many in the hall booed loud and long, despite his admonitions that they stop.

Election-night speeches, protocol, gestures — none of it really matters all that much, of course. It’s all symbolic. But that’s the thing, is that the episode was symbolic of exactly what I expect of the next four years under Premier Doug Ford: constant reasons to wonder about the malice vs. incompetence debate, with a loud portion of Ford’s supporters hoping and cheering for the former option.

And many of the rest of us hoping instead for the latter, because perhaps if a problem is caused by incompetence, there is some hope it will be fixed, as those who caused it realize their mistake or grow more competent and capable.

It should be obvious I don’t have great expectations for what lies ahead under Ford as premier. We in Ontario likely had a tough road ahead no matter the result of this election: the housing market has been cooling fairly dramatically and a Trump-ed up trade war from the U.S. threatens us with a possibly disastrous recession in the near future. This isn’t an easy job Ford has won. And I haven’t seen much, in his history or in his platform, that makes me think he’s equipped to smooth that road.

I expect a regular series of scandals and personal controversies and blown-off apparent conflicts of interest and abuses of power and transparent policy foolishness. I expect not just a three-ring circus to take up semi-permanent residence on the lawn of Queen’s Park, but a village of sideshows outside it, and a carnival of protesters beside that.

And as Ford tries to square all the many interlocking circles of his campaign promises to dramatically cut taxes while also enhancing services and not cutting a single civil service job all at the same time as the economy may be tanking around him, I expect the policy choices to be painful and to make a lot of people angry.

That’s what I expect. Perhaps it’s worth noting it’s not what I hope. Ford has won a substantial majority with a solid plurality of the vote — even given the deeply weird sequence of pre-campaign and campaign events that saw him rise to office, his mandate is as legitimate as most we ever see in our first-past-the-post system. A lot of voters — ones who I don’t think are loudly hoping their guy is motivated by malice and spite — put their faith in him. I hope that I am wrong and they are right.

I hope he can cut taxes while also balancing the budget while also preserving and enhancing service levels, as he has claimed he will.

I hope he delivers more and better transit than previous governments, as he’s claimed he can.

I hope he manages policies that are respectful of the rights of all Ontarians, particularly those in marginalized communities who have expressed fear at what he may do.

I hope he is able to find many billions of dollars in inefficiency and waste in the govern- ment’s operations to make it simultaneously more effective and less costly, as he promises.

I don’t believe he can do those things, but I will be very happy if it turns out I am wrong.

And if it turns out I am not wrong, I do expect a vocal opposition of citizens and residents to be watching him, opposing him, discussing the kind of place we want this to be and demanding Ford and anyone who would replace him participate in that conversation. The galvanizing effect of bad governments is no balm for the wounds they can cause — there are families in Walkerton who cannot take solace from knowing how much we’ve learned about the dangers of cutting corners in water delivery — but I hope they do make clear what we value, over the long term.

I do expect it to be a long term. Settle in, stock up on popcorn, and buy stock in protest signs. When the speeches and formalities are over with, the real era of Premier Ford begins.