In a world of AI, Ford goes with his gut

In a change election, Doug Ford won the day.

In a changing economy, our premier is losing his way.

A year ago, he proclaimed the province “open for business.” And, he promised “help is on the way.” This week, the results are in. A chorus of boos greeted the premier when he appeared Tuesday at the influential Collision conference that brings together entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of technology in Canada and around the world. The thumbs down contrasted with warm receptions for Mayor John Tory and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The boos were an early warning sign from a hi-tech crowd of people who are not partisans — but not patsies either. They weren’t buying what the premier was selling.

If you show up at a public event as an impostor-entrepreneur, you risk being exposed as the emperor-entrepreneur with no clothes: You can’t claim to be “open for business” in a roomful of tech investors whose business is creating startups if your government is shutting down funding for the new economy.

Many in the convention hall knew that his Progressive Conservative government had just cut $20 million in promised support for the Vector Institute, Canada’s custodian of artificial intelligence (AI). And that his April budget cut a further $4 million annually from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (also a pillar of AI), while cutting funding to Kitchener’s Communitech startup hub by 30 per cent. Ontario Centres of Excellence, which focuses on high technology applications, may lose up to 50 per cent of its provincial funding, according to published reports.

The latest cutbacks come against the backdrop of assembly lines closing in Ontario, notably the devastating GM shutdown in Oshawa. Spinning its wheels, the PC government quickly cobbled together a rehash of previously announced programs in a February photo-op promising $13 million yearly to retrain autoworkers.

Helping factory workers make a comeback is a worthy initiative, assuming the jobs of the past ever come back, but not at the expense of the jobs of the future.

A premier who closes his mind to artificial intelligence, and goes with his gut, is the embodiment of human folly. But if there is method to Ford’s madness, it may be his determination to disrupt and dismantle the decisions of his predecessor, Kathleen Wynne, for it was her Liberal government that first funnelled money into the Vector Institute. In its obsession with the suppression of her legacy, the Progressive Conservative government is missing the point: The guiding hand for much of the previous Liberal government’s strategic choices was Wynne’s special dollar-a-year business adviser, Ed Clark, a former TD Bank president.

Clark pushed for the partial sell-off of Hydro One, the transmission utility that the pro-privatization PCs suddenly opposed (and ultimately undermined). Clark choreographed the move into supermarket sales of beer and wine that previous premiers had failed to deliver (which Ford now wants to sabotage). And Clark helped launch the Vector Institute by rounding up funding from private sources before the Wynne government followed through with its pledge for support (which Ford has now undone).

Within months of the PC victory, Clark was out the door, along with many of the initiatives he had shepherded. (So, too, incidentally, was Ontario’s first chief scientist, Molly Shoichet, an expert in biomedical engineering at Uof T.)

While Ford seemed motivated by a deep-seated desire to undo whatever Wynne did, he is also dislodging many of the economic measures that Clark saw through. Does our current premier have a better idea — or a better idea man? It turns out that Clark and his AI vision have been replaced by another prominent former business executive — a visionary in his own mind — in the person of Jim Balsillie. In the years since the BlackBerry juggernaut that he co-founded faded from the smartphone scene, Balsillie has won Ford’s ear ( just as Balsillie long ago won the heart of former Liberal cabinet minister Glen Murray by backing his ill-fated bid for the party’s leadership).

The PCs have just appointed Balsillie to lead a new government panel on intellectual property. Its mandate is to devise a new blueprint for the innovation sector that Ford is busy blowing up.

Naturally, the panel is going through the motions of an “online public consultation on intellectual property.” Just like the government’s previous outreach on its controversial sex education curriculum for high school students.

As for the students and faculty who once looked to Ontario’s hi-tech future, the PC government that is quietly killing the golden goose of AI has these words of encouragement:

“We have the best and brightest students right here in Ontario, and they are leading the charge in today’s knowledge-based economy,” declared PC cabinet minister Todd Smith in a statement heralding Balsillie’s appointment.

As for Smith’s ministry of economic development and job creation, which oversees innovation across Ontario? Its budget has also just been cut by 20 per cent. Never mind the numbers. It’s the words that count.

Ontario is “open for business” and “help is on the way.”