Ford’s flip-flops, from carbon tax to buck-a-beer
A wise leader changes his mind when given new facts. Not merely when he loses face.
For Doug Ford, 2019 was the year of about-faces.
He came to power promising to turn around Ontario’s economic fortunes. But as his political fortunes plummeted, Ford became the turnaround premier, taking U-turns and going in circles.
Let us circle back to the Top Turnarounds of 2019:
Ford began the year warning of storm clouds ahead. “I can tell you that a carbon tax will be a total economic disaster,” he declared in a keynote speech last January. A “jobkilling tax” would devastate the country: “I’m here today to ring the warning bell that the risk of a carbon tax recession is very real.” Bank economists laughed off the premier’s reckless hyperbole, and even Ford ultimately renounced his hysteria. By year’s end he reverted to boosterism, boasting of Ontario’s steady economic growth and an unemployment rate at the lowest level in a generation, both inherited from the previous government.
As spring beckoned, the premier exhorted motorists to fill up before their pocketbooks were drained on April 1: “Today’s the last day to fill your gas tank before the federal carbon tax makes life more expensive for your family,” Ford warned. “We’ll keep fighting to stop this terrible tax with every tool at our disposal.” In fact, average Toronto prices soared from 114.7 cents a litre to about 130 cents that month — due mostly to global oil price swings that dwarfed the 4.4 cents a litre attributable to a federal carbon levy. Indeed, by June, prices were right back at about 114 cents a litre — even with the levy factored in — later falling to as low as 110 cents a litre in September and again this month (before rising again before the Christmas holiday). Alert to drivers: Ford’s fulsome tweets about filling up suggest he’s full of it.
Ahead of the Oct. 21 federal election, Ford played populist by proclaiming himself a democrat ever mindful of the people’s choice on carbon pricing. “The people are going to decide when the election’s over — once the people decide, I believe in democracy,” the premier conceded. But when the results came in, voters backed carbon pricing for the second time in two federal elections (as they did in the past two provincial elections, if you count the number of votes cast for progressive parties). In the aftermath, New Brunswick announced it would belatedly recognize the renewed federal mandate and abide by Ottawa’s approach to carbon pricing. Not Ford, who ignored his own pledge and redoubled his wasteful legal fight against a carbon levy for which he has budgeted $30 million.
Buck-a-beer, and beer in corner stores, were cornerstones of the premier’s bumper sticker sloganeering on the road to power. But discount beer fizzled when brewers balked at Ford’s price points — about as plausible as his gas price projections. Later, beer in corner stores faded when Ford faced the possibility of a billion-dollar-beer-boondoggle in possible legal costs for breaking a 10-year contract signed with the Beer Store (when it acquiesced to supermarket sales across the province).
Ford’s decision to boost high school class sizes from 22 to 28 on average, and the imposition of four mandatory online courses, left Ontario’s educators puzzled and the province’s parents befuddled. Under pressure, the premier cut those goals in half (teachers are threatening continued job action to make him back down all the way). As for Ford’s promised sex-ed curriculum overhaul, it turned out to be much ado about pleasing his base with baseless rhetoric that went back and forth, but left us right where we started.
For Ford, autism has always been more about political one-upmanship than lifting people up, flitting between friend and foe of families in need. As a city councillor, he claimed an Etobicoke home for teenagers with autism had “ruined the community,” suggesting the teenagers were criminals. Running to be premier, he suddenly sided with autism advocates by lambasting the Liberals for failing to do enough — until he won power and did even less for those most in need. When they shamed him into action, a panicked Ford reflexively doubled funding without having a clue how to spend the additional money, forcing his government to announce this month that it needs another year to figure out next steps.
On social services, the premier pledged last year to maintain a minimum income pilot backed by advocates from all sides of the political spectrum. He promptly cancelled the program and then scaled back scheduled welfare increases — only to suspend the changes in October when it became apparent the government had no plan. Equally last April, Ford’s first budget unilaterally cut provincial funding for municipal health programs, until the premier backtracked under protest.
To make sense of this sampling of Ford flip-flops, recall that his background is in sales, not politics. The premier understands slogans, not strategy.
That’s how he won power. It’s how he wields power.
Ford’s Tories like to repeat the premier’s favourite chant, “Promise made, promise kept.” Never mind that his credo isn’t credible; no matter that “Promise made” quickly turns into “Problem manufactured.”
Ford took people in last year, and he took us for a ride this year. Better luck finding his way in 2020.