It all seemed so obviously inevitable. Doesn’t anybody in the premier's office ever read a history book?
Let’s recap. Doug Ford wanted to buy a jet. Ontario’s 26th premier is a busy guy, in charge of a province that, at 1 million square kilometres, is larger than France and Spain combined.
Since the premier often likes to compare running Ontario to being responsible for a quarter-of-a-trillion-dollar-a-year business, let’s also acknowledge that corporate executives who lead companies that big probably have access to private jets.
People all over Ontario invite the premier to their events and have some expectation that he’ll make every effort to attend. There’s no doubt that, with a $29 million Bombardier Challenger 650 executive jet, Ford’s travel schedule would be immeasurably easier.
However…
There are few decisions in politics that are so controversial that both the left and the right are opposed. This was one of them. The opposition at Queen’s Park hated the decision because it can think of so many better things to do with $29 million, other than make Ford’s life easier. Meanwhile, the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation blasted Ford, saying that, even though the plane was 10 years old and made in Ontario, it was a ridiculous and unnecessary expenditure for provincial taxpayers.
I wondered how members of the general public felt about the issue. So, on Sunday I asked Erin Kelly of Advanced Symbolics Inc. to run a survey using Polly, her artificial intelligence pollster. Erin did, and found…not much engagement on the issue. Half those surveyed were opposed, but half weren’t offended at the notion, perhaps, as Kelly speculated, because the jet wasn’t brand new. “Because it was ‘used,’ citizens gave him the benefit of the doubt.”
That was then. By Sunday evening, that polling was nearly useless: Premier Ford had decided to get rid of the jet.
While those who were prepared to cut the premier some slack weren’t all that passionate about the issue, the same couldn’t be said for those opposed. For them, the purchase was so opposite to Ford’s brand, it was infuriating. I got messages from angry readers, demanding the premier return the thing. After all, other Ontario premiers travelled the province without a personal jet.
Ah, yes, other premiers. We have been here before.
Back in 1981, at the height of his popularity, having just won his fourth consecutive election, Premier Bill Davis bought a $10.6 million Challenger executive jet. He offered all the same explanations Ford just did. But the opposition seized on the juxtaposition of a premier, as his province was entering the worst recession since the Great Depression, making a purchase that had more to do with his needs than the needs of his citizens.
Critics such as Liberal MPP Jim Bradley from St. Catharines blasted Davis, saying the purchase “does little to help people, such as laid-off auto workers, financially strapped senior citizens, struggling farmers, the desperate single parent, or perhaps the forgotten psychiatric patient.” (Bradley died last September after more than 40 years at Queen’s Park.)
Logically, the Davis government thought the expense was completely justifiable. But emotionally (forgive the pun here), the decision just wasn’t flying. It was left to Davis’s principal secretary — a future Toronto mayor named John Tory — to tell the premier that he was getting an earful wherever he went, and the premier had to lose the jet.
“This plane is a disaster,” he told Davis, who eventually yielded to political reality and traded in the jet for two firefighting water bombers.
Davis and Bradley actually had a great, collegial relationship, despite being on opposite sides of the House. Their connection over the jet scandal never really went away. In 2009, Bradley was a minister in Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty’s government, and sent Davis a personal note, congratulating him on turning 80 years old. Davis responded cheekily: “The only thing I am always inclined to remind you of, when I hear from you, is to ask the question: would you now wish you had allowed us to purchase the jet?”
To be sure, the irony wasn’t lost on former Liberal premier David Peterson, in whose government Bradley served as environment minister from 1985 to 1990. Once, after leaving a meeting with other provincial leaders, Peterson and Bradley went to an airport and boarded a small propeller plane to fly home. “Take a look out the left window,” Peterson told Bradley. “There’s the Quebec jet. Now look out the right side. There’s the B.C. jet. And here we are on this rinky-dink prop plane!”
Today, according to Premier Ford, the premier of Quebec has three executive jets at her disposal. (On Tuesday, CBC News reported that Quebec's jets are medical planes and that, while Quebec's premier does fly private, it is on chartered planes.)
While railing against elites but traveling like one was a departure from Ford’s brand, it’s also fair to say that he has an innate ability to apologize for missteps, after which the electorate tends to forgive him. So maybe there ultimately won’t be any political price to pay for this volt face.
What I’d love to know is, what role did Ford’s advisers play in any of this? Did they try to talk him out of the purchase, and did he ignore their advice? Or did they urge him to go for it, assuming his party’s relatively strong lead in the polls would mitigate against any blowback?
There are still a lot of Ontarians who don’t want their premiers acting like big shots, even if they are. Davis learned this lesson the hard way 45 years ago. Ford could have spared himself a day’s worth of dreadful headlines had he, or anyone else in his office, read a little Ontario history first.