Not for the first time, Premier Doug Ford finds himself having to retreat from a position because he seems to have forgotten a pretty basic part of democratic politics: the voters get a vote, even if you’re several years away from the next election. After purchasing a private jet with taxpayer money, Ford has announced he’ll sell it — all because nobody around the premier thought to argue that this was the kind of thing that would be politically toxic to present to voters as a fait accompli. Or, if anyone did, they failed to convince the boss.
Ford acknowledged on Monday that he should have tried to make the case affirmatively to the public before buying the jet. But then he engaged in an utterly mystifying communications strategy: complaining about how hard-done-by he is. “That’s why I’m here today, to tell the other side of the story,” Ford said. “I’m under scrutiny more than the prime minister, more than any premier in the entire country… the inconsistencies from the media are just mind-boggling to me.”
If the premier wants to talk about inconsistency, the people who love him might want to strongly urge him to change the subject. Buying a private jet with public funds is the kind of thing that would have Doug Ford absolutely livid if anyone else was the occupant of the premier’s office. The $28.9 million cost of the jet amounts to $10,000 per day for every day since Ford was sworn in to office in June 2018. Ford came into office promising to fire the CEO of Hydro One for receiving a $6 million salary; the jet could have paid that CEO’s salary for four years and then some.
Even members of his own caucus — people who in a very literal sense owe their jobs to him — are reportedly telling Global News that this is poisonous to his brand, with one even speculating that this is the beginning of the end of his political career (or, his “undoing”). The premier is mad because he thinks the media are holding him to a double standard. I can tell him as a paid-up member of the media: nobody ever cared about our standards. Ford voters care about Ford’s standards.
Let me put some cards on the table: the premier of Ontario is a chief executive of an organization that spends $200 billion annually and makes life-and-death decisions every single day. The productivity of the person holding that office is actually pretty important, and I don’t think it’s necessarily correct to say, “commercial is good enough for normal people, it should be good enough for politicians.” Extend that attitude far enough and you get what ought to be a national scandal, the deplorable state of 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa and the prime minister of Canada living somewhere other than their official residence because nobody can grasp the nettle of rehabilitating it.
If this was just one blown call in an otherwise unblemished record of political acumen, the premier and his party could dismiss this incident as a tempest in a teapot. But this is only the most recent example of Ford springing unpleasant news on the electorate with little in the way of justification, or even preparation. Arguably the first time the government was forced to back down on something like this was the 2019 budget (retroactive in-year cuts to cities and public health agencies), but we can also cite the attempt to open up the Greenbelt for development. It follows a predictable script: the policy is announced with little attempt to convince the public of its necessity, followed by some period of rationalization, before eventually abandoning the effort.
The Tories keep talking themselves into these problems not because the outcome isn’t foreseeable, but because they keep trying to make these decisions behind closed doors. If the premier really thinks he deserves a private jet, then, as I say, I’m willing to hear the actual argument. Put it in the budget. Force PC MPPs to stand up in the house and defend it, and then vote in favour of it.
Ford should do this not just because it’s good democratic process, but because the alternative — as we’ve seen this week — is as welcome to voters as me announcing to my wife that I’ve blown the kid’s college fund on a motorcycle as part of a midlife crisis.
One final point here for members of the PC caucus at Queen’s Park to consider: they are being asked this week to vote to make it easier for the premier to make decisions behind closed doors, and to lock those doors even more firmly. Government House Leader Steve Clark has presented a motion to whip the budget measures bill through the legislature without committee hearings, including the section that will eviscerate Ontario’s freedom of information laws. Many in this government find journalists and their insistence on factual answers annoying, fine. But the events of the last few days are a reminder that a culture of insularity and secrecy is bad for governments, and Tories might want to ask whether leaning into that dysfunction is really what they need right now.