Pierre Poilievre came to Mississauga on Sunday. In an era when people’s attention spans seem shorter than ever, the federal Conservative leader has perfected the three-word slogan.
Axe the Tax!
Fix the Budget!
Build the Homes!
Stop the Crime!
For people who are living just-in-time lives and don’t have a lot of bandwidth for politics, these slogans are easy ways to break through the noise and brand the leader of the Opposition in a particular way. Of course, they contain no useful information about how Poilievre would do all those things. But that’s not the point.
One reason I wanted to attend the Poilievre event in Mississauga was to ask him one question. I’ve been intrigued by the relationship that Doug Ford and Poilievre have — or perhaps more accurately don’t have. They seem to have so much in common, yet everyone you talk to says they really don’t like each other.
Why would that be?
Ford and Poilievre are both populist conservatives. There must surely be significant overlap in their support bases. They both have an affection for the private sector and seemingly regard taxes as evil. They both have significant leads over their opponents in the opinion polls of the day.
They both rail against the permanent political class, even though they’re both charter members of it. Ford is a second-generation MPP. His father and younger brother were both in politics. His nephew Michael is in his cabinet. And he has served at two different orders of government. Poilievre has been an MP for 20 years (first elected at age 24) and was in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet.
So when I asked Poilievre how he’d describe his relationship with Ford, I found what he didn’t say to be as interesting as what he did.
“He’s the premier,” Poilievre began after a pause. “I’m the leader of the official Opposition and the next prime minister of Canada. And my relationship with him is the same as it is with everyone.”
And then came the skillful pivot:
“I will work with anyone who will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime. Thank you.”
And that was it.
What didn’t Poilievre say? Well, he didn’t refer to the premier as “my friend,” which is what virtually all politicians label each other, even when it’s patently untrue. He didn’t talk about their shared priority of defeating Liberals. They’re the two best-known conservatives in the country, but he didn’t suggest their relationship was anything special at all. In fact, quite the contrary. To repeat: “My relationship with him is the same as it is with everyone.”
Unfortunately, the rules for reporters at a Poilievre event are such that no follow-up questions are permitted. You’re one and done. So I couldn’t pursue this line of questioning. But I can imagine what the source of the lack of closeness may be.
Ford just lost one of his cabinet ministers to Poilievre. Parm Gill quit as the Progressive Conservative MPP for Milton in order to run in the next federal election for Poilievre. The Ford forces didn’t take kindly to their federal cousins poaching one of their higher-profile members, particularly from the volatile 905 region.
Polls also show that Poilievre personally and the federal Conservatives as a party are much more popular than Ford and his Tories. So Poilievre might have concluded there are no marks in hitching his wagon to the Ford Nation train.
There’s also history to consider. No one can say for certain that this is a real “thing,” but the frequency with which it happens suggests it can’t just be a coincidence. Ontarians have had a century-long predilection for putting one party in power on Parliament Hill and a different party in power at Queen’s Park. It’s our version of America’s “ticket splitting,” which sees voters give one party the White House and the other party control of Congress. The current Justin Trudeau-Doug Ford accommodation is hardly new. Recall Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty, Jean Chrétien and Mike Harris, Brian Mulroney with David Peterson and Bob Rae, and Pierre Trudeau and Bill Davis. You could go further back as well, but you get the point.
You have to go back more than six decades to find the last time the Ontario Tories won an election while the federal Conservatives were in power. John Diefenbaker’s Conservatives held power nationally from 1957 to 1963. The Ontario PC Party won the 1959 election under Premier Leslie Frost.
But that’s it. The Liberals came back to power federally in 1963, and the pattern re-established itself with Tories at Queen’s Park under John Robarts. (Technically, Frank Miller’s PCs won the 1985 Ontario election, having captured the most seats, while the federal Tories were in power. But Miller’s was only a minority government and was thrown out several weeks later. The Liberals actually captured the most votes, and David Peterson became premier, thus continuing the pattern.)
There will almost certainly be a federal election before the next provincial one, and if Poilievre wins it — and history is any indication — Ford will have a harder time maintaining power, especially since he’ll be trying for a third consecutive majority. The last time any Ontario premier did that was Frost in the 1950s.
So if the Ford-Poilievre relationship remains cool, now you know why. They may have much in common, but their interests are anything but the same.