The Fordian knot

Ontario Premier Doug Ford this week called an election for February 27 because he says he needs a mandate. I won’t say that statement is a lie. Instead, I will call it a terminological inexactitude, a phrase first used by Winston Churchill in a Commons speech in 1906.
No, I won’t call it a lie despite the fact that Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party already has a mandate: 79 seats in a 124-seat Legislature. And his current mandate runs to March 2026. Why now? Could the timing of this election possibly have anything to do with the fact that I, along with millions of other citizens of the province, this week got a cheque in the mail for $200. Signed by Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, the money is supposed to be a rebate on the federal carbon tax as well as to offset high interest rates. Such a statement is not exactly a lie either. Let’s call it nonsense on stilts. It’s touching how the Ontario Tories blame the feds for all of our economic woes.
Such political vote-buying isn’t new. My favourite example dates to the 1950s in Nova Scotia when someone running for office would visit a voter at home and leave a pint of rum. His opponent would follow along and replace the pint with a quart bottle, thereby costing that candidate only a pint, but meaning the voter now had two pints.
Behind his bravado, maybe Ford is fearful for his own future. He’s worried that Donald Trump’s threat to hit us with a 25 percent tariff will hurt the Canadian economy. In such case, it’s better for Ford to have a vote now rather than in the fall when the Ontario economy might have become mired in the midst of a recession.
Meanwhile, Ford cared so little about the democratic process that the Legislature wasn’t even sitting. I guess we can assume that Ford had no helpful ideas of his own to introduce for debate. Instead, he’s making two forays to Washington in the days ahead to try and change Trump’s mind about the tariff. Fat chance. From what I can see, Trump pays attention to no one. Why would Trump listen to someone from the fifty-first state?
Now that we have this unnecessary election, what if Ford loses just like Ontario Liberal Leader David Peterson did in 1990 when he called an early vote? In that case, we’ll be no further behind. And what if Ford wins? We’ll be no further ahead.

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