(Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, from the Hamilton Spectator)

 I was listening recently to a discussion about the political future of Pierre Poilievre. If any other Conservative members cross the floor to join the Liberals, would PP survive the leadership review in February? And if he did not, who would take up the Federal Conservatives’ leadership role? Doug Ford’s name was proposed, and one of the panelists offered that voters in Quebec are actually quite pro-Ford, because they like the way he has stood up against Donald Trump, and the tariffs, and the 51^st state proposal. 

Hell No! was my immediate reaction.

         I won’t pretend. This article is a hatchet job on Mr. Ford. If you are a strong Conservative supporter, I apologize. But you should read this article if only to remind yourself of all the bits of rotting meat that are bubbling up in Ford’s political stew. And if you are a reader from another province who are impressed by Ford’s prominent public profile, this is your chance to take a little deeper look at the guy.

         I want to try to be fair, so let’s acknowledge that Ford has had some good moments:

• I thought he did well in the pandemic. He communicated well, and sold all the unpopular pandemic restrictions quite capably. 
• I commented in a prior article that I’ve read the core articles in the government’s energy strategy and I think it’s pretty good. It encourages more nuclear and more renewables, but holds onto gas-fired generation for peaking power as long as we need it. I think that pivots in the right direction without ignoring the fact that we really do still need electricity in the here and now. 
• On more than one occasion he has done what few politicians have managed to do, and that is to acknowledge an error, apologize for it, change direction and move on. It’s kind of a handy trick for a man who’s prone to screwing up.

OK, that’s all the plaudits he gets. Now let’s dig into the rest of his record. 

Shortly after he was first elected, Ford announced that he was going to invoke the Notwithstanding clause (hereinafter to be referred to as the clause because I can’t be bothered typing Notwithstanding over and over) in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to limit the size of certain city councils, and especially that of Toronto where he had been a member for years. Now I am not a fan of that clause in the Canadian constitution. I think it was a terribly ill-thought compromise. It might have been necessary to achieve something like agreement across this diverse and incredibly obstinate and opinionated federation, but it doesn’t serve us well. The logical outcome of its repeated use  across several jurisdictions is that we will wind up with a patchwork quilt of laws in different provinces. That is not working well south of our borders. And we shouldn’t be allowing local issues to undercut fundamental rights.

When we finally get around to revising the constitution to get rid of King Chuckles, we should have him take “the clause” with him.

Ford’s invocation of that clause was a gigantic overreach. A sledge hammer for a tack. The government had passed a law to limit the number of city councillors as a means to limit municipal costs. The election campaign was already in progress, with candidates spending money on ads etc., so it was a stupid time to initiate a re-definition of electoral boundaries. A judge ruled that the law denied people their rights to freedom of expression as voters. Ford went ballistic and threatened to use the big hammer. The Ontario Court of Appeal eventually overruled the first judge, and the law went into effect without using the clause. But I remember at the time saying “I can never vote for this bozo.” Not only was it an over-reach, in my opinion, but I thought it was an arrogant bullying approach. Ford famously stated, “I was elected; the judge was appointed.” Doesn’t that sound like the orange idiot to you?

In 2021, he used the clause to limit election spending for a full year before a schedule election. Why would he do that? Because it muzzled critics of the government, and especially unions, for a full year leading up to the 2022 election. When an Ontario Superior Court judge struck down his new limits on the basis that they limited opposition party freedom of expression, Ford recalled the legislature and passed the same bill as before except with specific inclusion of the clause so it couldn’t be over-ruled. 

Amazingly, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in March of 2025 that Ford’s election limits law was unconstitutional because it violated a section of the Charter against which the clause is not applicable. I’m going to return to election rules a bit later – but for now we’ll continue with the clause. 

Ford subsequently used the clause in 2022 to pre-emptively ban a strike by education workers, but that generated a huge public outcry and he was forced to backtrack on that one. In summary, he has tried to use it three times. Once it turned out not to be necessary to achieve his goals, and twice it failed him. But he’s a bully, and the clause is a bully’s tool. He’ll continue to try to use it whenever it looks like he isn’t getting his own way.

OK, back to election rules. Ford’s first gambit with election rules was to shut down opposition spending so they couldn’t effectively counter his “non-partisan” government service announcements. But the Supreme Court shut that down this year. So, Ford’s latest tweaking of election rules is almost a complete reversal of form. Instead of trying to limit pre-election spending, he is eliminating the fixed date election scheme, increasing the individual political donation limits, and removing all limits on pre-election spending in the period prior to an election being called. If we can’t shut the opposition up, let’s just out-spend them. 

I have opined in the past that American style election spending norms would be a great tragedy for this country. I think it’s ruining their democracy, and Ford’s election laws are driving us down the wrong road.

Well, you might say, what about the Ronald Reagan ads that pissed Donald Trump off so badly? Aren’t I going to give Dougie some credit for that? No, absolutely not. 

A gentleman named Arthur Fleischmann, writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail says that as an example of how to make a point, it was brilliant. Unfortunately, as an example of how to influence policy and achieve a meaningful objective, it was a disastrous failure. Fleischmann says “Ontario’s Reagan ad will endure as a lesson in creative courage and strategic blindness. It’s proof that even the best message, aimed at the wrong target, can turn brilliance into backlash.”

Robyn Urback, also writing in the Globe and Mail, says that Doug Ford knew that the ad was unlikely to succeed. Ford understood that Trump was never bargaining in good faith. So why, she asks, did Ford spend $75 million (yes, that’s what it cost the taxpayers of Ontario!!) on an ad campaign that was never likely to make a difference? “The answer, as everyone who understands Mr. Ford’s ethos knows, is that Captain Canada likes the feeling of air under his cape.” Not only did he pay $75 million to inflate his damn ego, he actually got in the way of Canada’s national government. And as the Fleischmann article about the video pointed out, “Every frame carried diplomatic implications, and trade policy belongs to Ottawa, not Queen’s Park.”

The $75 million spent on the Reagan ad campaign were part of a record $112 million spent on ad campaigns this year. That advertising blitz has come under scrutiny from the Auditor General of Ontario, who has identified $43 million worth of ads that could be labelled partisan, since they seem designed more to make the governing party look good than to fill any over-riding government communication purpose.

One of the ad campaigns that repeatedly catches my attention, and causes me to indulge in profanity, is the “Ring of Fire” campaign. For those not watching these ads in Ontario, this series of ads, which were produced by a FOF (Friend Of Ford) company called Creative Currency, extols the virtues of mega-projects designed to extract critical minerals from Ontario’s north and to improve transportation routes to get those minerals to market.  On December 18^th, the Ring of Fire projects (one for mining, one for infrastructure) were included in Prime Minister Carney’s Critical Minerals Strategy. Was the ad campaign necessary to secure the cooperation agreement that Carney and Ford signed that day? No, absolutely not. The Ford government has a powerful majority – they didn’t need any assistance in formulating policy. So why is Ford spending our money this way? 

I would suggest that there are two reasons. The first is purely partisan. Ford senses that the Critical Minerals Strategy is going to be seen widely as an “elbows up” pushback against Trump and his tariffs. And increasing our awareness of that strategy and linking that strategy to the Conservative government will be a good vote-getter in the next election.

         The second reason is a bit more devious. Getting on the list of strategic projects means that the federal government is committed to a streamlined regulatory model to eliminate duplication between provincial and federal environmental assessments. Under this model, the Environmental Assessment for the access roads project is scheduled to be completed in June 2026. So, we’re stepping on the gas, and hustling the approval processes for these projects. And part of the approval process is consultation with First Nations peoples in Northern Ontario. 

Here’s where it gets ugly. The proponents for the access roads project are the Webequie First Nations group and the Marten Falls First Nation. However, those groups do not speak for all First Nations groups in the area. There is a grouping of tribes collectively referred to as the Land Defenders Alliance, which is suing the Canadian and Ontario governments. They are challenging the “fast-track” legislation passed by the Ontario government. They are claiming decision authority over the territories in question. And they are suing for about $95 billion in damages for prior harms inflicted in contravention of Treaty Nine. So, what I think this ad campaign is all about is that Ford knows that if this project is going to be accelerated, he is going to have to ride rough-shod over the First Nations people, and he’s setting us up to feel good about that. So far that ad campaign has cost us about $19M. It has nothing to do with government information sharing, and everything to do with polishing the image of the Conservative Party.

I mentioned that the ad campaigns were executed by a FOF company which had previously done work for the Conservative party. The Ford government has been painted as a generous distributor of government bounty to campaign supporters. Perhaps all governments are accused of this kind of influence peddling and perhaps all governments are guilty of it to a certain extent. But the Ford government has some notable examples to make your noses wrinkle.

The first of these is the Greenbelt investigation. In 2022, the government removed 7400 acres from the protected greenbelt area north of Toronto, in order to address housing needs. In 2023 the Auditor General for Ontario identified that the land swap process was biased to specific developers who stood to benefit to the tune of about $8 billion. The Integrity Commissioner then chimed in with his opinion that the Housing Minister had violated the Code of Ethics. 

Ford then began back-pedaling, restored those land packages to Greenbelt protection, and introduced legislation that ensures that in the future removals of land from the greenbelt will require approval of the legislature. The Minister of Housing resigned. (He collected a lower profile job as Ford’s Parliamentary Assistant, so don’t feel too sorry for him). His Chief of staff Ryan Amato also resigned, in August of 2023, although it has been reported that he received his full salary for at least the rest of that calendar year. 

Those actions did not, however, make the Greenbelt scandal go away. The RCMP has initiated an investigation, which is still ongoing, seeking evidence of criminal breach of trust. It is noteworthy that 14 of 15 land packages removed from the Greenbelt and sold to developers had been advanced by Amato based on proposals he’d received from developers at an “industry event”. Meanwhile, while we wait for the RCMP to identify who they can charge with corruption, the disappointed developers are suing the Ontario government for selling them land and then changing the rules of the game after the land was sold to them. And yes, we’re spending millions of dollars defending those lawsuits. It’s been a good year for lawyers.

Closely connected to the Greenbelt scandal is the Highway 413 development. It turns out that 8 major development businesses, ones that have contributed significantly to the Conservative Party in Ontario, jointly own some 3300 acres of land nicely distributed along the Highway 413 proposed routing.  The land was formerly worth about $500M. Its value is estimated to increase to about $5B as a result of the highway construction.

The most recent additions to the insider access list are the beneficiaries of the Skills Development Fund (SDF). In October of 2025, the Auditor General identified that the SDF, a $2.5B fund set up to train workers was preferentially distributing funds to projects which hired registered lobbyists. 

Grants were approved against the advice of non-partisan industry experts for projects which had been graded as low or medium score projects. In many cases, there was no written record explaining why a low-ranked project was suddenly chosen for millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

On December 18^th, the Integrity Commissioner got into the act announcing that Labour Minister David Piccini is under formal investigation. Investigators are looking into allegations that the Minister’s office overrode civil servants to approve grants for lower-scoring applicants who had hired well-connected lobbyists.  

The Ontario Provincial Police are also investigating the SDF fund dispersal. Specifically, the OPP Anti-Rackets unit is investigating financial irregularities of a company called Keel Digital Solutions which received millions of dollars from the SDF.

All of that insider stuff sounds fairly shady. But remember, we’re talking about Doug Ford, alleged high school drug dealer, and brother of the coke-snorting former mayor Rob Ford. I’ve had people say to me “well, you know he was a drug dealer in high school.” I thought, well really, I don’t know any such thing. Was he ever convicted of anything?

The answer is no, he wasn’t. But the allegations do have some weight. In May of 2013, the Globe and Mail published a report based on an 18-months investigation, which claimed that Doug Ford dealt in hashish in the 80’s. The report noted that he’d never been charged or convicted and that there was no police corroboration of the allegations. However, a network of hashish suppliers, street level dealers and casual users had all affirmed that Doug Ford was a “go to dealer” for several years. 

Ford, of course, protested that it was all fake news and sleazy journalism. The Ontario Press Council disagreed, calling the report “fair and ethical’, and dismissing complaints against the Globe. Significant, to me at least, is the fact that Ford has not sued the Globe and Mail for libel.

That’s about it. The notwithstanding clause stuff tells me that he has an arrogant and bullying temperament. The excessive advertising spending tell me that he is a political opportunist who doesn’t mind wasting taxpayers’ money. The several “insider access’ issues tell me that he has no moral compass and expects and encourages corrupt practices. By comparison, the drug dealer stuff is trivial, but it tells me that he has never really believed that rules are meant apply to him. If Conservative Party of Canada needs a replacement for Poilievre, they better look elsewhere. This guy’s a bozo.

Oh, and before I forget….Happy New Year!

Dennis