Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford uses a torch to cut some steel during a visit to Heddle Shipyard in St. Catharines, Ont. on Jan. 31. The engraving in the steel says 'Protect Ontario.'Peter Power/The Canadian Press
The words “Protect Ontario” are on the front of the lectern, the side of the campaign bus and the cover of the platform that was finally released Monday, 72 hours before election day. The flagship campaign ad of course opens with the slogan, followed by a voice over that says, “when we know trouble is headed our way, we need a fighter. Someone who protects us.”
We then see that man on CNN, introduced as someone who is “taking Trump on.” He says he’ll “protect the people of Ontario,” while the voice-over adds, in case you missed it, that “there’s only one choice to protect Ontario.”
Cue the theme music: “Who’s gonna fight for you?” sings the chorus. And before fadeout, a final hit of the catchphrase: “Protect Ontario.”
In 1891, Sir John A. Macdonald won re-election on “The Old Flag, The Old Policy, The Old Leader.” The flag was different, as was the policy (pro-protectionism, anti-free trade), but what Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is wrapping himself in is otherwise of the same species.
Elections are often about an electorate that is tired of the incumbents, dissatisfied with the status quo and is demanding change. In the fall of 2024, the U.S. had a change election. Change was the ballot question, and voters elected someone promising radical change – and who has, in barely more than a month in office, turned the world upside down.
Which is why Mr. Ford is running not as the vehicle of change, but as the candidate claiming he can protect us against the catastrophic change that U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to unleash upon us.
Ontario is having a stop-the-change election. A protect-me-from-danger election. It’s not about ditching the (now cherished) status quo. It’s become a referendum on who can best preserve it, or come up with a suitable replacement.
That’s also what the next federal election is going to be about. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party has spent the past two years preparing to win a change election, in a country hungry for change. But then the world changed. So has the question on the ballot.
Last year, I wrote that Mr. Ford should be Canada’s spokesperson on Fox News because he connects with Trump-leaning American voters, and they with him. His subsequent appearances on U.S. TV prove it.
But Mr. Ford doesn’t need to be premier of Ontario to be Canada’s ambassador to red-state America. And a premier running for re-election on a platform of “protecting” Canada isn’t entirely levelling with voters. Foreign affairs are primarily the job of the federal government.
Mr. Ford has managed to avoid a lot of hard questions by wrapping himself in the flag, focusing on defending the continental economic status quo, and flying down to Washington at every opportunity. His most recent trip was described by some as him taking time away from campaigning, but it’s really the opposite. Mr. Ford has successfully spent an entire election in the U.S. – a few days physically, the rest rhetorically.
Ontario’s opposition Liberals, New Democrats and Greens wanted a change election. They wanted to talk to voters about things like improving health care; properly funding and managing our courts to reduce crime; and coming up with smarter transit plans than ripping up Toronto bike lanes while tunnelling a centi-billion dollar second highway under Highway 401.
But Mr. Trump sucked the oxygen out of the room. His megaphone drowns out everything else. Fair or not, the U.S. President’s threats, and the danger of Canada being subjected to radically unpleasant change or even erased from the map, has become Ontario’s ballot-box question.
Mr. Ford has embraced that challenge. And why wouldn’t he? The Old Leader pledging to defend The Old Flag is easier – and right now, far more electorally fecund – than answering difficult questions of how to improve the flagging fortunes of a formerly economically dynamic and well-run province, let alone executing such policies.
Which is why Mr. Ford called an early election. When the count rolls in on Thursday night, expect two results: a PC victory, and low turnout. Ontario’s 2022 election saw a record low of just 44 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot, and Elections Ontario says that advanced voting is well below the level of 2022. With everything else going on in the world, a lot of Ontarians have barely noticed the election.
What Canadians have noticed is that Mr. Trump is delivering far more radical and chaotic change than anyone but the most MAGA voters asked for. Barely a month old, the new administration is tearing chunks off the U.S. federal government, while setting explosive charges around the foundations of the American-built international order. It’s a revolution. And few countries are as threatened as Canada.
“Whose gonna fight for you?” is Team Ford’s song because it’s the question worried Canadians are asking. Mr. Ford didn’t have to work very hard to turn it into the unofficial ballot question.
Nor will the federal Liberals need to persuade voters to make it the subject of the next national election – which could arrive as soon as next month, after the party selects its new leader.