To many Ontarians’ ears, Doug Ford’s first few months as Premier have probably struck a single, cacophonous note.
Listen more closely, and what’s emerging from Queen’s Park is the sound of a government operating on two different frequencies.
One involves chaos created out of impulse – upending municipal elections in Toronto, for instance, for no urgent reason other than Mr. Ford’s strong desire to do it. The other, harder to detect because it is often drowned out by the first, is more professional, focused on implementing policies Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives ran on, and pragmatically dealing with challenges foisted upon them.
This week, you could hear both, in ways that suggest this new government isn’t close to resolving its split personality.
It began with the Tories in their unorthodox, boisterous, instinctive and combative mode. Going beyond the usual script for blaming his predecessor for the state of the books, Mr. Ford proclaimed Kathleen Wynne’s lowballing of the provincial deficit “the worst political cover-up in Ontario’s history," as he announced a special committee of MPPs to ensure the Liberals “don’t just get to walk away from this.”
Having already gone a more standard route with a pair of independent reports on the finances, the PCs may be looking to buy themselves more time as they mull what to do about a now-$15-billion deficit. Mostly, they seem to be trying to humiliate the party they replaced.
Given the lack of mystery to be solved – the deficit rose from the Liberals’ $6.7-billion figure mostly because the Tories sided with the Auditor-General in two well-documented accounting disputes, and because of tweaks to this year’s revenue and spending projections – the committee’s calling of witnesses stands to be little more than theatre. It’s possible to imagine it backfiring, if it looks like Mr. Ford is bullying people he already easily defeated. It’s impossible to imagine it contributing to future good government, since it will just make the Legislature’s partisan tone even more toxic.
Then, a couple of days after creating that unsightly spectacle, the Tories gave their latest indication of being able to reasonably manage a difficult file they’d prefer not to deal with at all: marijuana.
Among the reasons for them to be uncomfortable with the looming, federally mandated legalization of cannabis is its unpopularity with some of their support base. So they might just have stuck with the narrow distribution model the Liberals were implementing, or something even more restrictive.
Instead, the approach they laid out in legislation introduced Thursday, after a less specific August announcement, is a stronger attempt to deal with reality than the one it replaces. The Liberals’ plan for a small number of government-run stores seemed unlikely to put much dent in the black market; this one, to allow lots of private ones, actually could. If they have to do this, the Tories seem to be saying, they might as well do it right, in a way consistent with free-market principles.
The details − which include giving illegal dispensary operators some chance to sell legally, giving municipalities a window to opt out of hosting such stores, and restricting any one retailer’s market share – might prove imperfect. But they’re as thoughtful as could be expected, considering the tight time frame the Tories had to work with.
On Friday, came some hint of how the same government could concurrently be so instinctive on one matter, and so rational on another.
Speaking with reporters, Mr. Ford appeared to disagree with the part of his government’s pot plan that will make consumption legal in parks, saying he would raise it with the ministers responsible. His office later clarified that he meant playgrounds, but the confusion suggested that this is not a file in which he has been deeply involved.
By some accounts, Mr. Ford drives files in which he feels personally invested (the Toronto council saga is the prime example, and the deficit shaming of the Liberals maybe a lesser one) and can be fairly hands-off with ones that don’t fire him up.
Bypassing the Premier is not a model for successful governance, and it’s probably unfair to characterize any smooth management to date that way, since he’s certainly in charge.
But this government could yet prove characterized by Mr. Ford’s whims, or by his willingness to preside over an operation that sorts through his brand of populism in a constructive way. Right now, it’s both.