Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford poses for a group shot while holding a piece of steel engraved with the words 'Protect Ontario' during a visit to Heddle Shipyard in St. Catharines, Ont. on Jan. 31.Peter Power/The Canadian Press
Doug Ford comes across as a regular guy, a breed apart from the smooth-talking modern politician. In fact, as a member of an intensely political clan, born and raised in the game, he is as calculating as the best of them. Consider the spin he is putting on his decision to call a snap election.
Mr. Ford would have Ontario voters believe he is summoning them to the polls so that he can gain a new mandate to fend off Donald Trump and his tariffs. In fact, as anyone who has paid the slightest attention knows, he began laying the ground for an early election long before Mr. Trump won back the presidency in November.
As long ago as last spring, Mr. Ford began telegraphing his intentions, refusing to rule out calling an election before the scheduled vote in June, 2026. He followed up with a whole series of measures to shore up support among key voting blocs. Threatening to rip out Toronto bike lanes and proposing to dig a tunnel under the choked 401 highway were just two.
The tariff threat is a mere pretext. A gift from the gods, if not for the Canadian economy, it gave him the ideal excuse to pull the trigger. Ever since he has been saying he needs the renewed approval of the electorate to bolster him in his struggle with the Americans.
Thanks Trump, for reminding Canadians why our country is worth fighting for
He doesn’t. Mr. Ford had a comfortable majority in the legislature and a year and a half left in his term as Premier when he went to the Lieutenant-Governor this week and announced a Feb. 27 election. He already had the authority to confront the threat from the south and was exercising it to the full, beefing up border security with the help of provincial police and going on a vocal, high-profile campaign to persuade Washington to back off. All signs were that voters liked his Captain Canada act. With the Prime Minister on his way out, he stepped into the role with force and authority. No further approval was needed.
Mr. Ford called an election anyway. Why? Because he believes he can win. No other reason. He and his spin doctors think that, with his opponents looking weak and his opinion-poll numbers good, the time to strike is now.
The cost of this premature, opportunistic, wholly unnecessary winter election is huge: $189-million, according to Elections Ontario. That doesn’t include the bill for all the gifts that Mr. Ford has been distributing to butter up the electorate. Sending $200 cheques to every Ontarian over 18 (and another $200 per child for parents) will cost a further $3-billion, no small change for a government that is running a persistent budget deficit and a province that is well on its way to accumulating a debt of half a trillion dollars.
Nor does it include the hundreds of millions Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservative government is spending to fulfill a promise to permit beer and wine sales in corner stores. The decision to free up sales was overdue, but the timing was nakedly political. Instead of waiting till the end of this year, the expiry date of a transitional deal with the Beer Store, the giant private retailer, Mr. Ford sped up the process, ensuring that voters could start buying booze in corner stores in time for an early election. As the province’s independent Financial Accountability Office just reported, the gimmick means big revenue losses and big payouts to the Beer Store, pure gravy for the multinational companies that own it.
Roll in the electricity-bill rebates and gas-tax breaks that the Ford government has used to ingratiate itself with voters and the amount the Premier is spending to get himself re-elected is truly staggering. The man who once called himself a champion of the ordinary taxpayer has become a champion of big government instead, perfectly happy to denude the provincial treasury if it helps keep him in power.
Voters may choose him anyway. They may tell themselves that all politicians try to bribe voters with their own money these days and that Mr. Ford is no worse than the rest. They may decide that, for all his faults, they prefer him to the alternatives. Or they may simply think that, on balance, he has done a good job of governing the province. Fair enough.
Even if they vote for his party on Feb. 27, though, this cynical election call should disabuse them of the notion that he is just a straight-shooting regular guy. Straight shooters don’t pretend they are calling an early election over a sudden crisis when they have spent months preparing to call the election without one.